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Azure Backup vs Zerto 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Azure Backup offers security, stability, and cost efficiency with low upfront costs, though ROI depends on organization size.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zerto users reported reduced downtime, increased efficiency, and significant financial savings, enhancing disaster recovery and operational satisfaction.
The return on investment is evident, as Zerto saves more than 60 percent of time in various operations compared to the previous manual processes.
Most people like me hope we never have to use it. It is like insurance.
Having seen the product and how it works and its reliability, it seems it will pay for itself.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
10.0
Azure Backup support is generally satisfactory but inconsistent, with slow resolutions and communication barriers impacting customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.7
Zerto's customer service is highly rated for responsiveness and effectiveness, though some seek faster escalation for complex issues.
I have never had an issue that was not resolved, and I have never been in a situation where they did not respond.
I would give them a rating of ten because it represents the highest level of support based on the technical knowledge of the support team, response time, and effectiveness of the provided resolutions.
We receive support around the clock, which is excellent.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Azure Backup excels in scalability, supporting diverse environments and large volumes, though some suggest improvements in newer regions.
Sentiment score
7.6
Zerto offers robust scalability, seamlessly managing diverse environments and thousands of VMs, while efficiently adapting to growth and cloud integration.
Azure Backup is scalable since it is a global solution.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed.
I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Azure Backup is reliable with a 95% success rate, though some issues arise with VMware integration and network connectivity.
Sentiment score
8.0
Zerto is praised for reliability, managing failovers efficiently and ensuring minimal downtime with strong support and regular updates.
Azure Backup is stable for Microsoft environments.
I promptly delete the malfunctioning elements and set them up again to resume replication, ensuring stability.
I consulted with tech support, and we determined the solution was to move the main workload to a resource-available ESX box.
It is 100% stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Backup struggles with UI clarity, integration, high costs, slow restores, and lacks comprehensive automation and continuous backup features.
Zerto users desire improved documentation, integration, backup, automation, cost-effectiveness, cloud support, and enhanced features like encryption and failover.
It is not a perfect tool for restoring SQL databases since it requires replacing everything instead of restoring specific files.
The reporting functionality of Azure Backup needs improvement.
If I have 350 objects that I am protecting, I would like Zerto to be able to fire them up in one order, rather than having to manually bring them up in a sequence.
To increase accessibility for small and medium businesses, Zerto should consider a competitive pricing strategy, possibly including subscription-based licensing options.
The main issue with Zerto is its user interface, which lacks flexibility and presents a steep learning curve.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Backup offers flexible, consumption-based pricing, viewed as affordable compared to AWS, with special options for extended commitments.
Zerto's VM-based licensing is viewed as cost-effective with robust features, quick ROI, but lacks flexible licensing options.
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it.
If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different.
However, it can become quite expensive when you start looking at the number of workloads you have in the environment and what you would like to do.
One of Zerto's main disadvantages is its pricing structure, which involves significant upfront costs and limited options for startups with minimal initial funding.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Backup offers secure, scalable, and cost-effective data protection with easy configuration, rapid recovery, and cross-region backups.
Zerto offers seamless integration, real-time replication, and user-friendly disaster recovery with hardware independence and automated failover capabilities.
The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its simplicity.
We use the normal features for Azure Backup, specifically to make backups of the VMs.
Zerto offers excellent technical support with responsive and helpful experts.
If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked.
The replication time and the minor amount of time it takes to sync a new server outside of any of my huge 40-terabyte boxes is ridiculously quick.
 

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
Zerto
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
296
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.5%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 2.9%, down from 3.1% 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.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
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 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?
It is not the cheapest product; it is not the most expensive product, but it works. It is a mid-range product, and it is justified in terms of being pretty quick and easy.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.