Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs Office 365 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

CTERA Enterprise File Servi...
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
12th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (9th), Cloud Migration (7th), Cloud Storage (10th), Cloud Backup (12th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (8th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
Office 365
Ranking in Content Collaboration Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Content Collaboration Platforms category, the mindshare of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Office 365 is 6.3%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Content Collaboration Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Igal Muginstein - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility, fast performance, and ransomware protection
The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers. From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications. Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve. The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.
Minos Pitsillides - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent technical support, easy to install, but the price, while affordable, could be improved
Office 365 is scalable, but it is dependent on the situation. We don't have a problem with it from an organizational standpoint. They started with 100 employees and then added another 500 after six months, for a total of 600 employees. The setup of new users, new emails, and new applications to be assigned to the new users is straightforward. They also provide the PowerShell command, which they provided more, development type, like, for example, you can create users, not manually, but through a script that can create users, for example, 100 users in two, three minutes, and you don't do it manually. They're fantastic. My portfolio contains approximately 50 companies. Office 365 is our primary platform for the 50 companies. I only have one on G Suite, and the majority of them will be migrating from G Suite to 365 in the coming month.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"CTERA has been particularly capable of keeping all of our workstations backed up. That became a critical feature for us during the pandemic when computers were rarely in the office. Everybody went off-site with their computers, and we were accustomed to working with a centralized storage infrastructure where people would come to the office and connect to the server to use, create, and modify files. Everything was done directly to that server."
"The solution provides data eviction, where unused data is evicted from the local file, freeing up space. It also allows data to be rehydrated from the cloud when needed."
"CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features."
"The solution provides substantial flexibility, allowing the separation of workloads across various hardware platforms without vendor lock-in. This flexibility makes it adaptable to future infrastructure changes."
"I like that the glass is always half full with CTERA file services. It keeps the data hot for users on location and then tiers off older data. If you need it, the stub is still there. You can click on it, and it's back on the device."
"It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution."
"CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow."
"The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten."
"I love all of the applications being interlinked. I do not have to separately work on an independent system when it comes to file storage, email, and other tools."
"It is very easy to deploy."
"My primary use case is for preparing presentations to teach, often on PowerPoint."
"OneNote is the feature I use the most. We also frequently use the Power Apps features."
"We use it for documentation management, to collaborate with Microsoft Teams, web calls, web conference calls, chats, and as a documentation repository mainly. We have an Office pack suite to be able to write documentation, make spreadsheets, and create PowerPoints."
"Many of the features in Office 365 are good, but I think Excel is a very good tool."
"I like all of the features."
"Quarantine email alerts to users to allow the email to their inbox (tricky but handy) - tricky if one doesn't have third-party email security, handy if one has got good third party email security)."
 

Cons

"The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them."
"I am looking for a process where version upgrades do not impact the customers. There is no downtime."
"Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues."
"However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"More monitoring from the platform would be good. There is some monitoring, but it is paid. It is a chargeable service. It would be good for that to be included in the base."
"One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node."
"They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance."
"One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy."
"The online applications have limited functionality compared to the local applications."
"I would like to see better integration with Teams, and better usability with SharePoint."
"A need that a company like ours has is that we want to be able to have data flow into one tool, for example, for all the management of tasks through the company and workflow of who is doing what and so on. There are no real solutions for this at the moment in Office 365. It would be nice if they could implement this in the next release, so we can have one solution from one company giving us the whole data and flow of data into the company."
"Office 365 could allow for smoother collaboration with other companies, which is the main reason we use it. The B2B connection is something we need, like global adverse lists between two tenants or multiple users. That's what we're missing at the moment."
"They should do more testing before product releases."
"As a private user, I do not appreciate the cloud features, but I doubt that this is something Microsoft would consider a feature request."
"Constantly evolving with new features, which can be challenging for users."
"Office 365 could be easier to use at first. Tutorials are needed to know how to use the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni."
"So far, pricing seems to be fine."
"It is hard to compare the costs if we want to retain the same model of a separate high-performance storage or certain things, but it is one of the cheapest solutions available in Israel."
"I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal."
"I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards."
"CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features."
"It is fairly priced. I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA."
"Good reporting and good value subscriptions for international calls."
"The pricing is good for all the features that we receive, e.g., Skype for Business."
"​The pricing/licensing is easy to manage."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, or we prepay them."
"We have a license to use this solution. We have an E3 license which covers many different solutions."
"The pricing is not really high, but one can get the software with the license key for free."
"The price of Office 365 is very expensive."
"For the moment, we are paying on a monthly basis because we are still adapting the support and how we want to proceed. I think we will move to paying for the annual license."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Content Collaboration Platforms solutions are best for your needs.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
70%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
4%
University
3%
Educational Organization
78%
Computer Software Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
2%
Government
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.
What needs improvement with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy. AI and automation features could enhance the ...
What is your primary use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform?
We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated severa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Office 365?
I am not aware of the cost at work, but the cost for personal use has increased significantly and feels expensive.
What needs improvement with Office 365?
Moving from the original Outlook to Outlook 365 was problematic because I couldn't transfer a lot of my previous emails. This is an area where improvement is needed to make the transition smoother....
What is your primary use case for Office 365?
I use Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) strictly for sales. As a small office, we utilize products like Outlook and Word.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Office 365, Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Enterprise E3, Office 365 Enterprise E5, Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 F1
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

McDonald's, WPP, US Navy, Gore, Festo, Stryker, Bezeq, PERI
Me & the Bees Lemonade
Find out what your peers are saying about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform vs. Office 365 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.