Altaro VM Backup for MSPs vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

Hornetsecurity and N-able are both solutions in the MSP Backup category. Hornetsecurity is ranked #9, while N-able is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.5. Hornetsecurity holds a 6.4% mindshare in MB, compared to N-able’s 15.0% mindshare. Additionally, 50% of Hornetsecurity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of N-able users who would recommend it.

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs

Read 1 Altaro VM Backup for MSPs review

359 Views
244 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

N-able Cove Data Protection

Read 23 N-able Cove Data Protection reviews

4,523 Views
543 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs

N-able Cove Data Protection

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Altaro VM Backup for MSPs and N-able Cove Data Protection based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Vembu Technologies, N-able and others in MSP Backup.

To learn more, read our detailed MSP Backup Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

MSP Backup

February 2026

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Helped 884,371 peers since 2012

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

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs

Ranking in MSP Backup

9th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

N-able Cove Data Protection

Ranking in MSP Backup

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (34th), Cloud Backup (18th), SaaS Backup (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the MSP Backup category, the mindshare of Altaro VM Backup for MSPs is 6.4%, up from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 15.0%, down from 25.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

MSP Backup Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
N-able Cove Data Protection	15.0%
Altaro VM Backup for MSPs	6.4%
Other	78.6%

MSP Backup

Featured Reviews

Anthony Linder

Information Technology Application Specialist at a government with 10,001+ employees

An incredibly stable product with a great user interface

Improvements are needed in the solution since it might get difficult if you just drop a technical person who doesn't necessarily have a lot of experience with Altaro VM Backup for MSPs. A technical person who hasn't received any dedicated training or hasn't gone through the documentation part of the solution may find the product to be a little non-intuitive at times. In Altaro VM Backup for MSPs, if you expect something to be somewhere else or when you expect a certain part of the user interface to function in a specific way, it doesn't happen so since the functionality that you expect to be there in the product isn't present on that screen and you need to go somewhere else for that piece. I think that is the case with the most complex tech products. I would like to be able to store a full cluster environment inside of Altaro VM and make sure that the cluster communicates inside of the product, presuming that we have the necessary backup drive in our company. Altaro VM already can test individual VM restores, but one can't really go beyond that scope, at least with the version of the solution that we have in our company right now.

Read full review

Per MøllerJacobsen

Senior consultant at Azend A/S

Delivers cost-effective data backup with room for search improvements

The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for something—you need to know where it was and when it was there to restore it, plus it would be nice to take out data from Microsoft 365 in some portable format, which is currently not an option. I would like to extract the data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format, something like a database or maybe just to take out a PST file or SharePoint and Teams files to the file system. Especially in these times, where we discuss potential risks with the Microsoft cloud for European companies, companies would want to know how to access their data from the backup if they suddenly don't have a tenant. I believe there should be the ability to take out data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format. I know that Cohesity is working on making such a thing. It's not there yet; I asked last week for something for forensics, and the support team said it's not possible yet, but I know from our technical account manager they are working on some solutions.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Granular restoration is extremely useful in Altaro VM Backup for MSPs since it is something that we make use of the most in our company."

"The ability to back up, restore, and do different types of testing for the preventative maintenance has really increased our importance to these clients because they see the value in how fast we can get them back up and running. We're saving them money in that way."

"Because the package includes cloud storage, we don't need to worry about hosting it inside. That was very important to us. And because the vendor has data centers worldwide, our reps in Europe and other places can get to what they need quickly and easily."

"The integration of N-able Cove Data Protection into our existing infrastructure is easy."

"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."

"It's extremely important that Cove provides cloud-based data protection with backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. That is a necessity for my insurance. As an IT company, my insurance would cost more if my backups were not offsite and off-network."

"The most valuable feature of N-able Cove Data Protection is its ease of use."

"It provides a single dashboard for all types of data protection, we monitor everything through a single dashboard. It simplifies everything overall. It allows us to see everything, whether passing or failing any issues, any problems through a single pane of glass that we don't have to click through or adjust as we go forward."

"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."

More N-able Cove Data Protection pros

Cons

"A technical person who hasn't received any dedicated training or hasn't gone through the documentation part of the solution may find the product to be a little non-intuitive at times."

"Integration with a hybrid cloud is something that I found complicated."

"An area for improvement that would really work out well would be if there were a little bit more of an elegant handshake relationship between SolarWinds RMM and the PCs that are being backed up, to advise regarding "up" status... Since RMM is an agent that feeds back that a machine is alive and on, I don't see any reason why they can't either tap into that one feature or build the same exact polling within the backup agent, to update right away and say the system is online or offline."

"The only area that needs improvement is that it is a little bit difficult when you get into virtual machines. The initial deployment of Cove is a little tedious, not for standard machines, but when you get into specialty stuff, like Hyper-V."

"I have some issues with the agent failing on workstations. I've had to completely uninstall several of them, delete everything, and start over to get them to work."

"The one thing they don't are Linux servers, it's Windows only. I understand that directive. I have another product that I use for our Linux servers and stuff, but it would be nice if they had that flexibility on the Linux side. I understand the development and the world is geared towards Windows in 365, I know that's where the clienteles are and the business and the money is."

"A disaster recovery console would be an improvement for the product."

"For small amounts of data, recovery is easy, but when it's large amounts of data, it takes forever. So, if they can have a service where they put our data on a hard drive and ship it to us as fast as possible, it would be great. Even if there's a fee associated with it, it's fine."

"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."

More N-able Cove Data Protection cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."

"The only option I would like to see is an adjustable scale. Right now we have 250 seats and we're not using all of them. It would be nice to be able to save that little bit of money by being able to buy just what we need."

"The pricing is affordable. N-able Cove Data Protection has a direct-to-cloud architecture, but it also allows saving backups locally without extra storage costs."

"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."

"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."

"The pricing, for now, is good. The package that they gave us recently is pretty good. It depends on how many clients you have, and you pay for certain terabytes per license. These terabytes, if not used, are pooled together."

"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."

"When you have a device/appliance on the site quite a lot of the other enterprise class backup people insist that you have their appliance, which is frankly offensively expensive. Because when you pry the top off, it's just a standard 19-inch tin box with a standard Intel I5 in it, some RAM, and a hard drive. Then, you go, "Why have they just charged me 5,500 quid for a box, which I could have probably build for under 500." Whereas, with the SolarWinds product, they don't have that. The backup appliances that we have onsite are just plain cooking PCs. We can build our own machines, which is reflected in the price that we can offer a customer."

More N-able Cove Data Protection pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	1

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?

In terms of pricing, N-able Cove Data Protection is neither cheap nor expensive compared to other competitors.

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What needs improvement with N-able Backup?

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What is your primary use case for N-able Backup?

Our main use cases for enabling N-able Cove Data Protection include backing up our customers' data on servers hosted in data centers and servers hosted in our own data center, as well as a few onsi...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

MSP Backup

February 2026

Download Altaro VM Backup for MSPs product report

Buyer's Guide

N-able Cove Data Protection

February 2026

Download N-able Cove Data Protection product report

Also Known As

No data available

N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup

Overview

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs is a comprehensive backup solution designed specifically for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Its primary use case is to provide reliable and efficient backup and recovery for virtual machines (VMs) in multi-tenant environments.

The most valuable functionality of Altaro VM Backup for MSPs is its centralized management console, which allows MSPs to easily monitor and manage backups for all their clients from a single interface. This streamlines operations and saves time, enabling MSPs to efficiently handle large-scale deployments.

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs offers a range of powerful features, including flexible scheduling, granular restore options, and support for both Hyper-V and VMware environments. It also includes advanced features like Augmented Inline Deduplication, which significantly reduces storage requirements and speeds up backup and restore processes.

By providing reliable and efficient backup and recovery, Altaro VM Backup for MSPs helps organizations ensure business continuity and minimize downtime in the event of data loss or system failures. It also enables MSPs to offer value-added services to their clients, enhancing their reputation and increasing customer satisfaction.

Hornetsecurity

Cove Data Protection, from N-able, is a comprehensive solution designed to safeguard critical business data. It offers a range of features including backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection. With automated backups and flexible scheduling options, it ensures data is protected and easily recoverable.

The solution also includes advanced security measures such as encryption and ransomware detection to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. Cove Data Protection provides seamless integration with various platforms and offers centralized management for efficient monitoring and control.

With its user-friendly interface and robust capabilities, Cove Data Protection is an ideal choice for businesses seeking reliable data protection.

N-able

Sample Customers

Alpha & Omega Computer Consultants, Chorus

Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia

Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Vembu Technologies, N-able and others in MSP Backup. Updated: February 2026.

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