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Azure Backup vs Unitrends 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
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Unitrends
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
45th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.4%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Unitrends is 0.4%, down from 0.5% 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.
Todd Guthrie - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution can be used to back up servers and Hyper-V cluster nodes, but its support is super expensive
I wouldn't rate Unitrends a ten out of ten because we had some hard drive failures in the appliance. Typically, when you have OneDrive, you can get it replaced. For some particular reason, the situation caused the entire system to crash. We had to reinstall the CentOS operating system on it, and we lost all our backups. They said there was no way to retain it, and it was pretty devastating and concerning that a drive failure would cause the loss of all the data on the appliance. It was extremely disappointing, and we had to start from scratch after three years worth of backup data. I rate Unitrends a nine out of ten for stability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can select the tiering for your backup and manage your cost."
"It's easy to deploy."
"The daily backups have become easier since we no longer need to handle large backups. The use of Azure Backup as a service has proven reliable and simplified our daily operations. Previously, we relied on LTO backups for data retention, but after migrating to the cloud and adopting Azure Backup, the delivery process has become smoother."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is the native backup capabilities."
"The tool has a lot of features."
"One of the most valuable features is security and connectivity to the data."
"Setting up Azure Backup is straightforward and the total deployment time was about a month."
"It is easy to schedule backups."
"The ability to diversify jobs within the same server helps break down a large chunk of data into more manageable and concentrated chunks."
"They have great support."
"It is a quick and easy way to organize my backups and to keep track of them."
"It's not easy to scale it."
"If you are a large organization, this is a product for you."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting and UniView features."
"When we talk about a backup point of view, from a backup perspective, it's a good one."
"It is an easy system to use. The support, if needed, is always willing to help."
 

Cons

"I once tried restoring a Linux environment, and the size of the Linux VM or the data disk was really huge. It took a really long time to restore the environment and send the data from the storage to the disk. It took around 25 to 30 minutes, which was much longer than I anticipated. They can improve the duration of such restore operations. In the next release, it would also be good if they could reduce the duration for transferring the data from their storage to the actual storage while creating a virtual machine. They can reduce the duration or increase the data transfer rate."
"There is a limitation of 99 files restores per day which means that we can't complete a huge file restore. We would like Azure to increase the number of the possible file restorations."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"The product could improve its performance."
"The monitoring and tagging features could be improved."
"In Avamar, the file-based restores are very quick and fast, whereas, in Azure Backup, VM restore is super easy, but if I have to do a file or a folder restore, I have to mount the entire VM image. I have to wait for some time for it to be mounted, and then I have to go inside and then check the file and copy it somewhere. It's a bit of a manual process, whereas in Avamar, you can directly select a file and folder, and it'll recover with whatever permissions you want."
"Lacks an AI system that would enable easier upgrading of the hardware."
"The only thing I would say that could be improved is the reporting."
"If the interface could be less complex, it is would be great."
"There's a lot that can be made better. For example, it could be more scalable."
"Making the seeding process more accessible and easier to understand. Also, make more of the undocumented best practices easier to find."
"Unitrends can be challenging to scale."
"The solution's base operating system needs to be improved."
"It would be great to have the job throttle/limit the max number of backups on a single ESXi host."
"​​Follow up for the DRaaS service setup. I'm still waiting to schedule a DRaaS test after upgrading several months ago."
"There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not expensive."
"The price should be cheaper, but it's affordable if you use the yearly subscription."
"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."
"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 very cheap cloud solution."
"The pricing of this solution is good, and it is one of the easiest things that you can sell Azure with."
"This is an expensive solution in the Bangladesh marketplace."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"You should be aware how much the monthly costs are to use, what the initial costs for hardware are, and what the options to expand are, if needed."
"When you purchase initially, get into the program which gives replacement hardware for free when you renew your support agreement."
"Initial pricing is competitive. Renewal pricing is steep, so make sure to project costs for the lifetime of the appliance(s)."
"We found that the cost of Unitrends was about the same as the Dell DR6300. We liked the fact that the Unitrends appliance was all-in-one."
"The cost of Unitrends definitely draws you in. The licensing is all included in the appliance, which is a great incentive."
"With respect to cost, my advice is to get what you need."
"Pricing model constantly changes."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing is yearly and it depends on the customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

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 Unitrends?
The most valuable feature of Unitrends for me is the automated feedback
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Unitrends?
Unitrends is an expensive solution. We've negotiated deals where they've given us the $ 62,000 to $ 64,000 appliance for free but charged $ 90,000 for three years of support.
What needs improvement with Unitrends?
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't s...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
NHL Players Association, Salvation Army, Sligro Food Group, Mason General Hospital, Tec Group, Saldab IT, Baker Tilly, Clinton Savings Bank, Ennit Magna Bank, Manukau Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. Unitrends and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.