AWS Backup vs Zerto comparison

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AWS Backup

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Zerto and AWS Backup compete in the disaster recovery and data protection market. Zerto seems to have the upper hand due to its advanced capabilities and customer support.

Features: Zerto offers real-time replication, hardware-independent disaster recovery, and supports replication across multiple hypervisors, allowing for failover testing without impacting production environments. AWS Backup automates backups for AWS services, relying on periodic snapshots and integrates seamlessly within the AWS ecosystem, supporting regular backups and data protection.

Room for Improvement: Zerto needs enhancements in documentation and reporting. There are demands for support for more hypervisors and automated load balancing. AWS Backup could improve by offering file and database-level backups, refining restore processes, and enhancing hybrid cloud capabilities, along with providing customizable backup schedules.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zerto, deployed on-premises or hybrid clouds, is praised for excellent technical support and customer service. AWS Backup, designed for cloud-based deployment, follows a pay-as-you-go model and is perceived as less customer service-focused, with room for improvement in integrating hybrid environments.

Pricing and ROI: Zerto's premium pricing, based on VM licensing, reflects its extensive disaster recovery features and justifies ROI through downtime reduction. AWS Backup, using a pay-as-you-go model without licensing costs, offers competitive pricing aligned with ease within AWS ecosystems, though potentially more expensive for broader environments.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Backup vs. Zerto Report (Updated: March 2025).

AWS Backup vs. Zerto

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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

AWS Backup

Ranking in Cloud Backup

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

SaaS Backup (4th)

Zerto

Ranking in Cloud Backup

2nd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

298

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (2nd), Cloud Migration (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of AWS Backup is 3.5%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 4.2%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Backup

Featured Reviews

MuhammadAzhar Khan

Senior DevOps Engineer at Alibaba Group

Simplify compliance and management of multiple backups with centralized cloud solutions

AWS Backup could benefit from including more services. Currently, it only includes around ten services, while AWS offers over three hundred plus services. Also, it would be helpful if AWS Backup could integrate logs more thoroughly. This would allow not only new users but also experienced users to more easily check logs directly from AWS Backup.

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Sachin Vinay

Assistant Manager-Networks at Amrita

Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features

Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days. Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss. One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization. Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently. Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems. Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages. Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time. Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management. Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works well as a backup and as a service."

"The snapshots we take through AWS Backup are very effective."

"AWS Backup is secure and comes with a vault that ensures data is never deleted, offering great security."

"When I was using an on-premises backup, there was an external hard drive or something like that. I had a backup server, but I had a few problems related to transfer when I had to restore something that I have deleted. I had to wait for after-office hours to do something like that, but now I just have to send a mail. Within one hour, I have my restored file."

"It is an easy-to-use solution."

"The auto-scaling feature and the time efficiency of setting up AWS Backup are the most valuable aspects for us."

"The replication in the recovery region is the most valuable feature."

"AWS Backup's most valuable feature is that you can configure it remotely to create backups."

More AWS Backup pros

"When we use our VMware environment, sometimes the HP hardware is not compatible, and we start to lose data. I like that we can restore our whole application and public-facing system through Zerto."

"The low SLA times are valuable. It is very easy to use with a straightforward user setup."

"When we replicated our data, I turned up the machine, and it was up in seconds. It blew my mind. I could not believe it."

"It protect and provide DR."

"What I like most about Zerto is that it makes my job much easier."

"In situations of failback or moving workloads, it saves us hours. If I were to have to move a four or five terabyte machine using something like VMware's virtual copy it has to install on the machine and copy the data over. Then it has to shut the machine down and do a final copy, which means there's a lot of downtime while it's doing the final copy."

"We are in the process of switching over our production data center and Zerto has been a true time-saver that has cost us zero downtime."

"The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low."

More Zerto pros

Cons

"If AWS could also add some hybrid cloud features to AWS Backup, that would be a significant improvement. For example, currently, AWS Backup only backs up to the S3 and Amazon Cloud, and you can only restore from the Amazon Cloud only. However, some people have hybrid environments. They have some workloads on-premises and some workloads in the cloud."

"This backup tool does the full backup of the entire snapshot server. I would like to have the option to not do the full server backup."

"The initial setup of the solution is complex."

"It could be less expensive."

"The tool is a good fit if your environment is VM-specific. However, it might not be the most suitable option if you have physical servers or an on-premise setup."

"One improvement I would like to see in AWS Backup is the implementation of incremental backups."

"Its cost could be better than a few of its competitors."

"When it comes to encrypting data, it is not so convenient."

More AWS Backup cons

"If I were to nitpick, I would say that I wish I had a better account manager. Our sales guy has changed a couple of times. I would like a little more responsiveness from our account manager. I've had a couple of issues where getting in touch with him has been a little difficult, and I end up just going around him and dealing with support and support has handled it right away."

"It is difficult to manage failing over between sites if you are at the site that was impacted."

"We had some issues with replication, especially on Linux, but we have already resolved them."

"Better alerting is something that I feel is critical."

"The GUI could be streamlined a bit more to enhance the administrative tasks."

"I would like to see them continuously improve Zerto's automated functions, such as putting hosts in maintenance mode within vSphere and not having to worry as much about how Zerto is going to react... Sometimes, Zerto almost holds the vSphere environment hostage when it comes to taking certain actions. You really need to be cognizant about what you're about to do. They should further automate that and increase Zerto's ability to handle things like that in a very slick, automated way, without intervention."

"I always get some blowback about the cost. It does not seem too bad to me. We had to upgrade to a premium subscription to get some other features. Maybe a one-size-fits-all option would be better."

"The ease of use of the restoration utility could be challenging initially."

More Zerto cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is okay."

"Our customers pay a monthly AWS fee that includes the AWS Backup service."

"The product is inexpensive."

"We don't use a lot of space, only approximately 900 GB, so the price is reasonable. For standing, it's okay. We normally do a payment to SSML, and they are the ones who pay over there. It is around $100 monthly."

"There is a lot of flexibility with the services and pricing. The price is reasonable when compared to other products. This is very good for us."

"The clients pay for the whole AWS bundle. It is an affordable solution."

"Its price is much cheaper than some vendors but more expensive than others."

"There are no licensing costs for AWS Backup. You pay only for the amount of backup storage you use and then the data transferred between regions. Overall AWS Backup is priced reasonably."

More AWS Backup pricing and cost advice

"Zerto’s licensing model has changed a bit over the last year and they are in alignment with others. It is pretty simple and more economical."

"I do not have anything to compare it to. It is expensive, but I am not going to squabble about the price when I bring the system up in a disaster. It is what it is."

"The only negative part that I have seen so far has been the cost. It is kind of pricey, but you get what you pay for. Zerto is a lot faster than other solutions and you get enhanced performance."

"Staffing may be a little thin at times, but as far as budgeting what we buy, the price for this solution has not been so outrageous that we don't buy it."

"If it were easier to license, and to scale it out a little bit more economically, that'd be a godsend. At the end of the day, my druthers would be to have all 200 of our servers protected by this platform. But for a company our size, that stretches our IT budget and it just doesn't make economic sense."

"We subscribe to their annual license package and we have tier one support with them."

"My understanding is that it's expensive but worth the price."

"We paid a big investment upfront with renewal fees each year."

More Zerto pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Backup solutions are best for your needs.

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Comparison Review

it_user159711

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Nov 9, 2014

VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto

Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about AWS Backup?

The solution's most valuable features are its backup capability and tight integration with other AWS services.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Backup?

AWS Backup operates on a pay-as-you-go model without requiring a license.

What needs improvement with AWS Backup?

There are multiple enhancements needed in terms of compatibility with all database services, as AWS Backup is currently limited to specific ones.

What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?

Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...

What do you like most about Zerto?

Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feat...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?

Zerto is definitely more costly compared to its competitors, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager. It may not be suitable for small and medium-sized industries.

Commvault Cloud vs AWS Backup

Comparisons

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AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery vs AWS Backup

Compared 21% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs AWS Backup

Compared 14% of the time

Rubrik Go vs AWS Backup

Compared 8% of the time

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud vs AWS Backup

Compared 6% of the time

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Veeam Data Platform vs Zerto

Compared 16% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs Zerto

Compared 14% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Zerto

Compared 10% of the time

Rubrik vs Zerto

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Disaster Recovery as a Service vs Zerto

Compared 6% of the time

More Zerto Competitors

Product Reports

AWS Backup

Download AWS Backup product report

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Also Known As

No data available

Zerto Virtual Replication

Overview

AWS Backup is a fully managed backup service that makes it easy to centralize and automate the backup of data across AWS services. With AWS Backup, you can create backup policies, define backup schedules, and manage backups across multiple AWS accounts and regions from a single console. It supports a wide range of AWS services, including Amazon EBS volumes, Amazon RDS databases, Amazon DynamoDB tables, Amazon EFS file systems, and more.

AWS Backup provides a simple and cost-effective solution for protecting your data and ensuring business continuity. It offers features like cross-region replication, incremental backups, and point-in-time recovery. With AWS Backup, you can easily restore your data to any point in time and recover from accidental deletions or data corruption.

It also provides a centralized view of your backup activity, allowing you to monitor and manage backups across your entire AWS infrastructure. AWS Backup is designed to be highly durable and secure, with data encrypted at rest and in transit. It integrates with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for fine-grained access control and supports compliance with various industry standards and regulations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Zerto is used for disaster recovery, business continuity, data migration, and ransomware recovery, providing continuous data protection and near real-time replication. Valued for ease of use, efficient failover processes, and versatile integration, it enhances organizational efficiency, reduces errors, and boosts productivity.

Sample Customers

TransferWise

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies

AWS Backup vs. Zerto