Best Cloud MFT Software

By James Lewis. Updated May 2025.

As businesses increasingly adopt a cloud-first strategy or undergo cloud migrations, understanding and implementing a cloud file transfer solution becomes a critical part of the process. Whether moving a legacy system to the cloud or building a fully cloud-native infrastructure, the ability to transfer and manage files across platforms is essential for maintaining security and compliance.

Our comprehensive Cloud File Transfer solutions guide provides a complete breakdown of the top software tools available in the marketplace today. Discover how secure cloud file transfer technology can transform your business operations and processes and explore which product aligns best with your organisation's needs.

Thru

KEY FACTS:

Hosting Region Availability: UK, EU, USA, APAC
Pricing Model: Tiered Capacity Plans for Data Transfer - Annual Commitment
Key Compliance Certifications: SOC 2 Type I, Cyber Essentials
Support Services: 24/7/365 Live Chat, Telephone, Online Ticketing System, with 99.9% uptime SLA

PRICE RANGE: £££££

Thru Cloud MFT

Founded in 2002, Thru started out with a traditional MFT solution, primarily offering on-premises software for secure file transfers. However, as the market began shifting toward cloud-based solutions in the mid-to-late 2000s, Thru recognised the need for a cloud-first offering and began to pivot toward cloud-based MFT.

Launching in 2012, Thru brought the first cloud-native MFT solution to the market. Since then, Thru has continued to invest in and mature their cloud-first solution. Today Thru is primarily known for its Enterprise focus and powerful native integrations to Salesforce CRM and iPaaS solutions such as Boomi and MuleSoft.

As a true cloud offering, feature and security updates are seamlessly deployed to the cloud via a continuous deployment pipeline and crucially the bulk of these updates require no downtime. Thru’s agents – called Nodes – update automatically and implement a seamless restart.

ADVANTAGES

Pricing models built to accommodate SMEs through to Large Enterprises based upon the volume of data being transferred through the platform.
Support is fully managed in-house and with various contact routes to suit seriousness of enquiry.
Extensive back up of SaaS service with replication between three data centres in real time.
On-premises MFT Agent extends the SaaS offering to hybrid solution with cloud orchestration, automatic updates, secure connections only and more.
Comprehensive web API for data exchange, configuration, control, alerts and audit.

GoAnywhere MFTaaS

MFTaaS logo - Green #2-1

KEY FACTS:

Hosting Region Availability: USA, EU, Canada, APAC, Middle East
Pricing Model: Annual subscription. 3 tiered offerings. Coverage charges are applicable for monthly storage and bandwidth
Key Compliance Certifications: SOC 2 Type II, Drummond (AS2/AS4 protocols)
Support Services: 24x7 with 99.9% uptime SLA

PRICE RANGE: £££££

GoAnywhere MFTaaS

GoAnywhere MFT, originally released in 2008 was first offered as a cloud-based Managed File Transfer solution in 2020. Whilst later to the market than many of the other vendors in the sector, GoAnywhere has continued to innovate at pace outperforming most, with a vast array of native connectors within the application to SaaS applications and cloud storage endpoints.

As with their on-premises solution GoAnywhere MFTaaS benefits from an intuitive interface with a broad feature set. A comprehensive solution, offering extensive workflow automation capabilities it includes a few other file transfer protocols not widely supported by other solutions.

The platform supports compliance with various regulations, including NIST 800-171, PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, and SOX, assisting organisations in meeting stringent data protection standards.

ADVANTAGES

Cloud storage options AWS S3 and Azure Blob are available as ‘resources’.
Broadest set of secure file transfer protocols offered, including SFTP, HTTPS, FTPS, FTP, AS2, AS4 & PeSIT.
Forward and reverse proxy is offered through GoAnywhere Gateway.
GoAnywhere has numerous SaaS application connectors available directly from the application including Dynamics, SharePoint, MetaDefender, ServiceNow and many more.
GoAnywhere MFT offers 40 cloud connectors that connect to your file transfer projects and workflows.

Progress MOVEit

KEY FACTS:

Hosting Region Availability: US Clusters, EU, UK, APAC (Hosted within Microsoft Azure)
Pricing Model: MOVEit Transfer is an annual subscription with pricing determined by the number of users required to access the service. MOVEit Automation has tiered pricing
Key Compliance Certifications: SOC 2 Type II
Support Services: 24x7 software support and infrastructure monitoring, 99.9% uptime SLA

PRICE RANGE: £££££

MOVEit Cloud

MOVEit, a software product originally developed by Standard Networks, was acquired by Ipswitch in 2008. After a short period, Ipswitch announced the release of MOVEit Cloud in 2012. Ipswitch was the first on-premises managed file transfer software vendor to take the leap and move to cloud.

Uniquely in the managed file transfer marketplace, the MOVEit software suite is provided by two distinctly separate software components, MOVEit Transfer, the file transfer server element and MOVEit Automation, the workflow element. Ipswitch and later Progress took the decision to focus their Cloud MFT proposition on MOVEit Transfer, the secure, multi-tenant, file transfer server, with multi-protocol support. With MOVEit Ad-Hoc included, users can secure email files via a web browser or from their Microsoft Outlook at a competitive price per user.

MOVEit Automation is provided as a dedicated cloud only, however other ways to move data to and from MOVEit Transfer are available from Progress if needed.

Globalscape

KEY FACTS:

Hosting Region Availability: US, EU (North, West, France, Germany, UK, Africa (South), Asia Pacific (Australia, Japan East), Canada (Central), South America, US Gov (Arizona, Virginia)
Pricing Model: Annual subscription. 3 tiered offerings with overage charges are applicable for monthly storage and bandwidth
Key Compliance Certifications: SOC 2 Type II, Drummond (AS2 protocols)
Support Services: 24x7 Sev 1 Support (Premium Support Plan Required); 99.95% uptime SLA

PRICE RANGE: £££££

Globalscape EFT Arcus

Globalscape is one of the longest-lived vendors in the MFT sector, with a legacy of file transfer reaching back to 1996. Their first foray into cloud-based file transfer saw them launching a version of its cloud offering in 2014 called Managed Information Xchange (MIX). Subsequently MIX was replaced by a new iteration of their cloud proposition, EFT Arcus, launched in January 2018.

EFT Arcus is deployed as a single-tenant environment, hosted in Microsoft Azure which affords it extensive options for customers looking for specific regional hosting deployment of their Managed File Transfer as a Service. Globalscape also offer impressive SLA with a 99.95% uptime guarantee.

EFT Arcus is a highly modular solution, allowing for a customisable installation ensuring you only license the functionality you require, and reducing overheads on unused feature sets.

FEATURES

Cloud storage includes AWS S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage & other S3-like storage buckets.
Workflow functionality is available within EFT Event Rules, however this can be extended significantly with the Advanced Workflow module.
Web Transfer Client & Mobile Transfer Client allows for simple file upload and download functionality across the widest number of devices.
Microsoft Outlook plugin enables secure file transfers from the desktop.

AWS Transfer Family

Amazon_Web_Services_Logo.svg-2

KEY FACTS:

AWS started life in July 2002 when it launched its first web services; followed by its cloud computing offering in 2006.
Customers using AWS Transfer Family include food retailer Whole Foods and telecoms giant T-Systems.
Over 30 data centres worldwide, with diverse geographic availability across Europe and Asia.

PRICE RANGE: £££££

AWS Transfer Family

AWS probably needs no introduction. The cloud computing monolith that is Amazon has moved into artificial intelligence, quantum computing, mass storage and now file transfer and data exchange - with a collection of services such as S3, EventBridge and CloudWatch making up the Transfer family. With revenues in excess of $80 billion, any area of IT that Amazon delves into is bound to make smaller competitors sweat, but how serious is this sub-sector of IT and how does it compare in terms of features and capabilities?

To provide the AWS Transfer Family - aptly named - AWS uses a number of its services in combination. Server endpoints support inbound connections via FTP, FTPS, SFTP and AS2; outbound delivery of files takes place via an SFTP connector; and post-processing of files can be achieved via Managed Workflows or EventBridge. All the other likely characters in their portfolio can be used for extended capabilities, such as S3 and EFS for storage, encryption at rest and CloudWatch for logging. On the face of it, the AWS Transfer Family ticks 80% of the boxes for most MFT projects, and its name will carry weight with procurement teams.

ADVANTAGES

For businesses making use of AWS already, it will be advantageous to centralise their file transfer activities and billing into one console and make use of their existing internal skillset to manage, deploy and maintain.
With support for SFTP/FTPS, Drummond certified AS2, AV scanning and workflow capabilities, AWS Transfer Family caters for a wide range of common use cases and pain points which MFT is employed for.
AWS consultants and service providers are much more commonplace than MFT engineers, meaning skills are within easier reach than with competitive solutions. This could drive down costs, particularly where IT teams are outsourced to large system integrators who already have alignment with AWS.
Significant scalability. Everything in AWS Transfer is scalable at a modular level and can utilise the huge back-end network and capabilities which AWS have at their disposal. While a consumption-based cost model can be a disadvantage to larger customers, the ability to grow and contract based on need is also advantageous in the right circumstances.

CONSIDERATIONS

While the AWS Transfer Family will be attractive to companies already using other AWS services, it feels more like a collection of services than a complete solution - a disservice to the MFT industry. Inbound transfers are simply to an endpoint with an open port; event-driven movement of files to storage uses EventBridge; scanning of files for DLP or malware uses Lambda; and outbound transfers can only be achieved via SFTP, despite inbound support for FTPS. It all feels a bit cobbled together.
Based on a company in London hosting with inbound connections for FTPS and SFTP all year round; a modest 1GB of data transferred per day (100mb file x 5 each way, each day); outbound polling once per hour; and PGP decryption/encryption on each file. The AWS calculator suggests that the service would cost in the region of $5,500 USD per year. This is in line with most of its competitors at this price, but would rise significantly with further use, making it quite expensive.
AWS Transfer doesn't seem to allow interoperability with much outside of its own portfolio. Typically, we see managed file transfer solutions connecting to SharePoint, Google, CRM Dynamics and more. All of these capabilities are not readily available in the AWS Transfer toolset or require invocation of other AWS services to achieve.
Although not particularly important, it should be noted that AWS Transfer Family uses MD5 for integrity checking and is limited to explicit mode FTPS. The MD5 algorithm has been deprecated in almost all managed file transfer solutions due to insecurity. This could have security compliance implications. In addition to this.

FEATURES

Support for FTP, FTPS, SFTP and AS2
Available as both on-premise software or SaaS.
Supports MFT, EDI and cloud connectors all in one platform.
Monitoring and reporting capabilities are built in, without the need for third-party tools.
Support for custom data transformation formats.
Robust REST APIs which can be used to modify and interact with every element of the solution.
Support for AS2, AS3, AS4, Blobs, S3, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, SharePoint, OFTP2 and more.
24/7 support and online documentation which includes sample workflows.

With multiple cloud-based service models available, it can be challenging to determine which solution best suits your business needs.

Cloud file transfer software generally falls into three categories: Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS). Each model offers distinct advantages depending on your business requirements, technical expertise, and security needs. Understanding these differences is key to selecting the best fit for your organisation.

PaaS, or platform as a service, is a model that offers a framework for developers to build, deploy, and manage applications without worrying about maintaining the underlying infrastructure.

With a PaaS solution, businesses can leverage cloud-based tools and automation to streamline file-sharing processes. It’s ideal for organisations looking to integrate file transfer into existing applications, scale efficiently without managing infrastructure, and leverage APIs or automation to enhance workflows. Popular PaaS solutions include AWS Transfer Family, Google Cloud Storage Transfer, and Azure Data Factory.

IaaS, or Infrastructure as a Service, allows organisations to build and customise their own secure file transfer environments.

With IaaS-based file transfer solutions, businesses have full control over security policies, access controls, and data encryption. This is ideal for enterprises with strict regulatory requirements, as they can implement custom security measures, such as private networking, firewalls, and multi-factor authentication.

SaaS, or Software as a Service, is a fully managed cloud-based software service, that users can access over the internet without managing infrastructure or development. The provision and management of the hosting environment, application, operating system, disaster recovery, high availability, network security are all handled by the third-party provider.

SaaS-based file transfer solutions offer secure, user-friendly platforms for file sharing, collaboration, and automation. Organisations looking for a fully managed, ready-to-use file transfer solution can benefit from minimal technical setup, security, compliance, and ongoing maintenance - all handled by the provider.

In most cases, cloud-based file transfer offers the same comprehensive feature set as traditional on-premise MFT deployments, supporting your automation, security, auditing and reporting needs. However, cloud file transfer also provides unique capabilities that should be considered when selecting the best solution for your business. For a deeper dive, check out our 5 Things to Consider when Choosing a Cloud Solution to help you make an informed decision.

Scalability

Consider cloud based managed file transfer solutions that can scale on demand to accommodate fluctuating file transfer volumes, ensuring you only pay for what you use.

High Availability

Another critical factor is high availability and reliability. Cloud solutions often come with built-in redundancy, failover mechanisms, and automatic load balancing.

Workflow Automation

Cloud MFT solutions excel in automation and integration, reducing the need for manual intervention.

Security

Your cloud solution tool should offer end-to-end encryption, both in transit and at rest.

Managed Service and Support

Any cloud MFT providers offer 24/7 customer support with service-level agreements (SLAs) for guaranteed response times.

Visibility and Reporting

Cloud file transfer software should be able to offer monitoring and reporting features provide full visibility into file transfer activities.

What is CloudMFT?

Want the benefits of your chosen solution’s on-premise software but in the cloud?

CloudMFT is a solution-agnostic, cloud hosting platform for Managed File Transfer solutions. Hosted in a secure, UK-based data centre, it is built, managed, and supported by file transfer experts, perfected to the specific needs of organisations, with their current solution in mind. It is also available for those new to managed file transfer, and who want to benefit from a cloud-hosted file transfer solution.

We provide a trusted, reliable and effective answer to moving new and existing managed file transfer solutions from on-premise to the cloud, saving organisations time, money, and hassle. We have provided solutions to clients across a wide range of industries - including government, healthcare, technology, banking, finance, retail and logistics - supporting businesses of all sizes, from growing start-ups and mid-sized companies to global enterprises.

BOOK IN WITH US TODAY

SPEAK TO ONE OF OUR MFT EXPERTS

We've helped numerous customers around the world gain clarity on how their business can benefit from cloud-based file transfer solutions and which options in the market best align with their goals. Our experts are here to explore your requirements and answer any questions you may have.

Price Range: The product pricing levels shown have been reviewed based on a standardised usage scenario to improve accuracy and consistency across comparisons. Our evaluation assumes a UK-hosted, highly available solution supporting 100 trading partners and the protocols SFTP, HTTPS and FTPS. We also considered automation capabilities to common cloud services (S3, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and SharePoint Online), with a throughput of 100GB per month and at least 250GB of storage. Where products require additional components (e.g. MOVEit Automation), these have been factored in to ensure a fair and comparable product review.

Our technical team actively monitors and evaluates products in the managed file transfer marketplace. This page is updated regularly to reflect the most current and accurate information available at the time of review.

BOOK IN WITH US TODAY

The Best Cloud File Transfer Software

The Ultimate
Cloud File Transfer
(MFT) Software Tools Guide

What are the Best Cloud File Transfer Tools to Consider in 2025?