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Azure Backup vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N-able Cove Data Protection
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
24th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (16th), SaaS Backup (8th), MSP Backup (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.6%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 1.2%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Terry Tull - PeerSpot reviewer
Straightforward to set up and manage and allows us to monitor all backups in one place
I would rate the easiness of the initial setup as an eight out of ten. Setting up Azure Backup was pretty straightforward, especially if you follow the steps in the right order. It might seem a bit complex at first, but with experience, subsequent setups become easier. Planning is key to optimizing its effectiveness. Deploying Azure Backup typically takes around half an hour to an hour to set up one VM, involving creating a recovery services vault, defining a backup policy, and configuring storage options. For a more comprehensive setup including proper recovery planning, it might take a few hours. The key steps involve creating a resource group, and a recovery services vault, selecting a storage type, and defining backup policies. I deployed the solution myself.
Jack Henson - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to back up workstations and servers, and saved us time when checking endpoints and the viability of backups
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. That's been the biggest source of my problems recently. The problem is that when we delete one, we lose the backup. Consequently, it means we're without a backup unless we have a local copy. When we delete the agent, there's the problem of how to go back and restore it. I haven't had to deal with it yet, because I haven't had a failure that occurred while I was doing that. I had a workstation that started failing, and we couldn't get the services to run. I don't know what caused it. I had to reinstall the agent, which didn't work. I had to go into the machine and delete everything and load another agent onto it. Once I did that, I was able to make it work, but 90% of the time I never have an issue. During the other 10% of the time when I have a problem, it's a mess. The ability to recover to a different workstation or a different data point is a little bit clumsy. It could use some work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The MARS agent makes it easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its simplicity."
"Azure Backup is good because it is entirely cloud-based, which means that you can be 99.9% sure that your backup is safe."
"I like the product's restoration cases."
"It is a stable solution...It is a highly scalable solution."
"It is a stable solution...The product is worth the money you pay for it."
"It is easy to schedule backups."
"This solution is easy to configure and restore. It is a Microsoft product so is easily compatible with other solutions."
"The most valuable feature is that it's hands-off. I log in every morning and there are pre-canned filters that I've created to make my life easier. I have something called server status color bars, and that gives me all the servers and, in a nutshell, I can see: if any errors are being reported; when the last backup was; if one is not working, should there be one, and it literally jumps off the page."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"For starters, this is one of few databases that allow us to backup MySQL databases, most others only support Microsoft SQL. This solution also has a very user-friendly interface accessed through a web browser. Additionally, backups can be easily configured through N-able Backup."
"What I like the most about it's the ease of use and the reliability that it has when copying information to the cloud."
"The solution has reduced backup times by an immeasurable amount. Its backups are incremental, so you are only backing up data changes based on the last 24 hours or so. If you are also maintaining the stored images, the restores are also only incremental, happening in minutes. Whereas, with a lot of the other solutions that we have looked at, each time it goes to refresh the restore, then it has to build a completely new image. That takes forever. This solution also improves recovery time."
"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 ease of use and the console are great."
"The most valuables feature is the alerts and monitoring that catches the failed backups."
 

Cons

"The time required to restore files should be a little faster."
"The integration with the record database and integration with other applications will be good, especially with the database piece."
"Azure Backup needs improvements in allowing more specific backup options rather than just full VM snapshots. It lacks features for cybersecurity, such as ransomware protection."
"The length of time it takes to restore is our main source of frustration. It would be beneficial to shorten the time it takes."
"The user interface is a little bit confusing and it could be better."
"Azure Backup's licensing model is very challenging because it doesn't give a clear picture."
"They need to improve the frequency of the backup. You can only backup one to three times a day. It would be better to back up continuously throughout the day."
"The monitoring and tagging features could be improved."
"The reporting feature and functionality need improvement. We would like to see a little bit more detailed reporting that offers more CEO or C-level focused reporting options."
"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."
"A better default view on my dashboard would be great. There is a lot of useless information there that it pulls up. They could present the dashboard slightly better, in terms of the extra information after the first five columns. The first five columns are awesome. After that, I don't care about the rest, and there are another seven things after that."
"A disaster recovery console would be an improvement for the product."
"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."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"A feature I'd like to see would be a more customizable admin console."
"For the MSP side, they could have more of a "security user" that can go in and only see certain clients. If you give somebody access as a technician, they can see all the clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Support payment works by the level of partnership and the number of shares."
"The price is somewhat high and could be lower."
"It is a very cheap cloud solution."
"Azure Backup is a moderately priced solution."
"Azure Backup can be expensive if you are not vigilant about your storage steering."
"The product is not expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is good, and it is one of the easiest things that you can sell Azure with."
"Overall, its cost is better because the VMs are already there, and whatever you back up, there is only the additional cost of that storage, whereas if I have to use Avamar in Azure, a separate cost is there for the Avamar server, and in addition, whatever I take as a backup, there is a separate license with Avamar for that. So, there is a double cost if we have to use Avamar in the cloud."
"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 of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is an averagely-priced product."
"I believe that the price is very reasonable in comparison to other options. It is cheaper than both Redstor and Acronis and, since we are now using our own on-premise cloud, there is absolutely no comparison since we have unlimited storage rather than paying per gigabyte used for their onsite storage. We are currently able to backup fifty computers for the same price that we use to backup five computers."
"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 pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"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 price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it. I do not have specific details about the licensing cost as it falls under another department.
What do you like most about N-able Backup?
The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?
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.
What needs improvement with N-able Backup?
There aren’t any challenges. Regarding the additional features, Cove is limited to disaster recovery with Azure. It would be great to make disaster recovery compatible with AWS.
 

Also Known As

No data available
N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. N-able Cove Data Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.