MinIO vs NetApp StorageGRID comparison

MinIO and NetApp are both solutions in the File and Object Storage category. MinIO is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while NetApp is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.3. MinIO holds a 17.9% mindshare in FaOS, compared to NetApp’s 5.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of MinIO users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

NetApp StorageGRID and MinIO are prominent competitors in the object storage solutions category. While both have significant strengths, NetApp StorageGRID appears to have an upper hand with its enterprise-grade features like fast data backup and recovery, integrated lifecycle management, and strong niche market presence, particularly in Canada.

Features: NetApp StorageGRID's notable features include fast data backup and recovery via AltaVault, effective deduplication and compression, and integrated Information Lifecycle Management for seamless data operations. MinIO shines with its on-demand tenant deployment, erasure coding, and robust API, ensuring flexible data management and compatibility with various storage types.

Room for Improvement: NetApp StorageGRID users suggest enhancements in menu logic, storage efficiency, and metadata handling. Improved pricing strategies and easier initial setup are also desired. MinIO could refine its user interface, enhance documentation, and improve multi-tenancy support. Both platforms could benefit from enhanced monitoring capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: StorageGRID offers solid deployment options focused on on-premises and private cloud with reliable support, though expertise concerns exist. MinIO’s deployment is simplified due to its open-source nature, but recommendations for improved customer support and feature enhancements are prevalent.

Pricing and ROI: NetApp StorageGRID features enterprise-grade pricing, offering long-term cost savings and efficiency suitable for large-scale deployments. MinIO’s open-source model offers a cost-effective solution for smaller deployments, although enterprise support incurs additional costs.

To learn more, read our detailed MinIO vs. NetApp StorageGRID Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

MinIO vs. NetApp StorageGRID

September 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 October 2025, in the File and Object Storage category, the mindshare of Pure Storage FlashBlade is 5.7%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MinIO is 17.9%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp StorageGRID is 5.8%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

File and Object Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
MinIO	17.9%
Pure Storage FlashBlade	5.7%
NetApp StorageGRID	5.8%
Other	70.6%

File and Object Storage

Featured Reviews

MikaelHellström

IT Manager at Regin Dalarna

Has handled backup storage needs reliably and supports seamless upgrades

In environments requiring high throughput and low latency, Pure Storage FlashBlade provides high throughput and normal latency, but we do not have any application that requires low latency right now, so the latency of three to five milliseconds is considered kind of high. Pure Storage FlashBlade's ability to integrate with enterprise applications is not important for us, as we only want to present an S3 bucket for our backup, which we have done, and it works very fast. We use the Purity software's data reduction techniques; we have a backup software that compresses everything before sending it to the S3 bucket, achieving a data reduction of 1.1 to one. I would recommend Pure Storage FlashBlade to other companies because it's a very fast and scalable solution for anyone who needs it. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution an 8.

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Abdelrahim-Ahmad

Data Scientist at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees

Provides good object storage functionalities

MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data. Our company has a maximum of 100 terabytes of data. The solution should provide more bugging tools in the open-source version to encourage people to buy the support services. It's not an easy decision. If I go to the management and tell them that I need to buy a service, there should be an easier subscription model for companies that don't have huge amounts of data. For me, getting a subscription for 15,000 a year for a system already in production might be a bit hard. I think MinIO supports a minimum of one petabyte or 100 terabytes of data. Since we don't have such huge amounts of data, buying a subscription for the solution is a bit difficult. Hence, we're only using the open-source version for now. If MinIO becomes really crucial for our business, we could ask the management to get a subscription.

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Michael Lopez

Sr Systems Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Has reduced storage costs and improved snapshot management for large data workloads

The advanced features of NetApp StorageGRID which our upper management wouldn't agree to use, include the S3 feature. We are heavy into AWS, and my thoughts were to develop a small dev environment or even a POC environment on-prem. That's still up in the air as we continue on. Currently, AI has taken over everything with a focus on AI. The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present a challenge. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node would not upgrade. The positive aspect is that it didn't take down the entire environment. The environment remained functional on two different versions. The scalability of NetApp StorageGRID has been proven as we've expanded twice. We started with six or seven nodes and have grown to 15 nodes. It does take time for synchronization to complete. From what I've seen, it took a couple of months for it all to sync up once adding nodes. However, it was transparent. It captured the addition and performed effectively, all happening in the background, steadily and surely.

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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 ease of deployment and management has helped us simplify our storage. We also do not have to worry about capacity management as much. A lot of these things are native to Pure Storage."

"The initial setup was straightforward. If you know how to plug in power and network you're pretty much qualified. They were on site to configure the network, the box to fit into our network architecture. Other than that, we self-managed from there."

"The initial setup is pretty easy and simple."

"It has absolutely simplified our storage because the dashboards on the consoles show a clear understanding of where you are, and it is also very easy to provision. This been a big help for our teams."

"What I like best about Pure Storage FlashBlade is its object storage functionality, plus it has fast underlying hardware. Pure Storage FlashBlade is also very stable. I find its stability one of its valuable features."

"The most valuable features of FlashBlade include its replication capabilities, reports, and easy allocation. Everything is user-friendly."

"It helps simplify our storage, because the user interface is very simple and the installation is easy."

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

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pros

"The most valuable feature is the ease of management and administration."

"The most valuable feature of MinIO is its ease of use, replication, and active directory. All the capabilities are in this solution."

"The product does save time for our company."

"It performs efficiently compared to other solutions."

"The ability to spawn a MinIO Tenant on demand and shut it down right after is most valuable."

"Very good at object retrieval."

"For starters, MinIO has a good user interface. You can access it through the browser and perform operations like creating the object."

"Nice web interface, easy to use, with a low memory footprint."

More MinIO pros

"The scalability is very effective for our customers."

"StorageGRID is designed for cloud-based, highly scalable storage. Think big names like service providers like Google who need massive storage volumes with scalability. It also offers cloud-enabled storage capabilities with cloud management functionality. So, if you prioritize scalability and cloud integration, StorageGRID is the way to go. Its object-based storage is built specifically for that purpose."

"The most valuable feature is tiering."

"It has improved our operational efficiency through time consumption and logistics by 40 to 50 percent. Everything that had to do with our legacy tape solution has been improved and is now more efficient."

"We definitely saw the benefits of NetApp StorageGRID immediately as our growth of snapshots and our internal customers, including Kelly Blue Book, AutoTrader, and HomeNet, required long-term snapshots, and we saw the results of having NetApp StorageGRID saving us on SSD space."

"The scalability is very effective for our customers."

"The implementation with NetApp went smoothly. It is a 'setup and forget' type of appliance."

"The technical support is good."

More NetApp StorageGRID pros

Cons

"The speed could be improved."

"It would be beneficial if the layer could support the S3 protocol and be container ready in the next release."

"It usually comes down to just what you hit and the value you're getting when you spend the money and license the products. I would always go, "If you want to make things better, lower your price and make your licensing simpler." There's always an opportunity around that."

"The Pure Storage Orchestrator is our biggest pain point at the moment. If we can have more say in future developments of feature sets that we will need to support for our use case, that would be pretty beneficial to us."

"Its configuration should be easier."

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

"I would also like to see better support for CIFS workloads."

"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."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade cons

"There should be the ability to expand the size after it has already been deployed. Currently, you cannot do that. It doesn't support an increase in size. Each time we spawn a new MinIO, we need to track the particular MinIO instance or tenant that has the file. Therefore, we had to create a multi-tenant solution that tracks the MinIO that has our artifacts. It isn't in one single instance. It should have better multi-tenancy support."

"With problems, visibility is hard because everything is in containers. Difficult to get to the logs in order to figure out what the problem was."

"MinIO should provide an easier subscription model for companies that don't have a huge amount of data."

"The tool’s pricing needs to improve. We also encountered challenges while deploying the tool in Kubernetes. The documentation also was not too great. We have currently deployed the solution in a stand-alone fashion."

"The product's initial setup phase is complex."

"We had minor bugs occasionally."

"MinIO has behaved strangely in the past. For instance, the application dropped connection to MinIO. It's not too significant, but it loses connection. We're trying to understand exactly what is happening when this happens."

"Documentation could be improved."

More MinIO cons

"They can enhance the deduplication and compression features, which are crucial for saving more disk space. It's not at the same level as the NetApp filer or the real NetApp cluster that runs itself on its architecture, as StorageGRID is a software solution that emulates a RAID level."

"The processes around installation and upgrade need improvement."

"I would like to see them integrate more with the monitoring platforms. It is a bit difficult to get automated monitoring of the system."

"It's quite complex, which is a disadvantage; it's enterprise-level, it's complicated to set up, and you need external support."

"If I could change anything in NetApp StorageGRID, that would be pricing."

"Beyond the initial setup, this product is a little bit difficult to configure."

"The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present challenges. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node would not upgrade."

"There was a small amount of confusion when working with StorageGRID and Active Directory for access. We had to do things three to four times resulting in our engineer troubleshooting a couple of things. The location of the menu, along with what is inside the menu: configurations, settings, etc., is not straightforward to users. Most users are Windows-based. So, when make logical changes to the menu which are not similar to Windows, users and administrators get confused."

More NetApp StorageGRID cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is within reason for what you get. From what we have found comparing it to other vendors, it is in the same range as others. Given the choice, we would definitely redeploy it based on the cost."

"Our licensing is renewed annually."

"We used a reseller for the purchase."

"The product is very expensive."

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

"Licensing fees are paid yearly."

"The price could be cheaper."

"I feel that the price could always be lowered."

More Pure Storage FlashBlade pricing and cost advice

"This is an open-source solution but I am using the licensed version."

"MinIO is a free open-source solution."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"This solution is open source so it is free."

"My company hasn't tried the version of the solution where we need to pay to use it."

"NetApp is not known for being the cheapest storage option on the market. Almost all of the other storage options we looked at were less expensive than StorageGRID. The price is one thing to criticize, which is what we hear internally and from customers as well. They find the cost of the terabytes in this class of storage a little bit higher than expected."

"The pricing is quite flexible and depends on the specific customer requirements. The initial cost is primarily based on the desired capacity, so it's not a fixed price."

"With respect to pricing, it is okay. This product is mid-range."

"The price is attractive."

"We save money on storage costs from this solution since it allows us to have a source of revenue from customers consuming the service."

"We chose NetApp because of price and performance."

"It is very cost-effective."

"The pricing of StorageGRID falls within the typical range for enterprise-grade solutions and is comparable to other vendors such as Dell, NetApp, and Pure Storage."

More NetApp StorageGRID pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	11

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 of Pure Storage FlashBlade is expensive compared to other products I used from other companies in the pas...

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What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashBlade?

I believe there is not much improvement needed because they have everything we need, but the interface is a little bi...

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How does Red Hat Ceph Storage compare with MiniO?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...

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What do you like most about MinIO?

I like that if you have a problem, you can buy the home server. It is stable and robust.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MinIO?

We use the solution's open-source version.

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp StorageGRID?

The management portals have most significantly improved our data retrieval times. They've made it much easier to rest...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp StorageGRID?

As an administrator, I was not involved in the pricing of NetApp StorageGRID. From what I understood, it was cheaper ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp StorageGRID?

The upgrades of NetApp StorageGRID present challenges. It's a rolling upgrade, node by node. At one point, one node w...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 19% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 9% of the time

VAST Data vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 7% of the time

NetApp AFF vs Pure Storage FlashBlade

Compared 3% of the time

More Pure Storage FlashBlade Competitors

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs MinIO

Compared 54% of the time

Dell ObjectScale vs MinIO

Compared 5% of the time

Cloudian HyperStore vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

VAST Data vs MinIO

Compared 4% of the time

Scality RING vs MinIO

Compared 3% of the time

More MinIO Competitors

Dell ObjectScale vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 22% of the time

Red Hat Ceph Storage vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 21% of the time

Scality RING vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 6% of the time

Hitachi Content Platform vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 6% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs NetApp StorageGRID

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp StorageGRID Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure Storage FlashBlade

October 2025

Download Pure Storage FlashBlade product report

Buyer's Guide

MinIO

October 2025

Download MinIO product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp StorageGRID

October 2025

Download NetApp StorageGRID product report

Also Known As

No data available

Storage GRID

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

MinIO is an open-source object storage system. It is designed to efficiently store and retrieve unstructured data, such as photos, videos, and backups. MinIO can be used as a standalone object storage server or as part of a larger system, such as a data lake or a private cloud, and can be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment, making it a flexible storage solution for a variety of use cases.

MinIO’s features include erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, which help ensure data integrity and reliability. The solution’s multi-tenancy support makes it ideal for multi-user environments. MinIO’s edge computing tools enable data storage and processing closer to users' locations, reducing latency and improving performance. MinIO can easily scale to accommodate storage and power demands, making it ideal for use in large-scale, data-intensive environments.

MinIO Benefits and Features:

MinIO offers several key benefits and features for organizations looking for a scalable and high-performing object storage solution:

Scalability: Horizontally scale to increase storage space and processing power as your needs grow.

High performance: MinIO’s edge computing and low latency provide fast data access.

Seamless integrations: MinIO is compatible with the Amazon S3 API, which enables integration with third-party systems and tools.

Data integrity: Security features, such as erasure coding, bitrot protection, and checksum validation, ensure data integrity and reliability.

Reduced costs: MinIO is an open-source solution, making it a cost-effective option for organizations looking for a scalable object storage solution.

Support: MinIO’s large open-source community of developers and users provides a wide range of resources and an active support network

Multi-tenancy: Multi-tenancy support makes MinIO suitable for use in multi-user environments.

Easy deployment: MinIO is easy to deploy and can run on a variety of platforms, including on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment.

Access control: Role-based access control, enabling you to control access to data based on users permissions.

Event notifications: Automate workflows based on changes to objects in your storage.

Cross-region replication: Duplicate data between different regions for disaster recovery and data backup.

Intuitive interface: MinIO’s user-friendly dashboard can be accessed via any browser and can be used to perform multiple object operations including object creation and management.

Reviews from Real Users

MinIO stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, integration options, and performance.

Süleyman Fazıl Y., a senior software engineer at a tech services company, writes, “The most valuable features are that MinIO is open, it works on-premise, and is compatible with the Amazon industry which is great for finding compatible libraries in many languages which is very good for developers.”

Rebecca S., CTO at NIASE, says, “MinIO is much improved over the prior solution, updates are simple to apply, and we anticipate that future capacity requirements will be easier to meet. Our customers are using this solution to retrieve tens of thousands of objects (documents and files) per hour, and MinIO seems to be able to keep up with it.”

MinIO

Store and manage unstructured data at scale using NetApp StorageGRID for secure, durable object storage. Place content in the right location, at the right time, and on the right storage tier, optimizing workflows and reducing overall costs for globally distributed rich media.

NetApp

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

ASE, DARZ GmbH

Buyer's Guide

MinIO vs. NetApp StorageGRID

September 2025

Free Report: MinIO vs. NetApp StorageGRID

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