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Google Workspace vs Panzura CloudFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 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
6.3
Corporations report mixed ROI from Google Workspace, citing productivity benefits, cost concerns, and varying market value perceptions.
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.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
We saw the benefits of Panzura CloudFS immediately because our remote offices were able to share files immediately after the product went live.
Information Technology Manager at The Gateway Engineers, Inc.
Panzura CloudFS saves us a significant amount of time frequently.
Technical Expert at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.0
Google Workspace support has mixed reviews; effective email support contrasts with difficulties in direct contact and limited personal 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.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
Even as a technical person, I struggle to find appropriate contact numbers or email addresses.
Principal Consultant at Wipro Limited
I sent a complaint letter but it was hard to find customer service for that.
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
The support staff and the number of people they have on staff right now are truly good.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
When we have a priority-one issue, we typically receive a call within 20 to 30 minutes.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
I would give the support for Panzura CloudFS a ten out of ten because they are responsive and helpful.
Senior Systems Administrator at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Google Workspace efficiently scales for any size organization, praised for seamless user accommodation and integration, though enhancements are suggested.
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.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
Scalability involves another configuration with a new email configuration, involving some authentication issues with Microsoft Outlook.
IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs
If webinars were provided and universities were promoted with webinars, people are going to attend them.
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
Unlimited users can access the system without issues.
Technical Expert at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
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.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
The latest version, 8.0.2, has better ease of decommissioning filers and bringing new ones online.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Google Workspace is praised for its stability and reliability, with users noting minimal disruptions and high performance ratings.
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.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
The stability of Google Workspace is excellent and very solid.
Principal Consultant at Wipro Limited
With Microsoft now that we are using, we have a security system by which every now and then you have to change your password, and whenever you try to access multiple times to the same email from different devices or many times in the same day, they will ask you for a code that you have to insert.
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
We have never had their system crash on us.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
There were times with file lock issues between filers, causing various anomalies, but with their ongoing development, these issues have improved.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
 

Room For Improvement

Users desire improved integration, storage, synchronization, features, and functionality in Google tools to enhance productivity and collaboration.
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.
IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs
The security functionalities are similar to those in competitors like Active Directory, but they could be optimized for stronger security features.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
It is hard to find categories and folders in Teams.
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
When something goes wrong somewhere, there should be a little bit better alerting with issues before they become a big problem.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
The GIS data formats, such as a geo database, have been found better kept outside of Panzura CloudFS.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
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.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
 

Setup Cost

Users have mixed opinions on Google Workspace pricing, appreciating the value but desiring clearer cost structures and flexible licensing.
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.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
It did require us to purchase new hardware, however, that was not overly expensive.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
They should consider more attractive pricing for companies of our size.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions.
Technical Expert at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Google Workspace excels in scalability, integration, security, and collaboration, making it ideal for businesses and educational institutions.
Panzura CloudFS enhances workflows with high availability, security, and seamless collaboration, reducing storage costs and boosting productivity.
The ability to share documents with students and assign them things and correct them in real time has been beneficial.
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
The valuable features include the email service, email updates, and Google Drive.
IT Manager at Universal Carpets & Rugs
These tools enhance productivity by allowing us to edit the same file at the same time, making collaboration much smoother.
Technical Manager IT Development at Sostenia
It is very reliable and very quick.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
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.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
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.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Workspace
Ranking in Cloud Storage
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
105
Ranking in other categories
Email Applications (1st), Wireless Email (1st), Content Collaboration Platforms (2nd)
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in Cloud Storage
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (3rd), NAS (9th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Google Workspace is 3.0%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 4.0%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Google Workspace3.0%
Panzura CloudFS4.0%
Other93.0%
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

AR
Assosiate Professor at Palazzo del Mediterraneo
Collaborative work with students has improved but storage limitations and support issues remain
We have Google Workspace, and we use it primarily for Drive to collect items. We categorize folders with topics and material either for students or for research. We use Google Doc to share documents, especially when we assign homework to be corrected for peer correction or classroom correction. With Teams and Microsoft, we use it for collective calls and exam supervision because we use video surveillance through camera with Teams. We use Teams for meetings and to share material with students. The ability to share documents with students and assign them things and correct them in real time has been beneficial. You can verify what they write, and they can contribute and cooperate to create a collective document, which is something that our society nowadays requires. The ability to cooperate, especially those who work with languages and those who work with writing, need to learn how to cooperate. There is co-editing and co-writing, all these sorts of things. I love the fact that I can easily have access to folders that I can categorize and where I can upload research material and teaching material.
Roger Clark - PeerSpot reviewer
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering
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
No data available
Construction Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business64
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise3
 

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?
The only inconvenience is the fact that you have limited storage. After a while, you have to buy a surplus. It is not intuitive with Teams. It is hard to find categories and folders in Teams. I do ...
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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.