VAST Data vs Zadara comparison

VAST Data and Zadara are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. VAST Data is ranked #20 with an average rating of 10.0, while Zadara is ranked #33 with an average rating of 7.5. VAST Data holds a 2.3% mindshare in AFS, compared to Zadara’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of VAST Data users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zadara users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Zadara and VAST Data are competing products in the storage solutions market. Users are happier with the pricing and support of Zadara, but VAST Data is favored for its advanced features, making it worth the price for many users.

Features: Zadara is highly appreciated for its scalability, intuitive management, and seamless integration with cloud services. VAST Data impresses users with its high-performance storage, low latency, and innovative use of NVMe over Fabrics technology. While both have strong features, users looking for cutting-edge performance might lean towards VAST Data.

Room for Improvement:Zadara could enhance its backup solutions and provide more frequent updates. VAST Data needs a more user-friendly setup process and better documentation. While Zadara's updates and backup could improve, VAST Data's onboarding experience requires refinement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zadara is praised for its straightforward deployment model and responsive customer support. VAST Data, while featuring a robust deployment model, is critiqued for occasional complexities. VAST Data's customer service, though generally effective, occasionally falls short of expectations. The ease of deployment favors Zadara, while customer service quality sees both products with room for improvement.

Pricing and ROI: Users find Zadara's setup costs to be more affordable and note a satisfactory ROI. VAST Data, although having higher setup costs, delivers substantial ROI due to its advanced technology. Zadara appeals to cost-conscious users, while VAST Data attracts those prioritizing high performance even at a premium price.

To learn more, read our detailed VAST Data vs. Zadara Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

VAST Data vs. Zadara

April 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 FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.8%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VAST Data is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Eugene Hemphill

Sales Manager at Multicomputos PR

Helps to save money and resources with the data compression feature

One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them. One way to improve the product is to add an operational assistant that doesn't depend on VMware. It could also establish more alliances with other operational systems.

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Alan Powers

HPC CTO at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Stability-wise, a device that has been up and running for years

The failover capability and resiliency are some of the solution's valuable features. The big thing is resilience because it has richer coding in it, so multiple devices can't fail. Also, one can still access a number of CBoxes that can allow one to access their file system. Once a device fails, it fails the transparency of the end-user, and it just starts using another resource. The encryption capability, the snapshots, along with a whole bunch of features make the tool valuable. VAST Data keeps adding more and more features all the time.

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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 good, reliable, fast storage."

"The latency is good."

"Everything, especially the VMs inside, is pretty fast."

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

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate Pure FlashArray as ten."

"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."

"It is very easy to install and configure. It has got excellent diagnostics. If you really need to see how the box is performing, the console gives you a lot of information. You can set thresholds as well as alerts based on the thresholds, which is a very powerful functionality. They are very proactive. They know how to monitor and manage the systems. They see a problem, and they are all over it before us. They see the problem before we see it, which is very good."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe has low latency and high Ops. It is an evergreen model."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations."

"This has been one of the most reliable storage systems that I have ever used."

"I find Zadara's user-friendliness from both the customer and engineering perspectives highly appreciated."

"It provides very satisfactory storage performance."

"The most valuable features of Zadara are its visibility and simplicity to use."

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

"One of the most useful features is that they provide iSCSI as a service."

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

"Zadara saves both time and money."

"Zadara Storage Cloud having 24/7 management saves me support and engineering costs because the storage and computing are managed by a third-party. We are able to focus more attention on the customer, which is truly our core business. Even at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM at night, someone will answer, which is important."

More Zadara pros

Cons

"It's more multi-tenant functionality in their Pure1 manage portal that is lacking."

"Every time I think of something that needs to improve, they're one step ahead, which I love. The only area I wish to see improve, I believe is coming, is in the FlashBlade product. Blade implementation fell short on a few of the services."

"Maybe the price can be reduced since the solution is very expensive."

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"In the future, I would like to see integration with enterprise backup systems."

"If the customer only needs 500 terabytes and doesn't care how much data they'll put in the server, IBM is cheaper than Pure."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"One point I'd like to improve is that the tool should start selling small boxes again. It discontinued some products and is focusing on bigger, more capable boxes, neglecting the SMB market. Even though it's not a big market, it shouldn't have removed them."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement."

"The write performance could be improved because it is less than half of the read performance."

"The cost is not favorable as Zadara does not provide competitive rates for regions like South Africa and Ethiopia."

"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."

"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."

"The range of support of VMware could be better. It can support Windows, however, it cannot support other operating systems like IBM AIX. This needs to improve."

"The initial setup of the solution is complex."

"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."

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

"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."

More Zadara cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"The tool is an investment that we've budgeted for. While the prices may be higher than those of other vendors, we see it as a market leader with benefits. We don't regret purchasing it."

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"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."

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

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

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"We acquired VAST Data as a one-time, capital purchase."

"Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

Computer Software Company

23%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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?

I am an engineer and am not aware of the setup cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Adding some functions to the product would be beneficial. Storage replication should be essential, and the analytics ...

See all answers

What do you like most about VAST Data?

The solution is useful for machine learning and scientific applications, including computer simulations.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VAST Data?

Price-wise, VAST Data is not the cheapest, not the most expensive one.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VAST Data?

The read/write ratio is an area in the solution with some flaws and needs improvement.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 30% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 17% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 15% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 11% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 8% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

NetApp AFF vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerScale (Isilon) vs VAST Data

Compared 10% of the time

Qumulo vs VAST Data

Compared 9% of the time

Databricks vs VAST Data

Compared 8% of the time

More VAST Data Competitors

MinIO vs Zadara

Compared 21% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Zadara

Compared 18% of the time

Amazon S3 vs Zadara

Compared 14% of the time

Wasabi vs Zadara

Compared 10% of the time

Google Cloud Storage vs Zadara

Compared 8% of the time

More Zadara Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

April 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays

April 2025

Download VAST Data product report

Buyer's Guide

Zadara

April 2025

Download Zadara product report

Also Known As

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

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

Innovation to break decades of data storage trade-offs.

VAST Data

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

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Norwest Venture Partners, General Dynamics Information Technology, Ginkgo Bioworks

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

Buyer's Guide

VAST Data vs. Zadara

April 2025

Free Report: VAST Data vs. Zadara

Find out what your peers are saying about VAST Data vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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