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NetApp FAS Series vs Panzura CloudFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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
5.2
NetApp FAS Series offers cost-effective storage consolidation with reliable deduplication, ideal for VMware, providing significant ROI and service quality.
Sentiment score
4.8
Panzura CloudFS cuts costs, boosts collaboration, enhances network resilience, and scales storage, benefiting remote operations without extra infrastructure.
If you have the configuration well maintained and configured, you should have good efficiency and compression for the clients and for yourself.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Previously, we had latency issues with syncing up files between offices. Files were not locked, leading to overwrites which cost us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost time and revenue.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
The introduction allowed everyone to collaborate much better, saving time and confusion while making staff more productive and collaborative.
manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
The ability to scale with storage capacity using cloud resources rather than on-premises infrastructure can save significantly from an ROI perspective.
Infrastructure Architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series' customer service is well-regarded for knowledgeable support, though first-level responsiveness could improve; satisfaction remains high.
Sentiment score
6.6
Panzura CloudFS support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, despite occasional delays and bugs impacting service quality.
Sometimes, the support was inadequate because the initial architecture was poorly defined.
Pre-Sales Director France, Belgium and Luxembourg at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
We are also using it ourselves for the SAN and CIFS protocol.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
They often provide basic solutions, such as suggesting a failover or a power cycle, which are not the sophisticated solutions we expect from a vendor.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
The support staff and the number of people they have on staff right now are truly good.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
When we have a priority-one issue, we typically receive a call within 20 to 30 minutes.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering, Inc.
I would give the support for Panzura CloudFS a ten out of ten because they are responsive and helpful.
Senior Systems Administrator at a consultancy with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
NetApp FAS Series offers seamless, flexible scaling with effective data management, though it may require additional hardware and involve cost considerations.
Sentiment score
6.9
Panzura CloudFS scales efficiently for large user bases, supporting seamless node deployment and cloud capacity expansion without major changes.
We normally avoid current versions and use versions that have been running for at least two months in client usage before updating drivers.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
NetApp FAS Series is scalable, and it is possible, but you need to pay.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The NetApp FAS Series is scalable and offers numerous solutions, but only if customers are willing to invest in the shelves.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
Unlimited users can access the system without issues.
Technical Expert at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
As storage requirements grow, cloud capacity can be expanded without significant infrastructure changes.
Lecturer, Department of Agricultural Finance and Management at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University
From our original entry with Panzura CloudFS, we have added an additional seven sites, and deploying those additional nodes was very seamless and did not take any effort.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
NetApp FAS Series is praised for reliable performance, minimal issues, swift support, and exceptional stability despite occasional firmware challenges.
Sentiment score
6.8
Panzura CloudFS is stable and reliable, with improved performance and minimal outages, requiring occasional maintenance like filer restarts.
When panic occurs on the node, it reboots itself, and we have experienced numerous hardware-related issues.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
Most things are tailor-made, and we avoid downtimes even with primitive CLI commands.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
We have never had their system crash on us.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
There were times with file lock issues between filers, causing various anomalies, but with their ongoing development, these issues have improved.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering, Inc.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved documentation, speed, cost-effectiveness, third-party integration, intuitive UI, security, and storage flexibility for NetApp FAS Series.
Panzura CloudFS users seek improved performance, flexibility, stability, UI, analytics, support, and pricing for enhanced deployment and management.
Storage companies should create encrypted storage solutions between the OS and storage to protect against ransomware attacks.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Nutanix leads the business in this approach, and I feel that NetApp is missing some aspects, such as CPU, GPU, and RAM, in its AI portfolio.
Pre-Sales Director France, Belgium and Luxembourg at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
There is an opportunity there for NetApp with Cloud Volumes ONTAP.
Technological Consultant at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Stronger support for multi-cloud or hybrid deployments would reduce vendor lock-in, and enhanced security could include expanded zero-trust access controls.
L3 Storage Engineer at Capgemini
When something goes wrong somewhere, there should be a little bit better alerting with issues before they become a big problem.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
The GIS data formats, such as a geo database, have been found better kept outside of Panzura CloudFS.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
 

Setup Cost

NetApp FAS pricing is high but competitive due to features and discounts, offering long-term value with upgrade fees.
Panzura CloudFS pricing is competitive but expensive, requiring new hardware and lacks flexibility for volume licensing beyond 25 terabytes.
SSDs are more cost-friendly, yet HDDs are higher in cost.
Analyst at Sutherland Global Services
The pricing of NetApp FAS Series is not cheap, but in comparison to other vendors, NetApp FAS Series is affordable.
System Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It did require us to purchase new hardware, however, that was not overly expensive.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
They should consider more attractive pricing for companies of our size.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering, Inc.
Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions.
Technical Expert at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

NetApp FAS Series users praise its reliability, high performance, efficient data protection, and seamless cloud integration with robust support.
Panzura CloudFS provides efficient collaboration, robust data protection, and seamless global file access with advanced synchronization and security features.
While NVMe disks are expensive and require three disks for parity calculations, hard drives in NetApp FAS Series are inexpensive, making it more cost-efficient per GB, even with RAID tech implementation.
Senior Cloud System Engineer at Atos Poland
Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k.
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
With the data management features of Data ONTAP, I have not experienced data loss or unavailability as I have SnapMirror, Snapshot, and SnapVault in place.
Analyst at Sutherland Global Services
It is very reliable and very quick.
CIO at Mead and Hunt, Inc.
It helps us increase network resilience. We have a primary object library stored in the cloud and have Panzura Mirroring which allows us to place data in a secondary cloud for added resiliency.
Senior Vice President, Technology at Halff Associates, Inc.
There is no degradation of speed because these filers have cached the data, and they are constantly swapping metadata and updating with each other, which is a very attractive method of getting us to use these applications.
I.T. Infrastructure Manager at Thompson Engineering, Inc.
 

Categories and Ranking

NetApp FAS Series
Ranking in NAS
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (4th), Modular SAN (Storage Area Network) (1st)
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in NAS
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
File System Software (2nd), Cloud Storage (6th), Cloud Storage Gateways (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the NAS category, the mindshare of NetApp FAS Series is 10.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 2.6%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
NAS Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
NetApp FAS Series10.3%
Panzura CloudFS2.6%
Other87.1%
NAS
 

Featured Reviews

Srikanth Purushothaman - PeerSpot reviewer
DIRECTOR at Vellore Online Systems
Has supported long-term data protection and backup while requiring better part availability and pricing options
For monitoring purposes, we normally use flash access storage exclusively. We utilize a hybrid system because we need performance, combining NL-SAS for the volume and SAS flash to use as a fast cache system that provides more IOPS. We normally implement RAID 10, which we prefer over RAID 6's n plus 2 combinations. We utilize it for data redundancy, even with write intensity on. Regarding the unified storage architecture for NetApp FAS Series, we normally opt for exclusivity unless budget constraints exist. Our IOPS are very high, reaching somewhere about 50k to 150k or 1.150k. The high performance ensures minimal latency. An advantage we've seen with NetApp FAS Series is that snapshots provide very rapid backup and fast recovery. We basically use snapshots for data protection as first-level protection, with deduplication between the two storages serving as second-level protection.
Anil Rahulwar - PeerSpot reviewer
L3 Storage Engineer at Capgemini
Global collaboration on large design files has become faster, more secure, and reliably governed
Improvements for Panzura CloudFS can be challenging, as the product is very powerful, but performance at scale sometimes requires tuning. Some organizations report latency spikes when handling extremely large datasets with high concurrency. Improvements in real-time sync speed are required. Stronger support for multi-cloud or hybrid deployments would reduce vendor lock-in, and enhanced security could include expanded zero-trust access controls. Enhancing real-time sync speeds across continents and built-in metadata tagging for smarter queries would also be beneficial. Additionally, while Panzura CloudFS is optimized for office and edge clients, more native mobile apps or lightweight remote access options would facilitate secure collaboration for field teams. Automatic file tagging or classification would expedite searching across millions of files.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise38
Large Enterprise59
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

Which SAN product would you choose: IBM FlashSystem (FS9500) vs PureFlash Array/X NVMe vs PureFlash Array/XL NVMe?
Have you considered a NetApp FAS Storage for your NAS needs? I am sure it fits very well.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp FAS Series?
Regarding its pricing, I believe it is high. I utilize both HDD and SSD, where SSDs are more cost-friendly, yet HDDs are higher in cost, making it not very affordable but still useful. For general ...
What needs improvement with NetApp FAS Series?
Regarding improvements for NetApp FAS Series, I think everything is generally good. If there is a need to improve something, they can extend their support. Previously, in my company, I only saw Net...
What are the products that Panzura provides?
Panzura offers four main products: CloudFS, data services, smart apps, and global services. They call this "all-in-one solution" and it's for end-to-end cloud data management. Why is it called that...
What kind of industries does Panzura serve?
Hello, I think businesses from all industries that have their data on a cloud can benefit from Panzura. Especially if you have offices in various locations or your employees are working from home a...
Why was Panzura acquired? Is the acquisition going to cause a change?
I think Panzura may change in a positive direction now that it's been bought by Profile Capital. That's a very big investment company for technology businesses and I think it's an opportunity for ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Panzura Freedom
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Children's Hospital Central California, Plex Systems, PDF PNI Digital Media, Denver Broncos, PDF KSM Legal, Clayton Companies, Virginia Community College
Petrofac, Komatsu, HCA Healthcare, Vanguard, Disney, Pokemon, US Department of Justice, Gensler, Fluor, AFRY, Milwaukee Tool, Navy Federal Credit Union, TechTarget
Find out what your peers are saying about NetApp FAS Series vs. Panzura CloudFS and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.