Dell ObjectScale vs IBM Cloud Object Storage comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. Dell Technologies is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while IBM is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.3. Dell Technologies holds a 7.3% mindshare in FaOS, compared to IBM’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 26, 2025

IBM Cloud Object Storage and Dell ObjectScale are competitors in cloud storage, both offering scalable solutions tailored for enterprises. IBM has the upper hand with pricing and strong customer support, while Dell excels with its robust features and perceived value.

Features: IBM Cloud Object Storage is known for its scalability, security, and integration with IBM services. It also offers S3 protocol support, effortless data scalability, and strong security measures. Dell ObjectScale offers advanced analytics, easy management, and high performance. It integrates seamlessly with other Dell solutions, providing excellent data compression and power-efficiency.

Room for Improvement: IBM could enhance their analytic capabilities and performance features. More automation in management tasks would also be beneficial. Dell ObjectScale might improve its multi-tenancy features and streamline its setup processes. Offering more flexible pricing plans could also be considered.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both IBM and Dell offer flexible deployment options. However, IBM is often recognized for its smoother deployment experience and reliability in support services. Dell provides effective support via their integrated systems, though it may require more detailed initial setup.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cloud Object Storage provides competitive pricing with flexible plans, ideal for reducing long-term costs. Dell ObjectScale, while having higher initial setup costs, delivers greater ROI over time due to its comprehensive features and performance advantages. The choice often depends on the organization's specific needs and budget priorities.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 867,676 peers since 2012

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

Pure Storage FlashBlade

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.7%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell ObjectScale is 7.3%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Object Storage is 1.0%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell ObjectScale	7.3%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.7%
IBM Cloud Object Storage	1.0%
Other	86.0%

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

Eric Black

Solutions Architect at Recovery Point Systems

The ability to leverage multi-tenancy along with immutability is a huge benefit for us

The only thing I feel FlashBlade is missing is the SOS API. If it had SOS API, that would put it well over the top. Veeam Backup specifically has started to streamline their API, and they are doing that with SOS API. They have optimized it. Any of the S3 devices out there that support this SOS API can have far more API calls at once. On our side, that translates to better restoration. With SOS API, it can leverage far more restorations at a single given time or read from the device in simple terms. That results in maximizing the output and throughput from the device itself.

Read full review

SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Managing efficiently with user-friendly interfaces for monitoring and managing resources

We normally recommend Dell ECS to enterprise customers and government customers Dell ECS is very easy to handle, primarily because the web UI dashboard and everything is very easy to manage for every customer. They can monitor the DPS, access failures, bandwidth, failed requests, and latency.…

Read full review

Steve Qualls

Senior Storage Engineer at Q & Q IT Consulting

Offers the ease with which you can move data between on-premises storage and the cloud and then retrieve it back on-premises when necessary

IBM Cloud Object Storage supports big data and analytics workflows. However, I usually have to refer to my documentation for that. Cloud environments are part of almost every project I've been involved in over the last few years, but I rely heavily on documentation whenever I need to do anything in the cloud. I know the basics, but the technical details always need refreshing. I create the drawings or diagrams of how the on-premises and cloud environments interact. So, visual representations are helpful. I'll diagram the on-premises environment, the cloud environment, and any appliances in between and then work from there. The integration capabilities simplified our data workflows. Like, the integration itself is pretty easy. The access appliances create the connection between both environments.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"We can capacity plan at a greater level than we used to."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"FlashBlade offers low latency, high throughput, and seamless scalability."

"Among its most appealing features are its ease of handling and minimal maintenance requirements."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power outages when we need to quickly move data between different data centers. It ensures efficient replication and helps maintain our data centers' uptime."

"It is very easy to use, and it is very fast."

"We have integrated it with VMware. The integration process is pretty good. Especially with VMware, it helps with the capacity of it."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"I like that the solution is easy to scale and that's its stable."

"The stability is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"The performance is good."

"The setup was straightforward."

"The most valuable features of Dell ECS are its capability to integrate multiple protocols seamlessly with other Dell solutions like PowerScale and data domain."

"Dell ECS is a cost-effective solution that provides ease of use and availability."

"Dell ECS is a very stable solution and most of the S3 APIs are supported."

"It is a stable platform."

More Dell ObjectScale pros

"The standout feature of IBM Cloud Object Storage is its top-notch security, making it ideal for sensitive applications like mobile financial transactions."

"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."

"The capability to replicate data in different locations is valuable since it enables customers to have a cluster over various sites."

"Overall, I rate IBM Cloud Object Storage a ten out of ten."

"The integration itself is pretty easy. The access appliances create the connection between both environments."

"One of Cloud Object Storage's best features is infinite capacity. This is one of the main advantages if you don't want to use your own storage. You also have the ability to write only, write once, and read many. It's like tape storage but software-based. This feature is essential for financial institutions that require that kind of protection if you write backup or data there."

"IBM has the most number of additional services, this is the main advantage."

"The most valuable feature I like is when you connect it via CLI plug-in...It is a stable solution."

Cons

"I would like to see the licensing fees improved as well as the price per terabytes."

"The technical support needs to improve. When we open a case, it is auto assigned to a support tech person. Nine out of ten times, we get an email right back saying that person is off until tomorrow. I cannot handle that. They just did this over the weekend to us, too. I had to call our rep and have them do something about it."

"The solution is expensive."

"The documentational aspect of FlashBlade needs improvement."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"File storage needs a lot of improvement. Mainframe connectivity also needs improvement because it requires additional components to be integrated with Pure Storage FlashBlade. If you want to keep your backup data, then this becomes an even more expensive solution because Pure Storage FlashBlade will not be able to meet your backup needs."

"On our dedupe during our initial buy, we were expecting a number a little higher like 4x. However, we are getting about 3.6. While it is close enough, it doesn't quite hit the numbers. So, this has been a challenge."

"In terms of technical support, the experience has been mixed. The support is done through email and is not that great, making it a very problematic area I've been dealing with for over four years."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"Its security can be improved."

"They do not have complete documentation, which is very weak and could be improved."

"In Taiwan, they don't have professional technical support."

"We have concerns about the write performance. We would also like it to be easier to scale out, to add more boxes to the system. And we want improved performance, to use a next-generation NFS service."

"The troubleshooting feature of this solution needs to be improved, to allow organizations to fix issues without having to contact the support team."

"You should be able to calculate so that when it's full it's 100% full, not just 90%."

"Dell ECS needs to improve its performance."

"The disaster recovery could be improved because there should be something in-built within the ECS. Search and recovery should be in-built. Right now, we have to use some external tools for performing the recovery itself. For example, we're using Atempo or deploying Golden Superna, so it has dependency on the external third party vendors."

More Dell ObjectScale cons

"IBM Cloud storage is not cheap, but it could be."

"The performance could improve in IBM Cloud Object Storage. The throughput or objects per second can have degradation."

"If I had to choose one area, it would be making the consoles more intuitive would be helpful. Sometimes, they can be a little complicated if you're not familiar with them."

"Sometimes technical support lacks a comprehensive understanding of the entire solution, only focusing on the product they support."

"The performance could be better. It isn't bad, but everything is network-based, so you have a performance penalty on the network. You can never achieve the same performance as hardware. That's the disadvantage of cloud storage solutions in general. Cloud performance is one of the main issues clients have."

"One area where IBM Cloud Object Storage could potentially improve is in modernizing its underlying codebase."

"One improvement could be incorporating a feature similar to Dropbox's version history. This would allow users to track modifications made to files over time, which is particularly important for maintaining a record of changes. While the free version might not include this feature, it could be included in the paid version to provide added value to clients. Additionally, having a version history feature that allows users to access modifications made to files over the past three months could be beneficial."

"Room for improvement depends on customer needs. Some customers prefer pure Object Storage using the S3 protocol, while others use a gateway in front of the storage grid to enable CIFS or NFS."

More IBM Cloud Object Storage cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I understand that it is competitively priced compared to other brands."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"I have seen ROI. It has allowed me to increase the density of my VMs without having to purchase anything additional."

"The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate."

"I rate the tool's pricing a seven to eight out of ten."

"In my opinion, we have paid the right price for the product. I don't think that it is too much or too little."

"Our customers have seen a reduction in TCO."

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"The price of Dell ECS should be reduced."

"The solution could be cheaper."

"It is an inexpensive product."

"The product is quite expensive."

"It's a lease-based model, so it's capacity-based. We already negotiated the price a lot, but we're still doing that with Dell because somehow the product was not installed successfully, so there was a lot of struggle in the distributor territory between Dell and the environment itself. I would give the solution a 6 out of 10 for the pricing. There's a little room for improvement."

"Dell EMC ECS is too expensive."

"The charges for this solution are made in blocks of models, which are purchased depending on what features an organization requires."

More Dell ObjectScale pricing and cost advice

"Like most cloud providers, IBM likely charges based on storage capacity, typically per gigabyte or terabyte. Their pricing is competitive when compared to AWS or Microsoft."

"IBM Cloud is cheaper than AWS. If you want to scale your cloud infrastructure, it can be bought at almost the same price."

"Pricing is not cheap."

"You have the option of a monthly or yearly license. Most customers choose the monthly option. I understand what you would like to say. IBM also lets you choose among four types of Cloud Object Storage. The difference is usage, performance, etc. Of course, high-performance storage is more expensive, while low-performance storage is for cold data, and it's really cheap."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File and Object Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

27%

Computer Software Company

18%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	20

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The tool's most valuable feature is its fast performance, especially in handling snapshots. It helps during power out...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashBlade?

The pricing of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell EMC ECS?

The tool is easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC ECS?

The pricing is moderate and at par with the market. As a service provider, we receive good margins, indicating a favo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell EMC ECS?

There are some limitations with integration with certain cloud providers, particularly with Google Cloud Platform in ...

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Object Storage?

The integration itself is pretty easy. The access appliances create the connection between both environments.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Object Storage?

In general, Object Storage should be a cheaper solution.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Object Storage?

The interface can feel clunky and outdated compared to AWS S3 or Azure Blob Storage. While scalable, latency can be...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

MinIO vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 14% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 14% of the time

MinIO vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Storage Fusion vs Dell ObjectScale

Compared 2% of the time

More Dell ObjectScale Competitors

MinIO vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 38% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 22% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 12% of the time

More IBM Cloud Object Storage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

August 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale

September 2025

Download Dell ObjectScale product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Object Storage

September 2025

Download IBM Cloud Object Storage product report

Also Known As

No data available

EMC ECS, Dell EMC Elastic Cloud Storage (ECS)

Cleversafe

Overview

FlashBlade is the industry’s most advanced scale-out storage for unstructured data, powered by a modern, massively parallel architecture to consolidate complex data silos (like backup appliances and data lakes) and accelerate tomorrow’s discoveries and insights.

Pure Storage

Dell ObjectScale is a next-generation S3 object storage platform known for scalability, performance, and efficiency. It integrates with Dell EMC products, combining hardware and software for seamless user experience in the AI era.

Dell ObjectScale implements the S3 protocol, integrating smoothly with Dell EMC solutions like ISILON. Its architecture supports data compression and interoperates with multiple protocols for enhanced performance. Enterprise features include immutability, geo-replication, and user-friendly management. However, it needs better integration with other systems, enhanced security, and disaster recovery. Write performance and scalability improvements, competitive pricing, and documentation enhancements are key areas for progress. The interface could be more straightforward, with more remote management features and native analytics.

What features does Dell ObjectScale offer?

S3 Protocol Implementation: Brings industry-standard access with wide application compatibility
Seamless Dell EMC Integration: Ensures stability and ease of use with existing systems
Data Compression and Protocol Interoperability: Enhances performance and storage efficiency
Immutability and Geo-Replication: Provides enterprise-level data protection
Optimized Pricing: Balances cost with comprehensive support

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Scalability: Supports expanding data requirements effectively
Integration Flexibility: Works with many existing systems for better interoperability
Ease of Management: Streamlines hardware and software operations
Enterprise-Level Features: Delivers advanced protection and efficiency

Industries leverage Dell ObjectScale for cloud-based object storage, archiving, and backups. It's favored for unstructured data management, CCTV integration, and document archiving. Strong in data analytics, it integrates well with high-capacity applications, enhancing data retention strategies across fields.

Dell Technologies

IBM Cloud Object Storage is a web-scale platform that stores unstructured data - from petabyte to exabyte - with reliability, security, availability and disaster recovery without replication.

IBM

Sample Customers

ServiceNow, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Dominos, Man AHL

Atos

Bitly, Dreamstime, Prime Research

Buyer's Guide

Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

July 2025

Free Report: Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell ObjectScale vs. IBM Cloud Object Storage report.

See our list of best File and Object Storage vendors.

We monitor all File and Object Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.