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NetApp AFF vs Zadara comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.2
Everpure FlashArray offers reduced costs and maintenance, improved performance, and notable ROI through efficient resource usage and data management.
Sentiment score
7.0
NetApp AFF cut costs, boosted reliability and performance, enhanced data processing speed, and delivered substantial ROI through efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.2
Zadara offers scalable storage with 15-18% savings on operational costs, providing a cost-effective, flexible pay-as-you-grow model.
Operational tasks such as provisioning storage and monitoring performance happen faster, and less downtime risk and hardware consolidation mean we support more workloads with fewer resources and less data center overhead.
System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We have never had an outage in my four and a half years, but in our company's ten or eleven years, there has never been any planned upgrades that required downtime.
System Engineer at Data Sciences Corporation
In the long term, spanning three to five years, the total cost of ownership becomes cheaper, considering power consumption, data center footprint, and NVMe technology usage.
Manager, Infrastructure Services Storage & Backup Vmware UNIX at Mphasis
I have seen a return on investment with NetApp AFF, as the storage footprint has been reduced significantly due to deduplication and compression, leading to substantial cost savings.
Server Administrator at Gigabit Technologies Pvt Ltd
The cost is not cheaper compared to AWS, and we have not seen the expected return on investment.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
I can see the return on investment because we are saving around 15 to 18% of the operational cost when compared to AWS.
AI product lead at Sortis
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.2
Everpure FlashArray's globally available customer service excels in responsiveness and expertise, ensuring minimal downtime with proactive support.
Sentiment score
7.8
NetApp AFF support is praised for responsive, knowledgeable service, with some noted delays at Tier 1 but strong resolutions.
Sentiment score
8.4
Zadara provides exceptional 24/7 support, proactive monitoring, and expert guidance, ensuring customer satisfaction through swift issue resolution and reliable communication.
Pure's support organization is responsive with minimal bureaucracy, making support a key factor in customer retention.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate the technical support an 11 out of 10.
Cyber Security Consultant at Jonkoping Energi AB
Everpure FlashArray is probably not cheap storage, but it provides great performance, scalability, and everything a customer needs.
Sr. Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The support for NetApp AFF is comprehensive—not just the documentation for self-guided reading, but for simple questions, spare parts, or urgent needs, you can have a contract that enables delivery the next business day or within four hours, depending on your process requirements.
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have communicated with them, and they are effective and responsive.
Presales Manager at Spartec
It is among the best in the enterprise environment.
Server Administrator at Gigabit Technologies Pvt Ltd
We lack adequate response times and a 24/7 service level agreement.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
I rate the technical support from Zadara as nine out of ten.
IT Technical Architect at AVALIS
The support that Zadara provides feels like calling a friend for help.
AI product lead at Sortis
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Everpure FlashArray is praised for scalable modular design, though noted for challenges in large expansions and higher costs.
Sentiment score
7.6
NetApp AFF is praised for adaptability and scalability, though some users note cost implications and occasional configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zadara offers elastic scalability, easy capacity adjustments, cost efficiency, and supports large-scale operations with stable performance.
A big banking client had around 300 petabytes of data on Pure Storage.
Manager, Infrastructure Services Storage & Backup Vmware UNIX at Mphasis
Our customers can scale up or scale out, raise the performance, and expand the storage spaces by investing every year.
Senior Ai Architect at Logicalis
We have successfully upgraded the controllers, scaled capacity, and scaled arrays without much impact on the system and with seamless planning.
Platform Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
You can add more disks, more disk shelves, or migrate the data seamlessly.
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would assess the scalability of NetApp AFF as excellent in handling massive data volumes.
Presales Manager at Spartec
NetApp AFF has strong scalability, especially for enterprise workloads, as I can start with a small cluster and then add more controllers as demand grows.
Server Administrator at Gigabit Technologies Pvt Ltd
There is no need to worry about scalability because the virtual machine automatically detects the load and then takes the load balance.
AI product lead at Sortis
Zadara is a fully-fledged platform, and our customers are happy with its use.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Everpure FlashArray ensures high reliability with minimal disruptions, offering robust stability and exceptional performance for mission-critical applications.
Sentiment score
8.4
NetApp AFF is acclaimed for its reliability, offering 100% uptime, effective data management, and swift support issue resolution.
Sentiment score
7.7
Users generally praise Zadara's stability, noting high-availability, effective failover, and helpful support, despite occasional glitches.
For stability, I rate it a ten out of ten.
Senior Storage Administrator at a comms service provider with 5,001-10,000 employees
We have continuous 99.9% uptime and do not experience any users reporting performance issues due to latency.
Senior Storage Engineer at Ensono
The vision Pure Storage FlashArray offers through the GUI is clearer; we can discern the status, what is cabled, and how direct flash is enabled.
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
They have always been upgrading very fast and implementing patches to resolve these issues.
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Everpure FlashArray upgrades focus on user customization, cloud integration, scalability, encryption, automation, and reducing pricing for SMBs.
NetApp AFF needs pricing adjustments, improved scalability, user interfaces, and support for better performance and seamless data management.
Zadara should enhance support, development speed, and features, while addressing pricing, scalability, and introducing AI and diverse OS support.
Integrating object storage into the FlashArray would benefit entry-level and SMB customers by offering a more unified solution.
Lead Technical Architect at ePlus Technology, inc.
Storing cold data on expensive arrays doesn't make financial sense, and tiering to any of the big three cloud providers would be advantageous.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
As a technical professional, I lack visibility into the system logs.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
I rate NetApp AFF 9 out of 10 because I feel the licensing and product portfolio is somewhat complex, and it sometimes costs higher compared to competing solutions, along with the learning curve for new administrators being somewhat steep.
Server Administrator at Gigabit Technologies Pvt Ltd
The GUI of ONTAP Command Manager could be better, but the CLI is perfect.
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Our backup system, Commvault, has an amazing capacity to do compression and deduplication better than NetApp AFF by itself.
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Adding AI capabilities could enhance the offering as well.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
Maintenance can also be complicated, especially when deeper troubleshooting requires navigating the CLI and searching for logs.
IT Technical Architect at AVALIS
They currently look like simple PHP interfaces, but they need to customize and work on their interfaces and user interfaces significantly.
AI product lead at Sortis
 

Setup Cost

Everpure FlashArray offers cost-effective premium storage with predictable costs, justifying its price with performance, features, and reliability.
NetApp AFF is seen as premium due to high expansion costs, but bundling and discounts can improve affordability.
Zadara offers predictable pricing with cost advantages, but regional rates vary, and careful total cost comparisons are essential.
They're expensive.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
While they say it's free, we actually pay for support upfront.
Senior Network Engineer at Holy Redeemer Health System, Inc.
Some smaller organizations may find it slightly expensive, but for enterprises, when considering performance, future hardware investments, and overall benefits, it is a very cost-effective solution for mid and enterprise organizations.
Senior Storage Engineer at Ensono
NetApp support is cheaper than Dell support.
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
While it is not cheap, they have introduced a new series of AFF that are more affordable.
Analyst at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The licensing cost of the product is expensive, and when combined with support, it becomes quite costly.
Presales Manager at Spartec
The pricing is considered expensive.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
 

Valuable Features

Everpure FlashArray offers fast performance, scalability, and user-friendly management with data reduction, seamless upgrades, and comprehensive support.
NetApp AFF excels with high-speed flash storage, efficient data reduction, seamless integration, and robust data recovery and management features.
Zadara excels in cloud integration, offering flexible pricing, advanced storage features, and reliable, scalable, high-performance solutions.
FlashArray's integration with the Pure One instrument provides a centralized platform for efficient management of all arrays.
Presales Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Another noteworthy aspect is their platform, Pure One, a cloud-based analytics platform that automatically creates a case and sends out a part if a disk or controller fails.
Lead Technical Architect at ePlus Technology, inc.
It handles internal data migration seamlessly in the background without going offline, achieving a hundred percent uptime.
Director of Engineering at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
You can even download the ONTAP simulator and deploy it on your virtualization platform and test almost all features.
Senior System Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Data reduction capabilities such as deduplication, compression, and compaction are standard features included with the license in NetApp AFF.
Presales Manager at Spartec
They have 4:1 data reduction techniques, which is really very high. If you have a size of 100 terabytes, you will get 400 terabytes of usable capacity when applying compression, deduplication, or other data reduction technologies.
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Zadara's impact on scalability and its competitive pricing compared to other market players positively affect my organization.
Analyst Level 3 at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature is its storage management capability.
Cloud System Engineer at cloud251
Zadara's troubleshooting feature is very valuable for me.
IT Technical Architect at AVALIS
 

Categories and Ranking

Everpure FlashArray
Sponsored
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NetApp AFF
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
315
Ranking in other categories
NVMe All-Flash Storage Arrays (2nd)
Zadara
Ranking in All-Flash Storage
32nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined Storage (SDS) (17th), Compute Service (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (16th), File and Object Storage (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Everpure FlashArray is 7.2%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp AFF is 7.6%, down from 9.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zadara is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
All-Flash Storage Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Everpure FlashArray7.2%
NetApp AFF7.6%
Zadara0.7%
Other84.5%
All-Flash Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Sowjanya MV - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead at Wipro Limited
Has improved performance for mission-critical workloads and enabled seamless non-disruptive upgrades
The availability is 99.99%, which is the main factor any customer would need because their data should be available whenever they want to access it. This is one main critical thing. It is very easy to upgrade since Pure Storage FlashArray handles it well. Everything is non-disruptive now; previously, there were forklift shifts, but now that is not the case. Pure Storage FlashArray says no to forklift upgrades. Usually hardware requires downtime, but Pure Storage FlashArray has improved their footprint so that they are not asking for downtime; everything is just a non-disruptive activity, which is why customers are more inclined towards Pure Storage FlashArray. Customers want more of the models in their environment due to the performance they are giving, and everything is in one Pure1 Array console where we can view all the models on one page or just an orchestration tool. You don't miss anything; you have replication, notifications about replication, and details about which host groups replication is happening in and if that replication is successful or failed. On a daily basis, our purpose is to create volumes for infrastructure; our daily activities include creating volumes and mapping them to the host, doing any migrations from a VM, clearing the data stores, and carving the volumes to those VMs. One key factor is the data compression with a ratio of 5:1, focusing on space efficiency, inline deduplication, and the compression Pure Storage FlashArray works on; that is a major factor we can suggest to any customer. Analytical capabilities are crucial. Daily, we check the throughput and consumption, and Pure Storage FlashArray provides predictions for one year regarding usage. This prediction helps plan updates well ahead. For support, we just raise a case, and they follow up and get it done. There is also AI readiness, but with the model R2, we don't have much of that AI readiness. For others, we do have AI readiness that predicts capacity based on daily or monthly trends, enabling us to analyze how much space we need or if we need to expand the disk shelf. From an operational point of view, a good feature is that if you accidentally delete a volume, it will be retained in the destroyed state for the next twenty-four hours, which is not the same with any other vendor. I have worked in this storage domain for the past fifteen years, and this option is remarkable, benefiting any L1 or L2 engineer. Additionally, from a compliance perspective, Pure Storage FlashArray has REST APIs enabled. I have not explored automation much, but from a security standpoint, it is strong with encryption data. If you want to automate, you can easily integrate with all clouds and explore Pure Cloud for scheduling workloads, including volume creation. Customers find benefit in Pure Storage FlashArray's single management pane of glass due to the dual controller and active-active setup. If one of the controllers goes down, all workloads automatically shift to the other controller, ensuring their data is safe and accessible at all times. This is a highlighted feature that any customer desires because their data should always be accessible. For SAN workloads, we use Pure Storage FlashArray because for SAN FC fiber channel, we don't use it; we use NetApp for NAS activities. We have clearly split this, so SAN is for mission-critical applications, while network-attached storage handles file systems. This architecture helps us maximize the benefit from Pure Storage FlashArray due to the significant workloads from this giant retail client. From a footprint and energy consumption perspective, you can see energy consumption from the Pure1 storage portal on a daily basis, and it is very compact. The three models we use consume only three units, which is quite low. From a footprint and data center perspective, it doesn't occupy much space. As everything moves to cloud, there are requirements to avoid excess spending on data centers, and Pure Storage FlashArray is efficient in energy consumption and is environmentally friendly.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Synergy Computers
Unified storage has delivered efficient AI analytics and low latency for critical workloads
There might be some lag or response time with respect to support cases, but even then I will rate it 8.5 out of 10. All of this is the same for all product ranges, whether E-series, NetApp AFF, or FAS series, because they are very efficient to respond. The only reason I rated it 8.5 is because the warehouse for spare parts, when a problem comes, a spare is needed to replace it, for example, a disk. In Pakistan, they have only one warehouse in Karachi. This warehouse manages all the problems when a problem comes. They ship the part based on the customer use case and customer service request. That is the only reason I rate it 8.5 because they have only one warehouse in Pakistan, which is in Karachi. For example, if a problem comes in Islamabad, it will take time to deliver the spare because the part will be shipped from Karachi to Islamabad, which will take around maybe a day. Other OEMs have their warehouses in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi also. In terms of part replacement requirements, they are very efficient in that area because they have warehouses in multiple cities of Pakistan.
NV
AI product lead at Sortis
AI sovereignty for GPU-based workloads has supported cost savings and secure local processing
Regarding Zadara's AI capabilities, I think it depends on the MSPs that they are performing collaborations with, and based on that, the MSPs are responsible for configuring the data governance or any kind of certifications that are placed on Zadara. Zadara normally has certain default governance things, and everything else depends on the local or region-specific governance rules. Regarding Zadara's AI capabilities, I feel they are quick. I was trying two models on the same GPU that they were providing, and they were allocating the resources with me. This experience was good, and I would rate it around 9 to 9.5. The first choice would be Zadara depending on the solution. However, I cannot really say Zadara would be the primary choice because it truly depends on the application or the objective that is being pursued. I would rate this review an 8 overall.
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Comparison Review

it_user186357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect with 51-200 employees
Jan 28, 2015
NetApp vs. XtremIO
Is there another storage platform as feature rich as NetApp FAS? I think it is fair to say that NetApp FAS running Clustered Data ONTAP is a very feature rich platform – the move to the clustered version of ONTAP has brought many next-generation features including Scale-out and Non-disruptive…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business71
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise242
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

Which should I choose: HPE 3PAR StoreServ or Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series?
Both are great platforms, but if you are considering all flash solutions, I would recommend you to consider Pure Stor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure Storage FlashArray?
I find the pricing of Everpure FlashArray to be quite high compared to other storage solutions; however, the reliabil...
What needs improvement with Pure Storage FlashArray?
I believe we have covered the most important features; the architecture of Pure Storage is essential, and features su...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
Well, Is one thing NetApp Storage has vs other brand is the mix of protocol CIFS with NFS booth working together in t...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
This question is very dependent on your requirements. Both are among the best in the field. Of course, the intended c...
What is the Biggest Difference Between Dell EMC Unity and NetApp AFF?
The answer depends on your needs and budget. If you want high performance (who doesn't) or let's say the latency matt...
What needs improvement with Zadara?
The initial installation was difficult because many steps required the command line interface (CLI). Maintenance can ...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Pure Storage FlashArray
NetApp All Flash FAS, NetApp AFF, NetApp Flash FAS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nielsen, Lamar Advertising, LinkedIn, Betfair, UT-Dallas
DreamWorks Animation, FICO, Yahoo! Japan
Time, Inc. A&E Network, The Washington Post, News UK, McGraw Hill, Gilt, Toshiba, Deloitte, VMware
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp AFF vs. Zadara and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.