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Amazon FSx vs Azure NetApp Files comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Amazon FSx
Ranking in Cloud Storage
15th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (5th), File and Object Storage (17th)
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Cloud Storage
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (9th), Public Cloud Storage Services (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Amazon FSx is 2.9%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure NetApp Files is 3.0%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure NetApp Files3.0%
Amazon FSx2.9%
Other94.1%
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group
Shared storage capabilities provide enterprise value with good reliability
Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS. The auto-scaling feature should be improved, as it currently includes downtime. I need to manually increase the storage, which is not ideal. Integrating FSx with Windows Server is challenging; it's a long process involving Active Directory (AD) setup and synchronization.
Rajat Wadhwa - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at IBM
Cross-region replication has delivered seamless disaster recovery for enterprise storage needs
In terms of improvement, I would say cost reservation; the cost is a bit high. If we compare Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, I know that customers are using less of Azure NetApp due to the cost. If they bring the cost a little bit closer to what Azure Files offers, it can be a great product in the market and bring a lot of business to NetApp. Backup is quite critical. As of now, Azure NetApp Files requires you to use Azure NetApp Backup solution, which is in public preview at the moment. I would definitely expect NetApp to come up with that solution so that customers can start using it because they do not have confidence in backup as it is still in preview. They are still doing some testing and research on that product, which is not officially released for use by multiple customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Amazon FSx a ten."
"We used it for disaster recovery perspective behind a number of resources, like batch services and RDS."
"The shared storage capability is highly valuable."
"FSx operates as an independent service, not tied to any server, which eliminates dependencies between applications for storage."
"I rate the stability of Amazon FSx ten out of ten."
"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."
"Azure NetApp Files gives our clients better options."
"The most valuable feature is that the sixty-terabyte database snapshot can be done in less than two to three minutes."
"Using Azure NetApp Files got us out of a really difficult situation quickly, effectively, and at a reasonable cost."
"We use Azure NetApp Files mainly for backup."
"The critical features of this solution are SnapMirror for replication, data protection, and SnapLock."
"We recommend this solution to our customers because of its ease of use, availability, and security, but they don't usually go for it because of its price."
"It's elastic, so it scales with our demands. We can start small, then with the addition of customer loads, we can expand on-the-fly without the need to reprovision something."
 

Cons

"From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for higher IOPS."
"Amazon FSx is more costly compared to other storage solutions like EBS or EFS."
"I've been facing a challenge when doing a failover from FSx side. AWS console does not refresh within a half hour."
"A direct FTP feature would be beneficial instead of relying on transmission services."
"This solution would be improved with more innovation."
"I have a hunch that storage could be now the most expensive portion of our monthly bill. So I can imagine that, not this year, but next year we will be talking about looking deeper into ways how we can optimize the cost."
"In terms of improvement, I would say cost reservation; the cost is a bit high. If we compare Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, I know that customers are using less of Azure NetApp due to the cost."
"We would like for the files which are coming in that we can version them. So, if a file is accidentally deleted, there should have a recycle bin option where we can go back, and at least once, clean it up."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"Reserved Instances for Azure NetApp Files would improve more use cases, making them more valuable in Azure as the cost would be reduced."
"The main area for improvement is in the support ticket system. Since it's a SaaS platform, support tickets are managed by Microsoft or NetApp backend. This can sometimes lead to cross-functional challenges for organizations."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The lowest price I have paid is $370 or $380 per month, while the highest can exceed $3,000 per month."
"The solution’s combination of the ease of use, simplicity, and reduction in IT management versus the cost has helped a lot. It is very fast to deploy. It's very easy to maintain. You don't have to do a lot in the cloud to maintain this thing, so it gives good performance. It's fast to deploy, easy to maintain, and it gives a better performance. These are the most basic three criteria for any application. This saves cost because the manpower you need to deploy is going down. You're getting better performance and not buying new resources. You have resources available in the cloud. It's just a couple of clicks, then you're good to go."
"The licensing fees for this solution vary, ranging from a single shelf to a full suite."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"We are currently on a pay-as-you-go model with the storage that we use."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"Its price is double the price of the premium disks, which is the main reason why customers don't go for this solution in the end."
"The price of Azure NetApp Files could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon FSx?
From my experience, there are areas in Amazon FSx where more performance is needed, as they will be looking for higher IOPS. Sometimes we go with Weka or other solutions due to this need, so it sho...
What is your primary use case for Amazon FSx?
Our customers mainly use Amazon FSx for high-performance computing. Our customers are mainly in the Life Science and Pharma industries. The majority of people are looking at S3 as their destination...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon FSx?
There is an ongoing project where my customers are exploring the FSx solution, but not yet for AI-driven projects; they plan to in the future. For those who want to use Amazon FSx, I recommend it a...
How does Azure NetApp Files compare to NetApp ONTAP?
Azure NetApp Files is a Microsoft Azure file storage service built on NetApp technology. The platform combines the file capabilities of Azure and NetApp to move critical file-based applications to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure NetApp Files?
On pricing, I would rate it around eight. It's highly priced, and there's no cost reservation option available compared to Azure Files. If NetApp could bring that kind of model for customers to sav...
What needs improvement with Azure NetApp Files?
In terms of improvement, I would say cost reservation; the cost is a bit high. If we compare Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, I know that customers are using less of Azure NetApp due to the cost...
 

Also Known As

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon FSx for Lustre
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Neiman Marcus, T Mobile, Docxellent, Matrix, Lyell
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon FSx vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.