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AWS Transfer for SFTP [EOL] vs Kiteworks 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

AWS Transfer for SFTP [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kiteworks
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (16th), Email Security (26th), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (8th), Content Collaboration Platforms (14th), Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Kyle Titus - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Revio
Always works, handles all types of load, and allows us to have S3 files as storage
Its cost needs improvement. In addition, there could be a universal client that works on all desktops. There could be client software that you use to connect to the server. Generally, AWS doesn't provide one for you, so you have to use either your CLI, maybe your SSH CLI, or use some kind of desktop solution. I had to find a desktop app from a third party to run this. Our clients also do the same everywhere else, so it would be nice if the SFTP Gateway solution came with a client that anyone could download on their Mac, Windows, or any other machine.
KT
Associate Consultant at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Streamlined global file sharing with user-friendly interface and self-service capabilities
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifications, they can understand any disruptions are due to issues with their network or bandwidth rather than the site or Kiteworks. Additionally, I work from offshore India, and I told my client manager to communicate with the Kiteworks forum salesman regarding one feature. I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has helped with collaboration in our organization."
"The most valuable feature for us is data persistence, because it basically gives you a snapshot history and the solution also offers good data recovery."
"Being able to have the S3 files as storage is most valuable. We can use S3 as storage instead of an SFTP server or a machine."
"The solution offers good data recovery."
"We could see whether the customer with whom we shared a file had downloaded it, which was not available with GitHub."
"We can see when people are sending things. We can definitely see who is sending to whom. From the administrative logs, we can see who is sending to an outside entity, and those logs are retained for quite a while."
"The solution can be used remotely, including from mobiles, and it's easy to upload and share files."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to allow end-users to manage their own information and data with minimal administration. That's the best feature from my perspective."
"Kiteworks is easy to manage and maintain with a user-friendly interface and I recommend it to anyone that requires a file-sharing system that supports SFTP."
"As a file-sharing application, it's an absolute 10 out of 10."
"The most useful feature of this solution is to share files with external parties and we can use this functionality to share files internally too."
"The best part of this solution is that we can generate multiple reports about how the data is transferred and about user information or IP."
 

Cons

"SFTP would be better if it was more automated, particularly for file transfers."
"Its cost needs improvement. In addition, there could be a universal client that works on all desktops."
"The tool's UI should be pretty easy and straightforward. I would also like to see a simple audit report of the SFTP guest account that shows the amount of data transfers and security kind enabled."
"Kiteworks could benefit from enhancing the proposal knowledge base section, specifically regarding the type of work involved. Currently, the knowledge base seems insufficiently dedicated to this topic, making it challenging for new users to access the relevant administrative law. Improving the visual aids and providing clearer explanations could alleviate this issue."
"The system is extremely stable, but because it is a "COTS" system access is restricted and you must use the solution's support to make even simple changes, which increases the downtime."
"The one feature, which I have also requested directly to Kiteworks, is to have a scheduled upgrade function. Currently, one of my engineers logs in after hours for the upgrade. We're a hospital, and we're 24/7, but the primary users are seven to five. So, we log in the early evening just to push a button to tell it to do the update. It would be nice if that could be very easily scheduled."
"It could be more stable. In the next release, it would be better if it was more stable with improved performance."
"There are always issues when there are bugs or upgrades. The challenge with upgrading is getting more storage from the customer. Every time we have a new version, it requires additional storage. This means that the customer would need to procure more storage for their server, which they don't like because it means additional cost to them. So, I think my request would be that the version upgrades don't require any significant storage requirement."
"I noticed the Kiteworks login UI is very basic, lacking customization. Allowing more HTML tags to add hyperlinks or user-friendly information on the home page would be very useful."
"We have experienced some issues with stability due to bugs."
"In my experience, their technical support can be a little slow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's $249 per month per instance. It's not great; it's pretty pricey. We've got multiple users on that one instance. If we had to build it by hand, we would win on cost there, but obviously, there is effort and time. In terms of the additional costs, they do have some specific pricing, but for our use case, we don't end up going over $249. They do specify in their pricing what they're charging for."
"The price of Kiteworks is reasonable."
"I believe it's a little costly, but given the faith that we put into it from a security perspective to maintain the integrity of our patient information that is being transferred through this system, that's a small price to pay. So, on the surface, it might look like a lot of money, but depending on the need for security, which is where we feel it shines, it's okay price-wise."
"The license management is changing and confusing. If I could make one change to it, it would be better license management through the API."
"The solution is very expensive because we are buying with Malaysian Ringgit and it's sold in US dollars."
"They changed it midstream. We were being charged a certain flat rate for SFTP traffic. For whatever reason, at the beginning of the year, our pricing changed, and we are now being charged more for using a feature of the product than we were when we first bought it. That has been our experience with billing. It turned out to be more expensive than when we started with it."
"It is not really expensive. I mean, to me it's obviously expensive, but it's worth it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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What is Kiteworks?
Kiteworks is a secured file sharing platform that enables users to collaborate with different parties across a robust offering of secured protected channels. Users have the option of virtual privat...
What needs improvement with Kiteworks?
I'm not a network expert, however, there must be some room for improvement. Perhaps there could be a notification to users about their bandwidth or network packet loss. If users receive such notifi...
What advice do you have for others considering Kiteworks?
Scalability is impressive. It can be highly available, resilient, and scalable infrastructure. I can confidently give it a nine. It suits any level of organization, whether a small setup with two a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Accellion
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Myriota, FINRA, Celgene, Kontor New Media, Belong, ThinkCX, BluTV
United States Securities and Exchange Commission, National Health Service, Husch Blackwell LLP, NYC Health + Hospitals, Viatris, MITRE Corporation, Chubb, Kraft Heinz, KPMG, Kohler, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Purdue Pharma, AVL
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra, BMC, IBM and others in Managed File Transfer (MFT). Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.