Files.com is the cloud platform teams move to when they outgrow Cerberus FTP. Cerberus is a Windows SFTP/FTPS server you run and patch on your own box, with a dated interface and no real cloud, and under its current ownership it isn’t even the cheap option anymore. Files.com serves the same protocols as a managed cloud platform and adds automation, partner workflows, sharing, and a tamper-proof audit trail. Used by 4,000+ organizations and #1 in Gartner Peer Insights for managed file transfer.
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Cerberus FTP is a Windows-based SFTP/FTPS server. You install it on a server you own, configure it through the admin GUI, and it does the one job well: an on-prem SFTP endpoint with Active Directory integration. For years its draw was simple: it was the cheapest credible SFTP server you could buy.
Two things changed. The workload grew to include partners, automation, sharing, and compliance evidence, and a bare SFTP server doesn’t carry any of that. And the price crept up under new ownership, so the one reason it always won, raw sticker price, no longer holds the way it did. What’s left is a dated Windows server you patch yourself, doing a fraction of the job.
Files.com is where that workload goes next. It serves the same SFTP and FTPS as a managed cloud platform, with nothing to patch, and adds automation, partner onboarding, sharing, and a tamper-proof audit log, with an Agent for the systems that stay in your data center.
Cerberus FTP is a Windows service you run on a server you own: you patch the OS, manage the box, and carry its uptime. Files.com is a managed cloud platform with nothing to operate, and an on-premise Agent that reaches the systems still in your data center over an outbound-only connection, so you get the on-prem reach without the on-prem server.
Cerberus is the Windows admin GUI it has been for a decade. Files.com is a modern web platform with a desktop app that mounts as a drive, a mobile app, and a CLI: a product your whole team can use, not just a server your admin configures.
Cerberus is an SFTP/FTPS server, and that is where it stops. Files.com adds the work around the transfer: automation on file arrival, partner onboarding, sharing and inboxes for people, and a tamper-proof audit log. It is the platform a team grows into once an SFTP server isn’t enough.
Cerberus won its install base by bottoming the market on price. Under its current ownership the per-server license has climbed, and the “cheap SFTP server” reason to choose it has eroded. Files.com publishes a flat platform price that includes the automation, governance, and support a bare server never did — so the comparison is value, not just sticker.
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation retired Cerberus FTP, among other point tools, and consolidated onto Files.com when its workload outgrew the simple-SFTP-server frame. Files.com is #1 in Gartner Peer Insights for managed file transfer, used by 4,000+ organizations, in production for 15 years with zero breaches.
“Our previous solution was on-prem, so we had to allow a third-party vendor onto the entirety of our network. What’s great with Files.com is that this isn’t the case. Everything is being handled at the cloud-based level, whether it’s inbound or outbound on our network.”
What buyers ask most when comparing Files.com to Cerberus FTP.
If all you will ever need is a bare on-prem SFTP server and you’re happy patching the box it runs on, Cerberus does that. But most teams reach for more: automation, partners, sharing, an audit trail that holds up. Cerberus stops at the transfer, while its price has crept past “cheap.” Choose the managed cloud platform that runs itself, does the whole job, and that teams like the Cardiovascular Research Foundation already moved to.
The same SFTP, with automation, partner workflows, sharing, and a tamper-proof audit trail — managed in the cloud, with no Windows server to patch. Start a free trial or talk to our team.
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