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FreeNAS vs NetApp FAS Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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

FreeNAS
Ranking in NAS
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of FreeNAS is 3.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.5%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetApp FAS Series10.5%
FreeNAS3.1%
Other86.4%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Vincenzo D'Aniello - PeerSpot reviewer
Software developer at TREXON S.R.L.
Open-source with great disk management and task synchronization
The system itself allows you to add any feature. The only bad thing is that this maybe depends on FreeBSD, and sometimes finding documentation is difficult. For example, we knew that previous versions automatically enabled the Linux kernel, yet with the recent version, this was no longer the case. Now, there was the possibility of being able to create Debian-based jails, and finding the documentation was not easy or fast. That said, in the end, we succeeded. If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented.
Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like about it is that I can work on it from any computer or any device. The initial setup is very simple. The setup wizard is really helpful."
"The solution has been very stable so far."
"The ease of use of the 'jail', the management of backups, and copies to easily create test and pre-production scenarios have speeded up the development and distribution of business apps."
"FreeNAS is much simpler and easier to use than other solutions, but we don't have the complete range of features that come with the full version."
"Its stability is the most valuable. It is reliable, and we don't have to worry too much about it."
"It has the best storage capacity."
"It integrates well into either Windows or Linux environments."
"In NetApp FAS Series, I appreciate the visibility."
"The most valuable feature for us is the combining of HA and SnapMirror."
"Flexible and reliable storage solution with multiple features such as cloning, replication, and deduplication. Data migration can be done without any performance implications on the production systems."
"Good for NAS and unified solutions."
"The most important features are SnapVault, Snapshots, and SnapMirror."
"The integration with cloud environments has benefited my customers' storage strategy by providing cloud volume ONTAP."
"Reliable storage solution with an easy setup. It has high availability and makes single file restoration easy. It also has good stability and scalability."
"The tool's most valuable features are ease of use, ease of access, expandability, availability, and performance. NVMe drives have improved their performance."
 

Cons

"The one thing that I find difficult to do which is very time-consuming is that I like to have a backup of the important files."
"The latest version of the dashboard doesn't work as good as the previous version."
"The support for S3 needs to be improved."
"If you find the documentation, it is always incomplete and fragmented."
"They should include clustering for the solution."
"They can improve the integration with PSA systems. This functionality could be better."
"FreeNAS should be better prepared for clustering."
"The adoption of the cloud in Argentina is very slow. Customers do not move most of their applications to the cloud. Moving applications is a simple task, but the cost is a concern in Argentina. There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP."
"When getting new hardware, always tell the account manager that you are also considering other brands. They will be forced to adjust the price lower."
"Technical support needs to be improved, as there are no longer partners in our country."
"The product must support more drives."
"With scalability, we feel the system is limited."
"If our customer needs a high-performance storage solution then we don't recommend this product."
"A big problem with physical appliances is that updating them can be a bit burdensome."
"We no longer have OEM support in South Africa which is not helpful, it can be difficult. They should add an office back to the country because it was better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is okay. It suits our needs."
"For our configuration, we pay a little bit less than €10,000 ($12,000 USD) per year."
"We use the free version of the program."
"Its licensing cost is based on the hardware capacity."
"We purchased it for four years, and it wasn't expensive. It was reasonable. Every company has a different agreement with NetApp. We got everything we wanted with all the bells and whistles and all the features and functionalities."
"It is expensive."
"NetApp FAS Series is a reasonably high-priced solution, partially because we select the configuration that duplicates the entire system."
"In general, I find NetApp to be very expensive. That's the main issue I have with them. So it's a drawback in terms of pricing."
"When we need to implement a less expensive solution we use Huawei. NetApp FAS Series is a little bit expensive compared to the average of the market."
"NetApp FAS Series' pricing is competitive."
"I've sold arrays for as little $20,000 USD and as high as $300,000 USD."
"We have considered upgrading to an All-Flash solution but when we evaluated the cost-benefit we discovered that we don't have enough money to invest in it. To maintain the same technology with All-Flash would be too expensive for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Performing Arts
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

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Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable because they also have deduplication, compression, and inline compression. They fo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morroni Technologies Inc., Creative Integrations
Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Find out what your peers are saying about FreeNAS vs. NetApp FAS Series and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,515 professionals have used our research since 2012.