IBM Cloud Object Storage vs Zadara comparison

IBM and Zadara are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. IBM is ranked #9 with an average rating of 9.0, while Zadara is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 1.1% mindshare in FaOS, compared to Zadara’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zadara users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

IBM Cloud Object Storage and Zadara are strong competitors in the cloud storage category. IBM has the upper hand in cost-effectiveness and customer support, while Zadara provides advanced features that justify its higher price for those needing comprehensive capabilities.

Features: IBM Cloud Object Storage offers integration capabilities, scalability, and ease of management, beneficial for diverse cloud environments. Zadara focuses on fully managed storage services, advanced data protection, and performance optimizations, aiding resource-intensive applications. IBM highlights broad compatibility and flexible storage, whereas Zadara accentuates enterprise-level performance and customizable configurations.

Room for Improvement: IBM could benefit from enhancements in the granularity of its security policies, expandability concerning specific data-intensive tasks, and user interface simplification. Zadara may improve in offering more budget-friendly initial setups, broaden its feature breadth without impacting simplified usability, and enhance the learning curve for new users navigating complex configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Cloud Object Storage provides straightforward deployment with easy integration into current infrastructure, supported by responsive service. Zadara facilitates a fully managed deployment model, reducing IT workload and offering ongoing optimization through proactive customer service, suiting firms with limited IT resources.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Cloud Object Storage presents a cost-effective model yielding substantial ROI by balancing features and support, appealing to budget-conscious businesses. Zadara's higher initial costs are offset by enhanced ROI through superior scalability and a sophisticated feature set that benefits companies prioritizing long-term value and performance over initial pricing.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Zadara Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Zadara

June 2025

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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 June 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Cloud Object Storage is 1.1%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

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.

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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.

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Kirubel Behailu

Cloud System Engineer at cloud251

Enhancing storage management efficiency with user-friendly experience

Our customers are using Zadara for their research and development environments. We provide infrastructure for government projects, but we are often not fully aware of their specific usage. I typically use it for our infrastructure and offer both Zadara and Microsoft Azure to our customers Zadara…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has also helped to simplify storage for us in the way that it's easy to manage. Their automatic monitoring really helps when things break or are about to break. They see a problem coming and alert us even before our own system does."

"The solution provides many controllers."

"Approximately 40% to 50% of my time is saved using Pure Storage FlashBlade compared to different products."

"We have seen a reduction in the total cost of ownership by around 20%."

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

"The performance of FlashBlade is excellent. It does not necessarily leverage the SOS API that some of the newer products leverage, but I found its speed pretty much on par and comparable. It is fast, and it does what it is supposed to do."

"The tool's most valuable features are data warehousing, speedy recovery, and analytics. Its latest release is cost-effective."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the rewrite speed and the nonstop services."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

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

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

"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."

"IBM Cloud Object Storage integrates well."

"Being able to scale on demand, and being able to get out of our security operation center, and not having to purchase hardware upfront, has drastically reduced the overhead that was required to maintain our information. We have also gained additional capabilities in terms of speed of replicating that information."

"The processing is much faster with this product."

"A nice feature is the immutable object storage, which can be used in conjunction with Veeam."

"The most valuable feature is the flexibility in terms of deployment options."

"It provides very satisfactory storage performance."

"Zadara is a fully-fledged platform, and our customers are happy with its use."

"It's very easy to expand and compared to other storage systems that we've used, it's a lot more expandable and a lot more flexible in how it's deployed."

"The most valuable feature of Zadara is its ease of use and safety. Overall the solution is a complete package, it has all the features needed."

More Zadara pros

Cons

"Its configuration should be easier."

"The solution is expensive."

"There could be improvements in public cloud integration."

"The features provided for SMB customers are limited."

"I would like to see more monitoring capability included in the next release of this solution."

"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."

"An area for improvement in Pure Storage FlashBlade is its price. It could be reduced. The technical support for Pure Storage FlashBlade also needs improvement. It used to be good, with more experienced engineers. Nowadays, it isn't, and it takes longer for support to solve problems."

"In terms of scalability, it doesn't expand out quite as robustly as some of the others, but it covers 90% of the market in what it does."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"IBM has limited cloud storage."

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

More IBM Cloud Object Storage cons

"The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs."

"Some of the features are a little bit slow to come to market."

"Having iSCSI over the internet using a VPN, the IPSec tunnel is really the only thing that I find missing from this product."

"I would like to see them be a little bit more proactive in terms of the patches and updates that are available. I would like to see more disclosure and information around what fixes or what enhancements are available within a patch, and help in coordinating and scheduling that. Right now, it's driven more by the customer in reaching out via a support ticket."

"The management interface is more geared towards end-users rather than a service partner like ourselves, and there are improvements that can be made around that."

"Currently, when we do firmware upgrades, it sometimes causes issues and is not as nondisruptive as desired."

"Cost-wise, because it's a pay-per-use model, it may ultimately end up costing us more in the long run than something we developed ourselves."

"There are still some storage features that they lack. For example, other vendors implemented the auto-tiering feature a long time ago, while Zadara Storage Cloud is just coming out with this feature today. So, they are a little bit late compared to the market."

More Zadara cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper."

"The price is a little high."

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

"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."

"Pure Storage FlashBlade is a hardware appliance, and it's very expensive if you compare its price with other solutions. You can get the same features and benefits from its competitor, VAST Data, but for half the price of Pure Storage FlashBlade."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"The pricing is relatively expensive due to the FlashBlade technology. However, for companies needing quick and reliable data access, the cost is justified."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is not cheap."

"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."

"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."

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

"It is a nice licensing model and it makes it quite simple because we just pay for what we use, and the bill that comes shows us exactly what customers are using what resources."

"One of the factors that ruled out several providers was cost. They were way too expensive for the volume of data that we needed and the speed at which we needed to be able to manage it. There aren't a lot of providers that can do that."

"The pricing and licensing are very simple and the cost is predictable, although, like everything that you pay for as you use, you have to be mindful of what you're using."

"If you just take the street price of Zadara Storage Cloud and look up the price or cost per hour, then you could think that Zadara Storage Cloud is extremely expensive or a solution only for enterprise use. That is not true. You need to compare the entire system. This means that you don't stop looking at just the street price, but you need to consider all the features, requirements, and costs of support as well as the extra cost that other vendors have. Other players just play with hidden, additional costs. Everything is included in Zadara Storage Cloud's licensing cost; what you get is what you pay for."

"The pricing is very competitive and the fact that they have very compelling discounts for multi-year commitments is great."

"The price of Zadara is very good and it covers everything. There is no subscription needed."

"For our use, it's appropriately priced and overall, it's proved to be very cost-effective against other tier-one vendors."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Educational Organization

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

15%

Government

Computer Software Company

23%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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

The pricing for FlashBlade is between cheap and moderate. FlashBlade is worth the money due to the experience and per...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

Its configuration should be easier. There should be easier language for the configuration.

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...

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What needs improvement with Zadara?

The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Zadara?

I use this product as storage. Specifically, I use it as big storage. That's the main use case for Zadara ( /products...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Zadara?

As for the pros and cons, the main concerns are the complexity of the initial installation and the complicated mainte...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 20% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 11% 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

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

MinIO vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 24% of the time

Dell ECS vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 21% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Spectrum Scale vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp StorageGRID vs IBM Cloud Object Storage

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Cloud Object Storage Competitors

MinIO vs Zadara

Compared 20% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Zadara

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Zadara

Compared 15% of the time

Wasabi vs Zadara

Compared 10% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Zadara

Compared 9% of the time

More Zadara Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

June 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Object Storage

June 2025

Download IBM Cloud Object Storage product report

Buyer's Guide

Zadara

May 2025

Download Zadara product report

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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

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

Zadara is a powerful enterprise-level storage solution whose design enables it to handle every aspect of a user’s data storage needs. It can be deployed in any location, using any protocol, and storing any data type that an organization requires. With Zadara, organizations can do everything that they were able to do with more traditional systems in a cheaper and more efficient way.

Zadara Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy Zadara include:

Security. Zadara is built with data security in mind. All of a user’s data is heavily encrypted by Zadara’s software so that it is safe both while it is in storage and while it is being transferred somewhere else. It comes with role-based access controls that prevent a user’s data from being seen by those who lack the proper level of authorization. It also comes with dual-factor authentication and other similar methods of identity management.

Reduced costs. While Zadara offers enterprise-level storage capabilities, the costs associated with utilizing it are far less than those of similar solutions. Some of the resources that it offers are totally free of cost. The model that it utilizes is a pay-as-you-go model. Organizations only pay for the resources that they use and nothing more. Users are not required to sign up for any particular period of time. They are in complete and total control of what they spend on the solution.

Storage efficiency. Zadara ensures that users are able to store their data in the most efficient way possible. It takes a number of approaches that prevent insufficient data storage. These approaches are:

1. Thin-provision volumes. This method only allows actually written data to be counted toward the storage capacity that is consumed.

2. Pattern removal. Zadara searches a user’s stored data for repetitive binary sequences. Once it identifies the repetitive binary sequences, it deletes them.

3. Inline deduplication (all-flash only). This method ensures that Zadara only stores unique data blocks in its system.

4. Inline compression. Zadara takes data that is stored in its system and compresses it. This keeps larger blocks of data from taking up too much room.

Zadara Features

Centralized management. Zadara comes with a centralized dashboard that enables organizations to monitor and control their storage operations from a single location.

File analytics. Organizations can leverage a powerful analytics package that can provide them with critical insights. These tools can help users sort through their data and make more informed data management decisions.

Remote mirroring. This feature enables users to replicate data in two remote locations at the same time. This makes it easy for data to be recovered in the event of an unexpected loss. It also aids remote teams in their collaboration efforts by giving them access to the same data at the same time.

Reviews from Real Users

Zadara is a highly effective solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Two major advantages it offers are its extensive suite of cloud solution integrations and its object storage capability.

Steve H., the chief technology officer at Pratum, writes, “One of the most valuable features is its integration with other cloud solutions. We have a presence within Amazon EC2 and we leverage computer instances there. Being able to integrate with computing, both locally within Zadara, as well as with other cloud vendors such as Amazon, is very helpful, while also being able to maintain extremely low latency between those connections.”

Mauro R., the CEO of Momit SRL, says, “The object storage feature is wonderful. With traditional storage, you have a cost per gigabyte that is extremely high or related to the number of disks. With Zadara Storage Cloud, you have a cost per gigabyte that you can cut and tailor to your needs independent of the number or size of the disks.”

Zadara

Sample Customers

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

Bitly, Dreamstime, Prime Research

Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Zadara

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Object Storage vs. Zadara

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