Managed File Transfer Buyers’ Guide 2025

State of the market: Managed File Transfer (MFT) software enables organizations to share, exchange, and deliver data reliably and securely internally (i.e., between employees) and externally (e.g., with customers, partners, and stakeholders). 

• The managed file transfer market was valued at USD 2.1 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2% between 2025 and 2034 to reach a value of USD 6.2 billion.
• Growth is being driven by rising security concerns due to an increase in volume of cyberthreats globally, and an increase in regulatory compliance requirements for data privacy and protection.
• As the market continues to grow, we can expect to see a growing demand for cloud-based MFT solutions, in-built security capabilities that help protect against sensitive data loss, and the integration of features to support compliance readiness.

Why trust us: We’ve researched, demoed, and tested several leading managed file transfer solutions, spoken to organizations of all sizes about their MFT challenges and the features that are most useful to them, and interviewed executives from leading providers in the MFT space.

You can find our product reviews, interviews, and Top 10 shortlists to the best managed file transfer products on the market in our Data Management Hub.

Our recommendations: Before we jump into the details, here are our top tips on how to get the most out of your managed file transfer implementation:

• For security-focused organizations: Use all of the security features baked into your MFT solution, including encryption, role-based access controls, and file integrity verification. You should also use the solution’s reporting tools to help you identify any anomalous file transfer activities; integrating your MFT tools with your SIEM can help you analyze this data and configure alerts.
• For busy teams: Automate as many repetitive file transfer-related tasks as possible, such as file routing and renaming. This will not only reduce your team’s workload, but it’ll also minimize human error.
• For large and growing organizations: If you’re planning on using an on-prem solution, evaluate your projected transfer volume and make sure that the solution is able to support it before you purchase it. If you’re using a cloud-based solution, choose a reputable vendor that offers the ability to support growing volumes of data without compromising the quality or performance of transfers.

How MFT solutions work: Managed file transfer solutions can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud, depending on your organization’s infrastructure and requirements. While the on-prem segment currently holds the larger market share of 64%, we’re seeing more demand for cloud-based solutions across the board. Once deployed, they allow users to share files reliably, securely, and in line with any compliance requirements relevant to your organization. Because of this, modern MFT solutions are particularly useful for sharing high volumes of data or sensitive data such as PII or PHI. 

To achieve this, MFT solutions support multiple secure transfer protocols, which typically include STPS, SFTP, and HTTP/S. These protocols not only enable users to send different types of data, but they’re also considered more secure than the basic File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that’s usually used to send and receive data. 

In addition to supporting more secure transfer protocols, MFT solutions implement a layer of encryption to secure users’ data at rest and in transit, preventing it from unauthorized viewing. Some solutions also offer additional security features, such as: 

• File delivery reporting
• Action logging and audit trails
• Role-based permissions
• Sender validations via digital signatures
• Guaranteed file delivery either by “retrying” or “resuming” any failed transfers 
• File integrity checks to make sure they’re not altered during transit

In terms of management, most MFT solutions offer a central management console with a straightforward drag-and-drop interface. Some also enable users to schedule automatic transfers for regular file sharing activities.

Benefits of managed file transfer: There are three main benefits to implementing an MFT solution:

1. Send files securely.
   •  MFT solutions are much more secure than traditional FTP-based file sharing methods. They encrypt files at rest and in transit, they use digital signatures to limit tampering, they log all file sharing activity, you can set expiration dates for shred files, and you can create rules to restrict file sharing actions based on users’ roles.
   • To further enhance security, some MFT solutions offer integrations with other third-party security tools, such as antivirus to protect files against viruses and malware, or IAM to further secure user access to sensitive files. 
2. Achieve compliance with data protection standards.
   • Most federal and industry data protection standards require or advise organizations to encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit. This is so that, even if an attacker were to gain access to that data or intercept it, they wouldn’t be able to make any sense of it.
   • MFT solutions not only help you comply with these standards via in-built encryption and role-based access controls, but they also help you prove compliance through activity monitoring and audit trails. 
3. Improve visibility over users’ file sharing transactions. 
   • Thanks to their in-depth logging and reporting capabilities, MFT solutions give you end-to-end visibility over file sharing transactions between your company’s users, and with other organizations. 
   • This allows you to quickly identify and investigate any suspicious file sharing activity (such as a user uploading or downloading huge amounts of data, or an unknown external party trying to send data to one of your users). 
   • It also enables you to quickly remediate any failed transfers that may impact users’ productivity or your company’s SLAs. 

Common managed file transfer challenges: There are a few common challenges that you might come across when implementing an MFT solution. Here’s what they are and how to overcome them:

1. Although MFT solutions offer numerous benefits, they also require users to go through a few more steps before they can send a file to someone in their network. This may cause them to become frustrated or resist using the solution. To combat this, you should train your employees on how to use MFT to help them overcome any initial hurdles or pain points, as well as show them the security benefits of implementing MFT. You should also look for a solution that makes file sharing as streamlined as possible for your end users.
2. It can be tricky to implement MFT solutions with your existing infrastructure, particularly without causing any disruptions to business operations. To avoid this, we recommend choosing a solution that offers integration support and a customizable feature set so that you only need to implement the features you really need. You should also plan a “downtime” period during integration and make employees and other necessary stakeholders aware that there may be some minor disruptions to their workflow. 
3. MFT solutions offer lots of long-term benefits, but the upfront cost may be off-putting for some organizations—especially SMBs. While there isn’t a “solution” to this, we recommend carrying out a risk/cost analysis comparing potential data loss to the cost of the solution.
4. While compliance is a benefit of MFT tools, it can also be a challenge, as data being sent across different jurisdictions is subject to different compliance standards. If your organizations is operating across multiple locations or industries, you may want to look for a solution with added compliance support (e.g., customizable retention policies and file purging, IP whitelisting, and geo-fencing), or task an employee specifically to ensuring all data transfers are compliant.

Best managed file transfer providers: Our team of software analysts and researchers have put together a shortlist of the best providers of MFT solutions, as well as adjacent lists covering similar topics:

• The Top 11 Managed File Transfer Solutions
• The Top 5 Cloud Database Management Systems
• The Top 12 Data Privacy Management Software
• The Top 11 Data Governance Software
• The Top 11 Data-Centric Security Software
• The Top 10 Cloud Data Security Solutions

Features checklist: When comparing MFT solutions, Expert Insights recommends looking for the following features:

1. Support for multiple protocols: The solution should be compatible with SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS, AS2, and other common transfer methods.
2. Data transformation capabilities: You should be able to convert file formats or filter content before sending files.
3. Automated workflows: You should be able to create workflows that tell the solution to schedule, trigger, and manage file transfers without manual intervention. These should be easy to create via a simple, visual builder.
4. Compliance support: The solution should offer a range of features to help you meet any compliance requirements relevant to your business. These could include the ability to set data retention automated file purging policies, tamper-evident audit logs, IP whitelisting and geo-fencing to help comply with data sovereignty laws, and data masking and redaction tools.
5. Audit logging and reporting: You should be able to access detailed tracking information for all historical transfer activities, including failed transfers, for compliance and troubleshooting.
6. Alerts and notifications: The solution should inform stakeholders of transfer status, errors, or policy violations in real time.
7. End-to-end encryption: The solution should use protocols like SSL/TLS or AES to secure your data while in transit and storage.
8. File integrity verification: The solution should confirm successful, unaltered transfers through checksum or hash validation, or digital signatures.
9. Role-based access controls: You should be able to restrict user permissions to prevent unauthorized file access or sharing. This often also includes multi-factor authentication and/or single sign-on integration. 
10. Integration with existing systems: The solution should provide seamless connectivity with ERPs, CRMs, cloud services, and APIs.
11. User-friendly interface: The solution should offer an intuitive interface for admins and end users to manage transfers easily.
12. Scalability: The solution should be able to support growing data volumes and user demands without any declines in performance.

Future trends: As the managed file transfer market continues to grow, we expect it to evolve in two key ways. 

First, on top of industry-specific and legacy compliance standards, many countries and states are mandating data privacy and security measures to help protect individuals’ personal information. The risks of non-compliance with these standards are high, with organizations typically facing large fines and costly, time-consuming litigation processes. As such, it’s likely that enterprises handling their customers’ personal information (such as health information or credit card data) will prioritize compliance support when choosing new software. Including MFT solutions. 

To keep up with this demand, we expect to see MFT providers placing a stronger emphasis on data protection features, such as compliance-focused audits, data loss prevention capabilities that automatically identify and redact sensitive information before files are shared, and the ability to create flexible data retention policies for different types of data.

Second, we expect MFT providers to keep improving on their automation capabilities. While automating manual processes has been a key function of MFT for a long time, it’s likely that modern solutions will evolve beyond basic task file transfer task automation and offer automation for more complex scenarios and advanced, logic-based workflows to respond to real-time triggers, maintain timely delivery, and notify teams about the status of transfers without the need for human intervention. 

Further Reading: You can find all our articles on managed file transfer in our Data Management Hub.

Want to jump right in? Here are a few articles we think you’ll enjoy: 

• Shortlist: The Top 11 Managed File Transfer Solutions
• Q&A: Rubrik Co-Founder On Preparing For Ransomware And The Rise Of Data Security Posture Management
• Podcast: Skyhigh Security CEO On The Benefits Of Security Consolidation