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Azure Site Recovery vs Zerto comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.7
Azure Site Recovery provides cost-effective, reliable disaster recovery with 30% time savings on VM management compared to other solutions.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zerto provides efficient disaster recovery, saving time, resources, and costs while ensuring rapid recovery and reliable data protection.
Azure Site Recovery, while being pricier than some providers, has a sufficient service level to justify costs.
Azure Site Recovery is time-saving, and its features allow us to automate processes and save resources.
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
6.9
Azure Site Recovery support is mixed, with prompt service for some, but delays and expertise issues reported by others.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zerto's support team is praised for quick resolutions and professionalism, although initial responses can be slower at lower levels.
We primarily rely on our Cloud Support Partner for support.
Issues frequently require escalation.
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
7.2
Azure Site Recovery is highly scalable, effectively managing various enterprise sizes, though setup time may increase with server numbers.
Sentiment score
7.6
Zerto efficiently scales across environments, supports many virtual machines, integrates well, and requires minimal effort for expansion.
Azure Site Recovery is a very scalable product and service mechanism.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Customers need to follow good engineering practices for optimal product use.
By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Azure Site Recovery is praised for stability and scalability, frequently rated 8-10, despite occasional migration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.0
Zerto is highly praised for its rock-solid stability, ease of maintenance, and reliable performance during disaster recovery tests.
I would rate the stability of Azure Site Recovery at eight to nine out of ten.
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 Site Recovery needs enhancements in error logging, pricing, compatibility, scalability, stability, synchronization, security, and support services.
Zerto needs improved documentation, UI, backup, and pricing along with better support, integrations, security, and platform compatibility.
There is room for improvement in the release of patches, such as ensuring they are properly managed to avoid outages.
Currently, Azure Site Recovery does not support shared disk options.
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 Site Recovery costs vary based on usage, making long-term budgeting challenging due to complexity and regular adjustments.
Zerto's per-VM pricing is costly but justified by strong disaster recovery capabilities and flexible licensing options for businesses.
The pricing of Azure Site Recovery is around a four out of ten, being somewhat cost-effective.
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 Site Recovery offers seamless disaster recovery with automation, scalability, and integration, though potentially costly for smaller businesses.
Zerto provides reliable disaster recovery with ease of use, real-time replication, automation, and strong cross-platform capabilities.
Its time-saving aspects allow us to write PowerShell scripts to automate failover processes.
Azure provides a 99.99% SLA for their uptime, ensuring that even during outages due to patch releases, there is no data loss, merely hindered accessibility.
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 Site Recovery
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery as a Service (2nd)
Zerto
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
299
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (2nd), Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
The time-saving aspects allow us to write PowerShell scripts to automate failover processes
First of all, we initially faced a challenge as Azure Site Recovery was not supporting shared disk options on SQL clusters with VMs, which are important for a Windows cluster mode. Additionally, the setup is quite easy, only requiring the creation of a vault. Its time-saving aspects allow us to write PowerShell scripts to automate failover processes.
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
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Site Recovery?
Azure Site Recovery allows my company to save around 30 percent of the time on every VM that we need to back up and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Site Recovery?
The pricing of Azure Site Recovery is around a four out of ten, being somewhat cost-effective. Microsoft frequently restructures their pricing, causing us to adjust packages and subscriptions, whic...
What needs improvement with Azure Site Recovery?
There is room for improvement in the release of patches, such as ensuring they are properly managed to avoid outages. The support help desk needs to improve escalation procedures. Azure ( /products...
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Union Insurance, Rackspace
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 Site Recovery vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,690 professionals have used our research since 2012.