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Google Workspace vs Panzura CloudFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 18, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
Google Workspace boosts productivity and efficiency with integration and collaboration features, despite potentially high costs.
Sentiment score
5.1
Organizations experienced enhanced resilience, doubled performance, and productivity gains by adopting Panzura CloudFS, solving past file storage issues.
Previously, we had latency issues with syncing up files between offices. Files were not locked, leading to overwrites which cost us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost time and revenue.
We saw the benefits of Panzura CloudFS immediately because our remote offices were able to share files immediately after the product went live.
Panzura CloudFS saves us a significant amount of time frequently.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.1
Google Workspace offers varied customer service; users appreciate fast responses but face challenges with technical support and direct assistance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Panzura CloudFS support is praised for quick, expert assistance despite occasional delays, receiving high ratings from users.
In the past, we experienced a problem with automatic emails being blocked, and the support team resolved the issue quickly.
Even as a technical person, I struggle to find appropriate contact numbers or email addresses.
The support staff and the number of people they have on staff right now are truly good.
When we have a priority-one issue, we typically receive a call within 20 to 30 minutes.
I would give the support for Panzura CloudFS a ten out of ten because they are responsive and helpful.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Google Workspace is praised for its scalability, flexibility, and integration, despite minor resource limitations and licensing concerns.
Sentiment score
6.8
Panzura CloudFS is highly scalable, effortlessly supports many users across locations, with seamless deployment and dedicated support.
It supports around 2,500 users in our company, and this scalability assists us in maintaining our infrastructure.
Scalability involves another configuration with a new email configuration, involving some authentication issues with Microsoft Outlook.
Unlimited users can access the system without issues.
From our original entry with Panzura CloudFS, we have added an additional seven sites, and deploying those additional nodes was very seamless and did not take any effort.
The latest version, 8.0.2, has better ease of decommissioning filers and bringing new ones online.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Google Workspace is praised for reliability and stability, despite occasional Outlook integration issues and internet-related performance hitches.
Sentiment score
6.1
Panzura CloudFS is highly stable with rare outages and improved reliability, earning high user ratings overall.
This stability is crucial to us because it ensures we do not lose communication or connection while using messaging and accessing files.
The stability of Google Workspace is excellent and very solid.
The only issue is collaboration with Outlook, where I am having a bit of a problem.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
We have never had their system crash on us.
There were times with file lock issues between filers, causing various anomalies, but with their ongoing development, these issues have improved.
 

Room For Improvement

Google Workspace faces performance, usability, and integration issues, needing improvements in functionality, security, and productivity tools.
Panzura CloudFS needs improvements in performance, compatibility, pricing, dashboard, alerting, licensing, Active Directory reliance, NFS service, and support.
The new integration was implemented last September, and we are facing some issues with OAuth 2.0 authentication.
The security functionalities are similar to those in competitors like Active Directory, but they could be optimized for stronger security features.
When something goes wrong somewhere, there should be a little bit better alerting with issues before they become a big problem.
The GIS data formats, such as a geo database, have been found better kept outside of Panzura CloudFS.
It would have been nice if they had offered them in increments, of 5, 10, 15, or 20 terabytes than having to get a whole chunk of 25 terabytes again for licensing purposes, which is a little costly.
 

Setup Cost

Google Workspace pricing ranges from $8-$15 per user, seen as reasonable but sometimes costly, with licensing complexity concerns.
Panzura CloudFS pricing is higher than competitors, lacks granular licenses, but offers negotiation flexibility and transparency.
The current cost is approximately seven to ten euros per user per month.
It did require us to purchase new hardware, however, that was not overly expensive.
They should consider more attractive pricing for companies of our size.
Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions.
 

Valuable Features

Google Workspace offers seamless integration, collaboration, security, multi-device access, and affordability with tools like Gmail, Drive, and Meet.
Panzura CloudFS enhances workflows with high availability, security, and seamless collaboration, reducing storage costs and boosting productivity.
The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive.
These tools enhance productivity by allowing us to edit the same file at the same time, making collaboration much smoother.
It is very reliable and very quick.
It helps us increase network resilience. We have a primary object library stored in the cloud and have Panzura Mirroring which allows us to place data in a secondary cloud for added resiliency.
There is no degradation of speed because these filers have cached the data, and they are constantly swapping metadata and updating with each other, which is a very attractive method of getting us to use these applications.
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace
Ranking in Cloud Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
104
Ranking in other categories
Email Applications (1st), Wireless Email (1st), Content Collaboration Platforms (5th)
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in Cloud Storage
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), NAS (6th), Cloud Storage Gateways (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 2.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 5.2%, down from 5.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sunil-Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Email collaboration and accessibility have improved team productivity
The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive. People are given email access to Google Drive. The team can share manual files and work accordingly. They can access different teams from anywhere, collectively putting files, sharing them, and managing them. Additionally, the manufacturing product does not require any downgrades. It works fine and continuously for the last three or four years. Users can access their emails from anywhere in their browser without a laptop or can directly access from Gmail. This is helpful for salespeople.
Roger Clark - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles file locks effectively enabling seamless remote collaboration in global teams
It has not reduced the data storage cost. We have been trying to come up with a plan internally to archive project data at a certain time frame. However, our data continues to grow, so at the point of 25 terabytes, we had to buy another 25 terabytes license to exceed that threshold. It would have been nice if they had offered them in increments, of 5, 10, 15, or 20 terabytes than having to get a whole chunk of 25 terabytes again for licensing purposes, which is a little costly. It would be nice if Panzura offered data in increments instead of 25 terabytes per license. They have done a pretty good job of development from the point of offering new products. Pricing seems to be high for certain things, such as the audit feature of Panzura Data Services. It would be nice to see who deleted that 100 gig of data out there. They should make the pricing plan more attractive for a company of our size. We have almost 700 employees over the southeast from Texas to Florida and up to Tennessee, so we are a pretty big region.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Workspace?
Easy-to-build forms are allowing me to get feedback and information from my internal teams as well as from the customers very efficiently with the result data in structured manner.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Workspace?
The pricing for Google Workspace is moderate. I would rate it a five out of ten, indicating it is neither cheap nor expensive. The current cost is approximately seven to ten euros per user per mont...
What needs improvement with Google Workspace?
I don't see many areas of Google Workspace that could be improved or enhanced because everything I have been using has been effective. Regarding the user interface, when calling a member in the org...
What are the products that Panzura provides?
Panzura offers four main products: CloudFS, data services, smart apps, and global services. They call this "all-in-one solution" and it's for end-to-end cloud data management. Why is it called that...
What kind of industries does Panzura serve?
Hello, I think businesses from all industries that have their data on a cloud can benefit from Panzura. Especially if you have offices in various locations or your employees are working from home a...
Why was Panzura acquired? Is the acquisition going to cause a change?
I think Panzura may change in a positive direction now that it's been bought by Profile Capital. That's a very big investment company for technology businesses and I think it's an opportunity for ...
 

Also Known As

G-Suite Enterprise, G-Suite, Google Apps for Business, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G-Suite Basic, G-Suite Business, Google Vault
Panzura Freedom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

There are over five million businesses that use Google Apps for Business worldwide. Some key customers include The Roche Group, National Geographic, American Red Cross, City of Los Angeles, Flight Centre, and Konica Minolta.
Petrofac, Komatsu, HCA Healthcare, Vanguard, Disney, Pokemon, US Department of Justice, Gensler, Fluor, AFRY, Milwaukee Tool, Navy Federal Credit Union, TechTarget
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Workspace vs. Panzura CloudFS and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,484 professionals have used our research since 2012.