Is Cloudian or Nasuni better?

Neither clearly leads. Cloudian starts at On request and Nasuni at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Cloudian or Nasuni?

Cloudian starts at On request and Nasuni at On request.

Does Cloudian or Nasuni run on more platforms?

Cloudian runs on Linux. Nasuni runs on Web, Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure.

What is Cloudian best used for?

Cloudian is most often used for a backup team needing an immutable target so a compromised administrator account cannot delete the backups, an organisation restoring hundreds of terabytes regularly where public cloud egress charges make cloud storage untenable, a university or government body with data residency rules preventing use of public cloud object storage, a media archive holding petabytes of finished content where per-terabyte capital cost beats per-gigabyte monthly cloud fees. Of those, a backup team needing an immutable target so a compromised administrator account cannot delete the backups and an organisation restoring hundreds of terabytes regularly where public cloud egress charges make cloud storage untenable are not what Nasuni is typically brought in for.

What can Cloudian do that Nasuni cannot?

Cloudian covers S3 API compatibility, Object Lock, Erasure coding, Multi-tenancy. Nasuni covers Edge caching appliances, Object storage back end, Continuous versioning, Global file lock.

File Storage · head to head

Cloudian vs Nasuni

Cloudian

File Storage

S3-compatible on-premises object storage with object lock immutability

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

Nasuni

File Storage

Cloud file storage that keeps the authoritative copy in object storage and caches it at each site

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Cloudian you operate the hardware, so capacity planning, firmware, node failures and a refresh cycle every five years return as costs that a public cloud bill hides.; Nasuni subscription is based on managed capacity, so cold data that would cost almost nothing in an archive tier keeps paying the full platform rate, and there is limited incentive structure to delete.
They diverge on capability: Cloudian covers S3 API compatibility, Nasuni covers Edge caching appliances.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cloudian and Nasuni actually diverge.

Attributes where Cloudian and Nasuni differ
Attribute	Cloudian	Nasuni
Platforms	Linux	Web, Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (File Storage).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Cloudian

S3 API compatibility
Object Lock
Erasure coding
Multi-tenancy
Hybrid tiering
HyperStore appliances

Only in Nasuni

Edge caching appliances
Object storage back end
Continuous versioning
Global file lock
Rapid site recovery
Ransomware detection

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Cloudian

A backup team needing an immutable target so a compromised administrator account cannot delete the backupsnot Nasuni
An organisation restoring hundreds of terabytes regularly where public cloud egress charges make cloud storage untenablenot Nasuni
A university or government body with data residency rules preventing use of public cloud object storagenot Nasuni
A media archive holding petabytes of finished content where per-terabyte capital cost beats per-gigabyte monthly cloud feesnot Nasuni

Nasuni

Consolidating file servers across many branch offices onto one namespace without shipping data between sitesnot Cloudian
Replacing a NAS plus backup plus offsite replication stack with a single recovery modelnot Cloudian
Engineering or media teams in different regions who need to work on the same large project filesnot Cloudian
An organisation that has been hit by ransomware on file shares and needs version level rollback rather than tape restoresnot Cloudian

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Cloudian

You operate the hardware, so capacity planning, firmware, node failures and a refresh cycle every five years return as costs that a public cloud bill hides.
Per-terabyte licensing plus servers means high upfront cost, and the crossover point against public cloud only arrives at meaningful scale, typically hundreds of terabytes and up.
S3 compatibility is high but not identical to Amazon, so occasional applications depending on newer or less common S3 features need testing rather than assumption.
Small deployments need a minimum node count for erasure coding to be meaningful, which sets a practical floor on entry cost regardless of how little data you have.
Performance is object storage performance, so it is not a substitute for block or high-throughput file storage and buyers occasionally deploy it for the wrong workload.

Nasuni

Subscription is based on managed capacity, so cold data that would cost almost nothing in an archive tier keeps paying the full platform rate, and there is limited incentive structure to delete.
Every site needs an appliance, virtual or physical, which is a footprint and a patching obligation at locations that previously had only a file server or nothing.
A read that misses the local cache is fetched from object storage, so the first access to a cold large file is at cloud latency and users experience it as the system being slow at random.
Global file lock serialises access across regions, so genuinely collaborative editing of the same large files still involves waiting for another site to release the lock rather than merging.
The object storage underneath is your contract, so API transaction and egress charges from Azure or AWS land on your cloud bill and are not covered by the Nasuni subscription you were quoted against.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cloudian

On request

Cloudian HyperStore$undefined/year
- Licensed per usable terabyte, subscription or perpetual
- Software-only on your hardware or as Cloudian appliances
- No egress or API request charges

Nasuni

On request

Nasuni File Data Platform$undefined/year
- Subscription based on managed capacity
- Edge appliances at each site
- Continuous versioning and rapid recovery

Which should you pick?

Choose Cloudian if

You need s3 api compatibility.
You work on Linux.
You also want object lock.

Cloudian review

Choose Nasuni if

You need edge caching appliances.
You work on Web, Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure.
You also want object storage back end.

Nasuni review

Questions people ask

Is Cloudian or Nasuni better?: Neither clearly leads. Cloudian starts at On request and Nasuni at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cloudian or Nasuni?: Cloudian starts at On request and Nasuni at On request.
Does Cloudian or Nasuni run on more platforms?: Cloudian runs on Linux. Nasuni runs on Web, Windows, VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure.
What is Cloudian best used for?: Cloudian is most often used for a backup team needing an immutable target so a compromised administrator account cannot delete the backups, an organisation restoring hundreds of terabytes regularly where public cloud egress charges make cloud storage untenable, a university or government body with data residency rules preventing use of public cloud object storage, a media archive holding petabytes of finished content where per-terabyte capital cost beats per-gigabyte monthly cloud fees. Of those, a backup team needing an immutable target so a compromised administrator account cannot delete the backups and an organisation restoring hundreds of terabytes regularly where public cloud egress charges make cloud storage untenable are not what Nasuni is typically brought in for.
What can Cloudian do that Nasuni cannot?: Cloudian covers S3 API compatibility, Object Lock, Erasure coding, Multi-tenancy. Nasuni covers Edge caching appliances, Object storage back end, Continuous versioning, Global file lock.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cloudian: Does object lock really stop ransomware deleting backups?

Within the retention period, yes, provided the lock is set in compliance mode. That is precisely why it is the common answer to backup-targeting ransomware.

Nasuni: Do I still need a backup product?

That is the pitch: continuous versioning in object storage replaces the backup schedule for file data. Databases and virtual machines still need their own tooling.

Cloudian: Are there egress charges?

No. That is the central cost argument against public cloud object storage, and it only becomes visible when you have to restore at volume.

Nasuni: Who owns the storage account?

You do. Nasuni writes into object storage you contract for, which also means the cloud provider bills you directly for it.

Cloudian: Can we use our own servers?

Yes, HyperStore is software-defined and runs on qualified commodity hardware, or you can buy Cloudian appliances if you would rather not certify your own.

Nasuni: How fast is recovery of a whole site?

An appliance can be serving files within hours because data is pulled on demand, but performance stays degraded while the cache refills.

Nasuni: Is pricing published?

No. Nasuni sells through quotes based on managed capacity and site count, so comparisons need a real proposal rather than a list price.

Cloudian vs Nasuni

Cloudian

Nasuni

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Cloudian

Only in Nasuni

What people use each for

Cloudian

Nasuni

Where each one falls short

Cloudian

Nasuni

Pricing, plan by plan

Cloudian

Nasuni

Which should you pick?

Choose Cloudian if

Choose Nasuni if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Cloudian

More on Nasuni

Keep looking

Other head to heads