IBM SoftLayer vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. IBM is ranked #22, while NetApp is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 0.3% mindshare in PCSS, compared to NetApp’s 7.4% 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

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38 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 62 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

2,128 Views
701 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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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: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

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

IBM SoftLayer

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

22nd

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

6th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Storage (2nd), Cloud Backup (14th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 7.4%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702

Global Principal Cloud Architect at NTT DATA

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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Pramod-Talekar

Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution

The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

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

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

"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are good. Snapshot copies are pretty much the write-in time data backups. Obviously, critical data is snapshotted a lot more frequently, and even clients and end users find it easier to restore whatever they need if it's file-based, statical, etc."

"ONTAP's snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are pretty useful in recovering your data from a time in a snapshot. That's pretty useful for when you have an event where a disaster struck and then you need to recover all your data. It's pretty helpful and pretty fast in those terms."

"The good thing about NetApp is the features that are available on the cloud are also available on-premises."

"I like how you can easily pair on-prem with the cloud and the cloud backup feature. I like the whole integration with on-prem and the cloud for SnapMirror relationships."

"The ability to see things going back and forth has been quite useful."

"Lastly, the API and web services are fairly good. That is an important feature too. We write some code to do different things. We have code that runs to make sure that everything is being backed up as we say it is and we try to also detect places where we may have missed a backup."

"The solution’s unified file and block-storage access across our infrastructure is invaluable. Without it, we can't do what we do."

"NetApp's Cloud Manager automation capabilities are very good because it's REST-API-driven, so we can completely automate everything. It has a good overview if you want to just have a look into your environment as well."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

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

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"We would like to have support for high availability in multi-regions."

"One difficulty is that it has no SAP HANA certification. The asset performance restrictions create challenges with the infrastructure underneath: The disks and stuff like that often have lower latencies than SAP HANA itself has to have."

"NetApp CVO needs to have more exposure and mature further before it will have greater acceptance."

"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."

"The cost needs improvement."

"I would like this solution to be brought to all the three major players. Right now it's supported only on AWS and Azure. They should bring it to Google as well, because we would like to have flexibility in choosing the underlying cloud storage provider."

"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP needs to have customizable pricing options such as 10 TB increments. They seem to have only two options: 10 TB or 250 TB."

"I would like to see them improve the perspective of start and search in the panels. This would allow for better visualization of the contents that are captured in the tool."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"The solution's pricing is reasonable."

"For NetApp it's about $20,000 for a single node and $30,000 for the HA."

"Cost is a big factor, because a lot of companies can't afford enterprise grade equipment all the time. They skimp where they can. I would recommend that they improve the cost."

"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."

"The cost is quite high."

"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."

"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

Educational Organization

31%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.

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

The solution's pricing is reasonable.

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What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp's support could improve.

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM SoftLayer Competitors

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 10% of the time

Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 9% of the time

Portworx Enterprise vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 7% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

June 2025

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

June 2025

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Also Known As

CloudLayer

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

SoftLayer provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. Our customers range from Web startups to global enterprises.

Products and services include bare metal and virtual servers, networking, turnkey big data solutions, private cloud solutions, and more. Our unique advantages include the industry's first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, and an easy-to-use customer portal and robust API for full remote-access of all product and service management options.

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

June 2025

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: June 2025.

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