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Azure Backup vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N-able Cove Data Protection
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
25th
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 December 2024, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.8%, down from 5.3% 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

"It is easy to schedule backups."
"Azure Backup is very simple to use and user-friendly."
"The deployment process is quite easy in Azure."
"It is a stable solution...It is a highly scalable solution."
"I like that it's a stable solution and their support is good. I think Microsoft's commercial force is superior."
"It offers seamless integration."
"The solution helped us use R2 RBO to back up frequently."
"The compression features save us money and speed up the backup and restore process."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"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 initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy."
"The most valuable feature by far is the Virtual Disaster Recovery. On top of that is the bare-metal recovery. The recovery options that we have are great. We have tested the Virtual Disaster Recovery and the bare-metal recovery in just about any scenario you can think of. We have even restored bare metal, a full server, to a laptop, and had full functionality. It's just insane how well it works and how simple it is. It does most of the work for you."
"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."
"One of the bigger features and advantages of the solution is that it is easy to integrate with my RMM which is also N-able."
"The user interface is the most valuable. It gives us the ability to check everything. With more than 100 endpoints running that software, I like the ability to quickly check that everything is working correctly. That's one of the biggest selling points."
 

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to back up to different cloud providers."
"The only thing I would say that could be improved is the reporting."
"It can be further improved by continuously meeting its compliance requirements."
"The compression ratio of the backup data should be improved."
"The tool's backup should be faster. Azure Backup's support should be faster."
"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."
"It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure."
"The product must improve on a database level."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"There could be a possibility to create a local NAS backup for infrastructure."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."
"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price should be cheaper, but it's affordable if you use the yearly subscription."
"Support payment works by the level of partnership and the number of shares."
"The pricing of the solution does not depend on the service itself but rather on the minimum data volume encountered. This pricing approach seems reasonable and is on par with other competitors in the market. It is a good solution for on-premise needs because it is more cost-effective. When evaluating the overall financial expenditure, including operational costs and the impact on the IT team, Azure Backup is a favorable choice."
"It is a bit costly initially, but it is well worth it in the long run, especially for fighting against a number of threats, such as ransomware, which the IT industry is facing."
"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 pricing of this solution is ok, but I'm expecting that the price will decrease in the future."
"The product is not expensive."
"It is incredibly cost-effective and offers fixed pricing, with no additional fees for the licensing."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"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 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, 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."
"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."
"There is no per node cost, at least not the way I am doing it. I am on bulk. New customers can be set up on a trial, where they can get things all squared away, then they can switch over to being a billed customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
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?
Pricing is middle plus, and it's a bit high. We always wait for prices to reduce, however, Azure sometimes offers special discounts or packages if you commit for more years.
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: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.