Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Nasuni vs Panzura CloudFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 12, 2025

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

Nasuni
Ranking in File System Software
1st
Ranking in NAS
6th
Ranking in Cloud Storage
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Storage Gateways
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (14th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (9th)
Panzura CloudFS
Ranking in File System Software
3rd
Ranking in NAS
10th
Ranking in Cloud Storage
11th
Ranking in Cloud Storage Gateways
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the File System Software category, the mindshare of Nasuni is 28.1%, up from 24.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Panzura CloudFS is 16.0%, up from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
File System Software
 

Featured Reviews

Richard McGregor - PeerSpot reviewer
Removes a lot of infrastructure, allows us to restore files instantly, and is simple to work with
I particularly like the restore process. Our financial teams make changes to spreadsheets and other files, and we've got teams using Photoshop files. They make mistakes and need to recover files, and we can do that instantly. We also have users who manage to delete folders, and we can bring them back instantly within a few seconds. Knowing that it's all protected from ransomware is also a very big advantage at the moment with the number of ransomware attacks that you see out there. Nasuni is being very protective of that, which is quite good to hear. There were times when we had to replace the filers we've had issues with, and because we know all our data is protected in AWS, we could just turn them off and spin them up. As quickly as in an hour or so, we were back working with zero downtime. That area of functionality is really good. In terms of ease of management, it's the easiest one you can use. It's very simple. It's very easy to set up, very easy to configure, and very easy to manage.
Roger Clark - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles file locks effectively enabling seamless remote collaboration in global teams
It has not reduced the data storage cost. We have been trying to come up with a plan internally to archive project data at a certain time frame. However, our data continues to grow, so at the point of 25 terabytes, we had to buy another 25 terabytes license to exceed that threshold. It would have been nice if they had offered them in increments, of 5, 10, 15, or 20 terabytes than having to get a whole chunk of 25 terabytes again for licensing purposes, which is a little costly. It would be nice if Panzura offered data in increments instead of 25 terabytes per license. They have done a pretty good job of development from the point of offering new products. Pricing seems to be high for certain things, such as the audit feature of Panzura Data Services. It would be nice to see who deleted that 100 gig of data out there. They should make the pricing plan more attractive for a company of our size. We have almost 700 employees over the southeast from Texas to Florida and up to Tennessee, so we are a pretty big region.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The snapshot functionality and the unified file system are definitely the most valuable features for us. The UFS allows everybody across the organization to see the exact same data at the same time, instead of having different file servers with different structures on them, and that's mission-critical. We have different branches throughout our organization that have to act on that data."
"The biggest and most impressive thing for us is the operational recovery (OR) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities that Nasuni has. If a filer goes down, or an ESX server goes down, then we can quickly recover."
"It has the ability to do end-user recovery, or a user can simply contact an admin who can perform a recovery from the management console. The versioning has simplified everything. Now we don't have to worry about those components."
"My clients are happy with Nasuni because the transmission is seamless, and it consolidates all the existing file servers into one location. Also, Nasuni has no boundaries. It's infinitely expandable. They don't have to rely on the service provider for backup and restoration. It's self-serve."
"Nasuni gives us a single platform with a 360-degree view of our file data, which is very important to us. We have everything that we need to look at in a single pane of glass."
"The global file locking feature is valuable. The ability to quickly deploy new sites is also valuable."
"The disaster recovery capabilities are very easy because their virtual appliances are just like OVFs or images. You put in a code and it collects all the configuration from the cloud and then builds up the cache. But that doesn't preclude the device from easily being restored or recovered at short notice."
"The most valuable feature is that we have redundancy in our data. It's nice to know that it is cached both locally on the filters, as well as stored on that cloud."
"Its most valuable features are the collaboration, the file snapshots, and the data protection the solution provides."
"Panzura has not increased its data storage costs."
"Primarily, it is the way Panzura CloudFS handles the file locks and the way these filers, along with the authoritative copy of all our data, which is about 27 terabytes located in an AWS bucket in the cloud, operate."
"The main thing in Panzura is that there are three key components: PanFS, NAS, and collaboration. These are strong features, and a big benefit is that you can access everything from anywhere."
"The core function of Panzura CloudFS, with its synchronizing of files across multiple servers, provides us with a much more efficient workflow for our production staff."
"What I appreciate most about Panzura CloudFS is that it really solves the problem we had when we moved all our server workloads to Azure, reducing our on-prem data center footprint sizably."
"The best features of the Panzura CloudFS solution include collaboration, which is my top priority and top feature. No one else provides this as effectively."
"For instance, if I'm in India but need to access data in China or Spain, it simplifies the process and enhances collaboration."
 

Cons

"We forecasted that the data at my client's organization would grow by about ten percent annually, but we are migrating more data because we are bringing in some servers that had not previously been within the scope of our license. We expected it would take us two years to reach a specific amount of data, but we hit that mark in one year. The licensing cost skyrocketed, so we need to renegotiate. It puts us in a bind because we are reliant on Nasuni for our service strategy. We can't deny our customers, but we also struggle to pay for that."
"The privilege settings need to be more granular, and alerts are an excellent example. If a user doesn't have access to them, they can't see them and access information such as what they may have done wrong, what's there, and when the last sync happened. However, the ability to view alerts also comes with permission to delete them, which is not good, so we need more customization options here."
"The user-friendliness of its access needs improvement. When I log into the console, I see all the files that we handle globally. There are hundreds of Nasuni files that I can see on the console, but no way that I can filter them down. While this is a small thing, I need to scroll down and select the ones that I want. "Control F" doesn't work nor is there a dropdown menu that I can click on and select the ones that I want."
"Room for improvement would be the speed of replication of new files. I would also like to see cloud mirroring."
"We've had some organizational changes that Nasuni has not been able to keep up with, mainly from a data or file system perspective. Moving a filer from one management console has been a challenge. It lacks the flexibility to move files in and out of the management console. We have six management consoles now, and we're constantly telling Nasuni, "Hey, please allow us to move a filer from management console A to B." They can't do that."
"There is some room for improvement when it comes to monitoring. We are not using Nasuni monitoring. We are using our own monitoring through Xenos. Nasuni can provide better monitoring capabilities for us to monitor all the filers and NMC so that we don't have to use a third-party tool."
"The customer portal could be improved, but it has been a while since I've used it. They might already have improved it."
"The Nasuni file storage platform doesn't work well when there are a high number of small files. This is the case when a directory structure contains more than 10,000 or 20,000 small files, e.g., 5 KB, 10 KB, or 15 KB. When the user is accessing these files from another geographical location, they might face a slow response or timeouts when connecting to the shares, and then to the files. This is because the file size is small. There is a scope of improvement with this solution when it comes to accessing a large number of small files."
"It has not reduced the data storage cost."
"It should be easy for people not on the network to connect and access their files."
"Previously, a new update would come out, and there might be something wrong with it, or it may not sync up as well as it should, or it may cause something to lose access to the server."
"There could be a slightly better dashboard or a better pane of glass. When something goes wrong somewhere, there should be a little bit better alerting with issues before they become a big problem."
"One area for improvement regarding Panzura CloudFS is moving away from on-prem or local Active Directory. We're exploring a transition to Azure AD or Entra ID, aiming to keep the product functional without heavy reliance on the local Active Directory."
"It would be nice if Panzura offered data in increments instead of 25 terabytes per license."
"Master Snapshot feature is the only exceptional feature, but the rest of the features are similar to other storage solutions."
"It is a little costly. The NFS service needs development."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has a license fee as well as hardware costs, which we would incur if we want to use Nasuni Cloud Storage Gateway for upgrades."
"I would not say it is economically priced, but it is affordable. If you can afford to pay for it, it is worth the money, but it is definitely not overpriced. It is priced about where it needs to be in the market. We were satisfied with the way they did their licensing and how they handled it. I believe they actually license by data size. It is based on how much data is being held on the machine and replicated, and that's completely understandable. So, for us, their pricing was as expected and affordable."
"Its price is fair and reasonable. I don't have anything negative about its pricing and licensing. For us, there is also the cost of monitoring. We are monitoring through Xenos and not through Nasuni. That is another cost for us from the monitoring perspective, but as far as Nasuni goes, we don't have any other cost apart from the licensing fee."
"It is around $850 per terabyte per year. Any additional costs that you would incur are for the local caching devices that you'll need to access Nasuni. You kind of provide your own virtual machines or compute to access the data. You also pay for the object storage. So, there are three parts to it. There is the Nasuni license per terabyte. You would also pay for the actual object storage in the cloud, and then you would pay for virtual machines to access the storage."
"Our agreement is set up such that we pay annually per terabyte, and we buy a chunk of it at a time. Then if we run out of space, we go back to them and buy another chunk."
"There are cheaper forms of storage, but Nasuni is fairly priced for the functionality it offers. I can get basic file shares provisioned in Azure and pay for the storage and the CPU. The overall cost would be much less than Nasuni, but I would need to build the management console and encryption process, so it would cost a lot to develop that kind of functionality."
"They could lower the cost, but it saves so much money when you go into it (by losing all the backup)."
"It's cheaper than a lot of alternatives but it's not cheap."
"It's competitive. I don't know what competitors are charging, but they have been very transparent, which is nice, and we've negotiated to avoid percentage increases."
"The solution's pricing is on the expensive side."
"It is not bad. It is like everything else. Pricing has gone up quite over the last couple of years, but everybody's pricing has gone up. For what they deliver, it is right in line with what everybody else has."
"The pricing seems high on certain products and features, such as the audit feature of Panzura Data Services. They should consider more attractive pricing for companies of our size. The renewals are yearly, but the pricing is a little high for us."
"Overall, it is quite costly compared to NetApp and similar solutions."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which File System Software solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Does Nasuni have a good pricing model?
Based on the experience of my organization, Nasuni is definitely worth the money, since it gives you an all-in-one solution where you'd usually need several programs. About the cost, there isn't a ...
Is it easy to restore files with Nasuni?
As someone who has used this feature of Nasuni I can tell you - yes, it's good for file recovery and you'll definitely benefit from very quick times. I can't tell you if it's the best one because I...
What features and services does Nasuni offer?
Hi, if you pick Nasuni, you'll be benefiting from many services for a good price. Well, it's a personalized price you get after an agreement with the company but in my organization's case, it is a ...
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

American Standard, CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, E*TRADE, Ithaca Energy, McLaren Construction, Morton Salt, Movado, Urban Outfitters, Western Digital
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 Nasuni vs. Panzura CloudFS and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.