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Azure Blob Storage 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

Azure Blob Storage
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure NetApp Files
Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (9th), Cloud Storage (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Service Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cloud storage has simplified team data access and provides reliable, globally available redundancy
The first thing I find really useful about Azure Blob Storage is that it is a cloud service running on the cloud. Using cloud storage, all the things are actually running on the cloud and they are managed by the cloud vendor. Microsoft is managing the backend things. I am just monitoring and managing the things, and I do not need to think about the physical things, upgrades, and all those things. That is managed by the OEM, which is a good thing. Additionally, it is globally available anywhere, so there are advantages in communications with the clients and all those things from that side. The main benefit that Azure Blob Storage provides for me is redundancy. They have multiple types of redundancy from the storage perspective, such as local redundant storage and zone redundant storage. Data will be available anytime, and that kind of assurance they are giving us is actually the main reason I can say for the Azure perspective. Access is one area where Azure Blob Storage can improve, as they have multiple types of storage. In Blob Storage, they also have file shares and queue storage. I have not seen any issues with Azure Blob Storage right now, and the access features allow us to grant the minimum level of access to the users, so users can only read the data. I can say those are also good features from an Azure Blob Storage perspective, and I have not seen anything negative there.
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

"Azure Blob Storage is globally available anywhere, allowing for good communication with clients and taking advantage from that side."
"The main benefit that Azure Blob Storage provides for me is redundancy."
"Simply try it out because it's worth the effort to have a look at it."
"One aspect of Azure NetApp Files that I truly appreciate is its remarkable performance capabilities."
"It's like the Porsche of storage solutions in the cloud."
"This solution definitely makes us more efficient in being able to provide storage quickly to our customers in the Azure Cloud."
"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."
"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 all depends on the requirement; if the customer is an enterprise customer wanting a disaster recovery solution without manual efforts to migrate or replicate data from one Azure region to another, then Azure NetApp Files is a seamless solution."
"Azure NetApp Files gives our clients better options."
 

Cons

"A proper monitoring dashboard would help, allowing us to see the usage and IO utilization."
"The initial setup for Azure Blob Storage is right now simple, but they could improve the implementation in the future, particularly around configuration, access-related management, and related things."
"The pricing definitely needs to be improved."
"We would like to see more paired regions for the replication."
"Its pricing can be better."
"This solution is very expensive compared to the alternatives."
"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."
"The main hurdle in promoting this solution is the price. Its price definitely requires an improvement. It is more expensive than other options, so customers go for a cheaper option."
"We were looking for a clustered solution that has over-complicated things because we had it in AWS, which is Amazon. There was a solution for clustered NetApp. That meant there would be two NetApps that were not clustered because there was no solution for a cluster. We would like there to be an HA cluster solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"In the cloud, pricing depends on how you manage it. It's not necessarily cheap, but it's all about optimizing charges and showing the cost back. So, it's more about managing the expenses rather than being inherently expensive or cheap."
"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 pricing depends on your scaling and consumption."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"The performance has improved by about 30 percent."
"It is expensive in small environments, which could be better. The reason is the four terabyte minimum. A one terabyte minimum would be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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 Azure Blob Storage?
A proper monitoring dashboard would help, allowing us to see the usage and IO utilization. If there is any monitoring application, it could help us get more information about how many users are con...
What is your primary use case for Azure Blob Storage?
We have moved multiple things not only from the physical perspective but also to the cloud, and I can say that we have moved to Azure. Currently, I have started working on Azure cloud, and I am usi...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Blob Storage?
Azure VMware Solution, which is abbreviated as AVS, is a VMware solution that I am using. I am not using any other Azure solutions beyond Azure Blob Storage, and most of the storage is Azure Blob S...
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

No data available
NetApp ANF, ANF
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SAP, Restaurant Magic
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Blob Storage vs. Azure NetApp Files and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.