NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs SolidFire comparison

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays and SolidFire are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is ranked #26 with an average rating of 9.5, while SolidFire is ranked #27 with an average rating of 9.0. NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays holds a 0.7% mindshare in AFS, compared to SolidFire’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SolidFire users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

SolidFire and NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are high-performance storage solutions. SolidFire's competitive pricing and customer support are appealing, while NetApp EF-Series justifies its higher cost with superior features.

Features: SolidFire stands out for its scale-out architecture, automated performance management, and consistent performance. NetApp EF-Series is valued for high availability, data protection features, and straightforward management. NetApp EF-Series is often seen as having a richer feature set, better aligned with enterprise requirements.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest SolidFire could enhance integration capabilities, expand reporting tools, and improve user interface. For NetApp EF-Series, users call for easier firmware updates, more intuitive performance monitoring tools, and simplified system upgrades. NetApp EF-Series receives fewer complaints overall.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolidFire is praised for its simple deployment process and proactive technical support. NetApp EF-Series is noted for a complex initial setup but reliable post-deployment experience.

Pricing and ROI: SolidFire is generally praised for its lower upfront costs and better ROI within smaller-scale deployments. NetApp EF-Series, despite higher initial costs, delivers significant ROI in long-term enterprise environments due to its stability and feature richness. Users feel NetApp's higher price is justified by its long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 872,778 peers since 2012

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 FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolidFire is 0.2%, down from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Pure FlashArray X NVMe	1.1%
NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays	0.7%
SolidFire	0.2%
Other	98.0%

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

Read full review

Tayo Olubanke

Managing Director at GCET

Offers flexibility and top-notch technology

You can go to bed peacefully if you have a NetApp. If you have NetApp within your data center, you get to know about power failure if you are using it. Your NetApp will still come alive. Even if it does not come alive, I can say that it is not like other tools when it comes to dealing with power failure. The tool is affordable, and the technology is top-notch. It is the only technology that has software for what we call inline compression and deduplication. All the products under NetApp are aiming to use AI. I know that you can achieve whatever you want to do with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Read full review

Ramil Cerrada

Solution lead at Globe Mobile

A versatile storage solution suitable for various workloads in cloud environments providing scalable architecture, granular Quality of Service and consistent performance

The most significant benefit lies in its exceptional performance, driven by its Flash-based architecture. This enhances routing speed and, consequently, database performance. The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"It offers competitive performance, and the Evergreen storage model of Pure fits well with my organization."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and performance."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"We're able to get higher-density workloads on the same infrastructure, and we have a smaller physical footprint. The performance is excellent – during our test the bottlenecks are never on the X array, it just keeps picking up the pace to match what you need. The real-time visibility is a differentiator in my opinion."

"The high availability of the product is the most valuable feature."

"One of the best features is the support, which is excellent."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market."

"The hardware and software of NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays are easy for us to use."

"Its performance is most valuable. This solution is much faster than other as well as older storage solutions. The performance of the system is very good. We are getting 50 times better experience than the older storages. We are using AFF 300. It also has native cloud integration and most of the features."

"One of the most valuable features is the overall performance it provides. You're able to throw a pile of IOPS at it and it will handle that without much issue."

"We do a lot of in-house, application-dependent type things, where we find the different niches to the different things. Certain things they do better. We've found that it actually does very well on some of our higher-end applications."

"The replication and mirroring features are very good."

"Rapid deployment, easy integration management and cloning of areas."

"Having the option of such high-speed storage in the data center is what makes it valuable."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pros

"We can just buy them, scale them as we need on demand, and we don't have to spend so many front end cycles on designing the architecture."

"I would say in terms of architecture and in terms of functionality, the product is quite good."

"The most valuable feature is the performance, as well as how you manage performance on the system."

"The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance which is particularly valuable for tasks like data mining, where quick results are essential."

"The simplicity of it."

"SolidFire has seamless performance for the nodes and extensions. I also like the tool’s scalability. The product’s performance does not get affected when we scale either up or down. This is not the case with other products."

"If you buy the solution for its specific purpose it will work well."

"If we get complaints about any kind of performance metric issues, whether it's storage related or something on the virtual side, we use it to pinpoint what the actual issue is."

More SolidFire pros

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"It feels more suitable for small and medium-sized businesses rather than enterprises."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

"We would like to see VNC integration or be able to use Pure Storage with VNC."

"We've seen that when we create a POD in synchronous mode, it increases the latency."

"We need better data deduplication."

"There is room for improvement in catering to midrange storage needs, especially for customers seeking Enterprise-class features."

"In the next release, I would like to see real-time analytics for further insight into consumption models."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The management interface, while very reliable, it seems a little old now and could maybe use a little modernization."

"They could improve overall scalability through performance. Denser capacity, which is doable, it is what the competition is doing."

"The only major drawback is the replication between EF-Series units."

"This solution has limited storage."

"There could be better integration with some of our Cisco products."

"The dashboard could be simplified."

"NetApp could improve the speed of the rebuilding rate."

"A little more manageability, a simpler management interface. It's not necessarily that it's way overly complex. It's just that it's not as easy as the FAS series."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays cons

"We had some false positives, power supplies failing, and that's really been about it. We had a couple of glitches during some upgrade processes but nothing that was really concerning to us."

"It's a very good Windows-type solution. But we do a lot of legacy systems and the like. So it's getting that incorporated into it that would help us."

"One of the challenges we faced while using SolidFire was that the product line that we were using in our company was discontinued."

"The inclusion of more protocols and interfaces would make it easier to integrate with other products."

"So feature-wise, I would say more reporting tools that could be merged into it."

"This solution would be improved if it were made to be more compatible with other products."

"I think there is room for improvement needed with its storage capability. A bigger node is needed."

"I would like to see integration with the cloud, number one. Being able to spin SolidFire in the cloud."

More SolidFire cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Given its price, Pure is not the first option."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe’s pricing is cheaper than other products."

"With Pure Storage, we would like to continue seeing price reductions with flash storage. I don't think we're any different than anybody else when we continue to look to the industry for price reductions of both NVMe and traditional SSD storage. We would like to see these prices continue to decline and erode, even displacing large spinning disks."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"Its price could be better. It is not too expensive, but it is the high-end cost. It is kind of a Rolls-Royce. You pay a lot, but you get a lot out of it. So, the price pressure on the way down would be great, but at the end of the day, if you need to do the work, you just pay for it."

"Our licensing fees are $500,000+ USD."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"The pricing of the solution is expensive, considering the initial investment required...At the end of the product's life cycle, it could get cheaper, but the initial investment in NetApp makes it one of the most expensive solutions."

"The pricing is comparable with other competitors and similar in mid-range solutions, and for high range solutions, it would depend on our requirements or needs."

"The price point for EF is considerably lower than the alternatives."

"The pricing of this solution is competitive with other vendors here in Egypt."

"Its cost-effectiveness is a major selling point. Compared to other storage vendors, the EF-Series offers excellent value for its price. It's truly a leading product in the industry."

"They need to improve its pricing. The storage market is dying. So, they need to improve the price because it should reach all people. NetApp is one of the top ones, and they are charging a little bit of royalty as compared to other storage solutions."

"One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to renew the license."

"Cheaper pricing is always good. NetApp has been doing everything the right way. They've been figuring out things really well, going in the right direction."

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays pricing and cost advice

"We would probably use SolidFire more, except we're getting more bang for our buck with our purchases of ONTAP right now, and the deal we made with NetApp, so it's more of just a cost decision"

"The price of this solution is more expensive than others."

"It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay for what you get."

"Based on what I heard from other people, its price was on the higher side."

"On a scale where one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the solution between three and four. It is an expensive solution."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which All-Flash Storage solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Performing Arts

12%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	12

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	16

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

Considering the cost, I find NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays to be the best storage available in the market.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

One has to opt for a perpetual-based licensing model for one year or three years. After three years, you need to rene...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays?

The support of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. I want NetApp's supp...

See all answers

What do you like most about SolidFire?

The provisioning process is efficient and doesn't demand higher latency, ensuring optimal data transfer performance w...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SolidFire?

It might be considered expensive, but when evaluating performance, it represents good value online because you pay fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SolidFire?

There is room for improvement with a focus on creating a centralized storage system, functioning similar to AWS. This...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 21% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 22% of the time

NetApp AFF vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 19% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 18% of the time

NetApp ASA vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 12% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

Compared 11% of the time

More NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays Competitors

NetApp AFF vs SolidFire

Compared 100% of the time

More SolidFire Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

October 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays

October 2025

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays report

Download NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays product report

Buyer's Guide

SolidFire

October 2025

Download SolidFire product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

NetApp EF540, NetApp EF-Series

No data available

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

The NetApp EF560 all-flash array is an all-SSD storage system for applications that demand extremely high levels of performance and reliability. Requiring just 2U of rack space, the EF560 all-flash array combines extreme IOPS, microsecond response times, and up to 12GBps of bandwidth with leading, enterprise-proven availability features.

NetApp

SolidFire delivers all five core elements needed to deliver newfound storage agility to your next generation data center and beyond. With SolidFire you can deploy new applications and capabilities faster, provide more agile and scalable infrastructure, increase application performance and predictability, enable automation and end-user self-service and raise operational efficiency and reduce cost.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

RP Data, Western Oregon University, Toei Animation

California Public Utilities Commission, RFA, 1&1, Ultimate Software , Endicia, ezVerify, MercadoLibre, Sungard Availability Services, ServInt, Elastx, Hosted Network, Colt, Crucial, iWeb, Datapipe, Databarracks

Buyer's Guide

NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire

September 2025

Free Report: NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire

Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our NetApp EF-Series All Flash Arrays vs. SolidFire report.

See our list of best All-Flash Storage vendors.

We monitor all All-Flash Storage reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.