IBM SoftLayer vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Why PeerSpot?

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. IBM is ranked #19, while NetApp is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.5. IBM holds a 2.0% mindshare in PCSS, compared to NetApp’s 6.0% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM SoftLayer

Read 2 IBM SoftLayer reviews

1,055 Views
812 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 64 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

11,286 Views
3,160 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

IBM SoftLayer and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP are prominent cloud storage solutions with distinct strengths. While users report better pricing and support satisfaction for IBM SoftLayer, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP’s advanced features make it a preferred choice for those focused on comprehensive functionality.

Features: IBM SoftLayer is valued for its robust security, global data center presence, and straightforward deployment process. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is praised for its efficient data management, backup, restoration features, and sophisticated data services, making it more favorable for users needing advanced data management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Users of IBM SoftLayer seek improved integration options, enhanced analytics, and more extensive connectivity with third-party tools. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users desire simpler usability, more intuitive configuration, and streamlined setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SoftLayer users note its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides a relatively smooth deployment experience, with some users mentioning a learning curve. However, NetApp’s technical support receives high praise for its expertise, often offsetting initial setup challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SoftLayer is generally perceived as cost-effective with quick ROI, emphasizing its affordability. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, while perceived as more expensive, is noted for delivering higher long-term value due to its advanced features, making it worth the investment for those seeking comprehensive data solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

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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

IBM SoftLayer

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (2nd), Cloud Storage (7th), Cloud Backup (25th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 2.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 6.0%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP	6.0%
IBM SoftLayer	2.0%
Other	92.0%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702

Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Stable with excellent speed and agility

The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

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reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Offers performance control and cloud integration while supporting data management with granular flexibility

The scalability of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is interesting. We have thought about it, but we haven't used it. I think the scalability is something you scale up rather than respond to peak demand. It wouldn't help with outages either; the scaling is manual, and there are no processes we've used to automate that for unexpected scenarios. We like the scalability; it's enough for what we're planning to use, but we haven't used any advanced features. The standard platform is NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which is their cloud service. In fact, that's probably the most experience I have with NetApp. I've experienced it on-premise, but kind of secondhand.

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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

"The solution is highly stable."

"The ability to extract from your current location, load into your future location with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome."

"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."

"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."

"It's helped us to dive into the cloud very fast; we were able to adopt it very fast, run our environment very efficiently, save money with deduplication and compression, and our staff did not have to learn new systems because they could keep all the same processes and knowledge they had before."

"The fast recovery time objective with the ability to bring the environment back to production in case something happens."

"For example, it saves my clients between 50 and 60 percent."

"The ease of use in terms of how the product works is valuable. We are able to work with it and deploy the storage that we need."

"Snapshots are one valuable feature within ONTAP, but CVO's appeal is that it acts just like the on-prem solution. It's the same OS, but in the cloud. We can continue to use ONTAP as we did on-premise."

"Its features help us to have a backup of our volumes using the native technology of NetApp ONTAP, so we do not have to invest in other solutions for our backup requirement, and it also helps us to replicate the data to another geographic location, which saves us on the costs of backup products and gives us flexible storage."

"The inline encryption using SnapMirror has helped us to address concerns over data security in the cloud."

"CVO gives us the ability to access data as quickly as possible, which is critical because of the mission set we handle. Some things cannot wait. For example, we tried having the data in the cloud itself, but it took too long for us to retrieve it from cold or deep storage. If we have it ONTAP or on-prem, it's so much easier to pull it within minutes."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."

"We have customers that are still using IBM mainframes and that very old SNA architecture from IBM. There are questions about how you interconnect the data on the mainframe side... But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers."

"They definitely need to stay more on top of security vulnerabilities. Our security team is constantly finding Java vulnerabilities and SQL vulnerabilities. Our security team always wants the latest security update, and it takes a while for NetApp to stay up to speed with that. That would be my biggest complaint."

"I would like some more performance matrices to know what it is doing."

"I would like to see something from NetApp about backups. I know that NetApp offers some backup for Office 365, but I would like to see something from NetApp for more backup solutions."

"Cloud Volumes ONTAP's interface could use an overhaul. Sometimes you have to dig around in Cloud Manager a little bit to find certain things. The layout could be more intuitive."

"The key feature, that we'd like to see in that is the ability to sync between regions within the AWS and Azure regions. We could use the cloud sync service, but we'd really like that native functionality within the cloud volume service."

"Me gustaría verlos mejorar la perspectiva de inicio y búsqueda en los paneles. Esto permitiría una mejor visualización de los contenidos que se capturan en la herramienta."

"It definitely needs improvement with respect to clustering and with respect to more collaborative integrations with Azure. Right now, we have very limited functionalities with Azure, except for storage. If CVO could be integrated with Azure that would help. When there is any sort of maintenance happening in the cloud, it disrupts the service in Cloud Volumes ONTAP."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Cloud is cloud. It's still expensive. Any good solution comes with a price tag. That's where we are looking to see how well we can manage our data in the cloud by trying to optimize the costs."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable."

"The deal with the seller was acceptable; the pricing is reasonable."

"Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license."

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, there are fees for Azure, the VMs themselves and for data transfer."

"I know the licensing is a bit on the high-end. That's when we had to downsize our MetroCluster disks and just migrate to disks that were half used. We migrated into those just to reduce maintenance costs."

"We find the pricing to be favorable due to the educational sector we belong to."

"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	53

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...

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What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

It would be nice to see technology supporting the Elastic Fabric Adapter on Amazon AWS, therefore getting RDMA technology for more low-latency connections.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

I use NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP mostly in customer companies.

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

September 2026

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

CloudLayer

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

IBM SoftLayer, part of IBM Cloud offerings, provides robust infrastructure services designed to meet business demands for scalability and flexibility. It supports a range of computing needs, offering customizable resources with high performance and reliability.

IBM SoftLayer is an enterprise-grade cloud platform that combines powerful networking, security, and redundancy features. It enables users to deploy a combination of physical and virtual devices, facilitating hybrid cloud solutions. Known for its flexibility, it caters to businesses needing infrastructure tailored to specific operational needs, ensuring efficient workload management and performance.

What are the most important features of IBM SoftLayer?

Network Configuration: Offers high-speed networking with options for private, public, and management networks.
Security Measures: Comprehensive security with DDoS protection, firewalls, and encryption services.
Scalability Options: Flexible scaling of resources for dynamic business requirements.
Hybrid Deployments: Seamless integration of physical and virtual environments.
Data Centers: Global presence with numerous data centers offering reliability and low latency.

What benefits and ROI should you expect from IBM SoftLayer?

Cost Efficiency: Competitive pricing and transparent billing to manage IT budgets effectively.
Performance Optimization: High-performance infrastructure enhancing application speed and responsiveness.
Business Agility: Rapid deployment capabilities aiding timely project launches.
Operational Ease: Streamlined management of resources reducing operational overheads.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and gaming find IBM SoftLayer beneficial due to its secure, reliable infrastructure supporting sensitive data and high transaction volumes. It enables financial services to manage data flows seamlessly, healthcare sectors to ensure compliance with data security regulations, and gaming companies to deliver low-latency user experiences. Designed for enterprises needing tailored solutions to meet operational demands efficiently.

IBM

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Free Report: IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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