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Box vs NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

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

Box
Ranking in Cloud Storage
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Content Management (6th), Digital Asset Management (3rd), Document Management Software (2nd), Content Collaboration Platforms (5th)
NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
Ranking in Cloud Storage
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (10th), Public Cloud Storage Services (5th), Cloud Software Defined Storage (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Cloud Storage category, the mindshare of Box is 4.3%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is 13.4%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Storage
 

Featured Reviews

Shrikant Pillay - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows you to upload and download files quickly but lacks integration with Office 365
For enterprise users, the data is in a local repository. We use it for files for the end user process. This is a cloud solution. In my current organization, we have over 10,000 people using this solution. I use it very extensively. Users these days are working remotely You can upload your bin,…
Pramod-Talekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution
The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site. Multiprotocol support in NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is beneficial because it allows customers to manage SAN and NAS data within a single storage solution. This feature eliminates the need to purchase different types of storage.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can upload your bin, upload your files quickly, and download your files quickly. It provides a lot of other alternatives."
"Box is very realistic when it comes to sharing capabilities."
"It is really easy to load files to and from this solution."
"The system's performance is impressive, and file sharing is notably straightforward."
"Using Box for cloud storage allows us to focus on the service and maintaining infrastructure."
"We can provide controlled access to documents using the product."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"The solution is scalable."
"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."
"NetApp's Integration with AWS has helped us because we had a tough time transferring data when we used an ONTAP competitor as our storage partner. They don't have integration with AWS tools, so we had to figure it out on our own. ONTAP has built-in integration and allows us to replicate a copy to our second data center."
"The most valuable features are tiering to S3 and being able to turn it on and off, based on a schedule."
"The storage tiering is definitely the most valuable feature... With respect to tiering, the inactive data is pushed to a lower tier where the storage cost is cheap, but the access cost is high."
"The tool's most valuable features are the SnapLock and SnapMirror features. If something goes wrong with the data, we can restore it. This isn't a mirror; we store data in different locations. If there's an issue on the primary site, we can retrieve data from the secondary site."
"With NetApp, you can integrate malware scanning or malware protection. This is something valuable that is not offered in SaaS solutions typically."
"ONTAP is great for helping you migrate on-premise workflows to cloud environments."
"The stability has been really good."
 

Cons

"Better integration with other solutions is needed."
"Working on documents in real-time is sometimes faulty and could be improved."
"Data privacy, regarding where to store your data: Offering several transparent(!) options (where to store my data and whether to sync back or not and where to sync) regarding the local law situations (USA, EU, Switzerland!) would increase the credibility of a US based company (after NSA ‘snooping’)."
"I recommend doing the trial first, because it's not cheap ware. It's not overly expensive, but it's not cheap ware, and enterprise has a minimum number of users."
"I would love to see the ability to invite collaborators extended to a file level, not just the folder level."
"The price must be lowered."
"Tasks and comments could be easier to see, report, search, and manage."
"Like all cloud platforms, there are always areas of improvement around sync to local devices."
"The only area for improvement would be some guidance in terms of the future products that NetApp is planning on releasing. I would like to see communication around that or advice such as, "Hey, the world is moving towards this particular trend, and NetApp can help you do that." I do get promotional emails from NetApp, but customer-specific advice would be helpful, based on our use cases."
"NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP should improve its support."
"The integration wizard requires a bit of streamlining. There are small things that misconfigure or repeat the deployment that will create errors, specifically in Azure."
"I would want more visibility and data analytics where we can see anomalies within the shares within the GUI."
"The dashboard is a little bit clunky. I like to see it a little bit more on the simplistic side. I would like to be able to create my own widgets and customize what I want to see a little bit more versus what is currently there. That would be helpful so that when I log in, I go straight to my widget or my board without going to multiple places to get to what I need to find or build."
"The encryption and deduplication features still have a lot of room for improvement."
"When it comes to a critical or a read-write-intensive application, it doesn't provide the performance that some applications require, especially for SAP. The SAP HANA database has a write-latency of less than 2 milliseconds and the CVO solution does not fit there. It could be used for other databases, where the requirements are not so demanding, especially when it comes to write-latency."
"Something we would like to see is the ability to better manage the setup and tie it to our configuration management database. We manage our whole IT infrastructure out of that database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Better sign a full year's contract to get a discount."
"Box needs to improve with their pricing in terms of licensing costs."
"We are using the free version of the solution. There is a free version and monthly and yearly subscriptions available."
"They are very price competitive when pushed. Initially, they come out with a standard list price, but they are willing to be very competitive. The Box price was pretty much equal to or lower than the Citrix price, and Box has more features."
"The pricing may seem steep at first, but delve into the features and you'll soon realize it is incredible value for what you get."
"Our pricing and licensing is excellent. I'd tell all Higher Ed customers to talk with Internet2 for excellent pricing and support."
"I have to pay for Box. It could be a little cheaper. On a scale from one to ten, I would give the pricing a five."
"The more you dig, the deeper the level of tools, and the more expensive it becomes."
"They allow a special price if you are working closely with them. Since we have a lot of NetApp systems, we got some kind of discount. That's something they do for other customers, not just for us. The price was fair. In addition to the licensing fees, you're paying Amazon for your usage..."
"The AWS consumer-based pricing model makes it easy for developers to use their credit cards to spin up virtual servers immediately."
"We purchased the product directly from NetApp."
"It is not a cheap solution because we need to pay for the license and pay for Azure resources as well."
"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."
"Compared to other storage vendors, NetApp, is not always able to compete with their pricing. Yet, we acknowledge the ease of use ONTAP brings with the AWS integration."
"Our licensing costs are folded into the hardware purchases and I have never differentiated between the two."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Healthcare Company
3%
Educational Organization
55%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Box?
The solution is used for data storage and any kind of visualization.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Box?
The solution is expensive when it comes to API calls.
What do you like most about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP?
So a lot of these licenses are at the rate that is required for capacity. So they're they're able to reduce the license consumption and also the consumption of the underlying cloud storage.
 

Also Known As

No data available
ONTAP Cloud, CVO, NetApp CVO
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GE, Toyota, P&G, Caterpillar, Flex, Schneider Electric, Sally Beauty, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, AirBnB, Whirlpool, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Nationwide, Aeropostale etc
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Box vs. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.