IBM SoftLayer vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

Why PeerSpot?

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Public Cloud Storage Services category. IBM is ranked #19, while NetApp is ranked #11 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 2.0% mindshare in PCSS, compared to NetApp’s 5.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM SoftLayer

Read 2 IBM SoftLayer reviews

1,163 Views
896 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Read 64 NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP reviews

12,211 Views
3,297 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM SoftLayer

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 1, 2024

IBM SoftLayer and NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP are prominent cloud storage solutions with distinct strengths. While users report better pricing and support satisfaction for IBM SoftLayer, NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP’s advanced features make it a preferred choice for those focused on comprehensive functionality.

Features: IBM SoftLayer is valued for its robust security, global data center presence, and straightforward deployment process. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is praised for its efficient data management, backup, restoration features, and sophisticated data services, making it more favorable for users needing advanced data management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Users of IBM SoftLayer seek improved integration options, enhanced analytics, and more extensive connectivity with third-party tools. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP users desire simpler usability, more intuitive configuration, and streamlined setup processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SoftLayer users note its straightforward deployment process and responsive customer support. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP provides a relatively smooth deployment experience, with some users mentioning a learning curve. However, NetApp’s technical support receives high praise for its expertise, often offsetting initial setup challenges.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SoftLayer is generally perceived as cost-effective with quick ROI, emphasizing its affordability. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, while perceived as more expensive, is noted for delivering higher long-term value due to its advanced features, making it worth the investment for those seeking comprehensive data solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 920,769 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

IBM SoftLayer

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Ranking in Public Cloud Storage Services

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Storage (10th), Cloud Backup (26th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Public Cloud Storage Services category, the mindshare of IBM SoftLayer is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 5.9%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Public Cloud Storage Services Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP	5.9%
IBM SoftLayer	2.0%
Other	92.1%

Public Cloud Storage Services

Featured Reviews

reviewer1032702

Global Principal Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Stable with excellent speed and agility

The most valuable aspect of the solution is simply to have the ability to host in a cloud form and out of the data center - the IBM big iron solution. It's the speed and the agility that really sell SoftLayer. The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer. The ability to extract act from your current location, load into your future location, with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome. The stability and scalability are quite good.

Read full review

reviewer5948293

Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Offers performance control and cloud integration while supporting data management with granular flexibility

The scalability of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is interesting. We have thought about it, but we haven't used it. I think the scalability is something you scale up rather than respond to peak demand. It wouldn't help with outages either; the scaling is manual, and there are no processes we've used to automate that for unexpected scenarios. We like the scalability; it's enough for what we're planning to use, but we haven't used any advanced features. The standard platform is NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, which is their cloud service. In fact, that's probably the most experience I have with NetApp. I've experienced it on-premise, but kind of secondhand.

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

"The stability is the solution's most valuable aspect for our organization."

"The ELT versus ETL extract, transform and load versus extract, load, and then transform, the ELT method is what really sells SoftLayer."

"The ability to extract from your current location, load into your future location with limited change, and then be able to take the transfer actions slowly and methodically after you're in your new location is the part that really makes this awesome."

"The solution is highly stable."

"The support is its most valuable feature as they provide on-call support, respond to issues in a timely fashion, and also offer disaster recovery."

"The solution’s Snapshot copies and thin clones in terms of operational recovery are the best thing since sliced bread. Rollback is super easy. It's just simple, and it works. It's very efficient."

"Snapshot copies and thin clones have made our recovery time a lot faster."

"The most valuable feature is its exceptional performance and storage efficiency."

"ONTAP made us less reliant on in-house hardware."

"It is much easier to control data since we can run queries across all our platforms with just one solution. Not only that, we can also monitor all the platforms with Active IQ, where we can see all the alerts, messages, and space consumption through a single application. This is regardless if the data is on-prem or AWS. It is much more efficient."

"Snapshots are one valuable feature within ONTAP, but CVO's appeal is that it acts just like the on-prem solution. It's the same OS, but in the cloud. We can continue to use ONTAP as we did on-premise."

"Its functionality and technical support are adequate to help prevent failure due to errors."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pros

Cons

"The interface is hard to use for us. It should be simplified."

"For us, the versioning was an issue."

"It does not have tutorials in languages such as French, German, Spanish."

"I think the challenge now is more in terms of keeping an air gap. The notion that it is in the cloud, easy to break, etc. The challenge now is mostly about the air gap and how we can protect that in the cloud."

"It would be fantastic if NetApp could offer a solution that's as user-friendly as Google Drive for seamless cloud storage integration."

"Scale-up and scale-out could be improved. It would be interesting to have multiple HA pairs on one cluster, for example, or to increase the single instances more, from a performance perspective. It would be good to get more performance out of a single HA pair."

"I would like to see more aggressive management of the aggregate space. On the Cloud Volumes ONTAP that we use for offsite backup copies, most of the data sits in S3. There are also the EBS volumes on the Cloud Volumes ONTAP itself. Sometimes what happens is that the aggregate size just stays the same. If it allocates 8 terabytes initially, it just stays at 8 terabytes for a long time, even though we're only using 20 percent of that 8 terabytes. NetApp could undersize that more aggressively."

"I would like NetApp to come up with an easier setup for the solution."

"We would like to have support for high availability in multi-regions."

"We have customers that are still using IBM mainframes and that very old SNA architecture from IBM. There are questions about how you interconnect the data on the mainframe side... But I don't know if it's worth it for NetApp to invest in developing products to include mainframes for a few customers."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Overall, the pricing of NetApp is aggressive and the pricing becomes more aggressive as the amount of data increases. The cost for a given volume of data that you are storing becomes lower. The greater the volume of data, the cheaper the license."

"Some flexibility around the licensing model would help. The product is licensed based on capacity. Basically, the largest capacity license that you can buy is 368 terabytes. At this point, NetApp is addressing some people's concerns around this."

"Once we deploy the pay as you go model, we cannot convert this product as a BYOL model. This is a concern that we have."

"For enterprise customers, it's a very cost effective. But in the SMB segment, yeah, pricing is a little bit challenge for your time."

"I know the licensing is a bit on the high-end. That's when we had to downsize our MetroCluster disks and just migrate to disks that were half used. We migrated into those just to reduce maintenance costs."

"Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good, but it was a test system, not a real purchase."

"They have a very good price which keeps our customers happy."

"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Public Cloud Storage Services solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	53

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is actually quite reasonable in price compared to other native cloud storage options. For example, a customer using 100 TB of AWS storage would not benefit from deduplica...

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

It would be nice to see technology supporting the Elastic Fabric Adapter on Amazon AWS, therefore getting RDMA technology for more low-latency connections.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?

I use NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP mostly in customer companies.

See all answers

Comparisons

Amazon S3 vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 17% of the time

Amazon S3 Glacier vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 16% of the time

Oracle Cloud Software Appliance vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM SoftLayer

Compared 8% of the time

More IBM SoftLayer Competitors

Amazon S3 vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 5% of the time

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 5% of the time

Azure NetApp Files vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

Amazon FSx vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

CTERA Intelligent Data Platform vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Compared 3% of the time

More NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Public Cloud Storage Services

October 2026

Download IBM SoftLayer product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

October 2026

Download NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP product report

Also Known As

CloudLayer

ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO

Overview

IBM SoftLayer, part of IBM Cloud offerings, provides robust infrastructure services designed to meet business demands for scalability and flexibility. It supports a range of computing needs, offering customizable resources with high performance and reliability.

IBM SoftLayer is an enterprise-grade cloud platform that combines powerful networking, security, and redundancy features. It enables users to deploy a combination of physical and virtual devices, facilitating hybrid cloud solutions. Known for its flexibility, it caters to businesses needing infrastructure tailored to specific operational needs, ensuring efficient workload management and performance.

What are the most important features of IBM SoftLayer?

Network Configuration: Offers high-speed networking with options for private, public, and management networks.
Security Measures: Comprehensive security with DDoS protection, firewalls, and encryption services.
Scalability Options: Flexible scaling of resources for dynamic business requirements.
Hybrid Deployments: Seamless integration of physical and virtual environments.
Data Centers: Global presence with numerous data centers offering reliability and low latency.

What benefits and ROI should you expect from IBM SoftLayer?

Cost Efficiency: Competitive pricing and transparent billing to manage IT budgets effectively.
Performance Optimization: High-performance infrastructure enhancing application speed and responsiveness.
Business Agility: Rapid deployment capabilities aiding timely project launches.
Operational Ease: Streamlined management of resources reducing operational overheads.

Industries such as finance, healthcare, and gaming find IBM SoftLayer beneficial due to its secure, reliable infrastructure supporting sensitive data and high transaction volumes. It enables financial services to manage data flows seamlessly, healthcare sectors to ensure compliance with data security regulations, and gaming companies to deliver low-latency user experiences. Designed for enterprises needing tailored solutions to meet operational demands efficiently.

IBM

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is an efficient storage management solution for managing and storing data in the cloud. It offers seamless integration with cloud providers, advanced data replication capabilities, and high data protection. With reliable performance, it is ideal for industries like healthcare and finance.

NetApp

Sample Customers

Whogohost Ltd., Skypicker, Infinity Computers and Communications Company, Grace Co. Ltd., Keyword, Uvionics Tech, Tennis Australia, immixGroup, Salesbox, Cxense ASA, Avnet Inc., Komsomolskaya Pravda, Seekr

1. Accenture 2. Acer 3. Adidas 4. Aetna 5. AIG 6. Apple 7. Bank of America 8. Barclays 9. Bayer 10. Berkshire Hathaway 11. BNP Paribas 12. Cisco 13. Coca-Cola 14. Comcast 15.ConocoPhillips 16. CVS Health 17. Dell 18. Deutsche Bank 19. eBay 20. Eli Lilly 21. FedEx 22. Ford 23. Freescale Semiconductor 24. General Electric 25. Google 26. Honeywell 27. IBM 28. Intel 29. Intuit 30. JPMorgan Chase 31. Kellogg's 32. KeyCorp 33. Liberty Mutual 34. L'Oréal 35. Mastercard

Buyer's Guide

IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

September 2026

Free Report: IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM SoftLayer vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP report.

See our list of best Public Cloud Storage Services vendors.

We monitor all Public Cloud Storage Services 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.