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Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter 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

Cohesity DataProtect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (6th)
NetApp SnapCenter
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity DataProtect is 3.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli. - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support
The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup. Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance. We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site. Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.
Mir Gulzar Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command
It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We like that we can use production data to run intensive reports that would otherwise bog down the production server."
"It's completely reliable and easy to restore."
"Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the solution handles instant recovery and file-level recovery from a VMware image backup seamlessly."
"The solution is stable."
"After linking a cloud subscription, like Azure for example (AWS and Google are also supported), you can "spin" a VM onto the cloud from any backup snapshot."
"One of the most valuable features is the restore functionality that they offer."
"The recovery process is effective, especially when it comes to other types of data, such as VMs, and overall, the performance is commendable."
"I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud."
"Technical support has been very helpful when we have issues."
"Most banks and financial institutions use the solution."
"The product’s most valuable feature is cloning."
"The main advantage is its fast backup and restore."
"The reporting feature has been particularly beneficial to upper management... When you do manual backups, you do not get the benefit of seeing successes and failures and how often you have to do restores. With SnapCenter, you get all of that."
"We have been very satisfied with the technical support's help. Their knowledge level is great. For a noncritical question, they will get back to us within a day."
"Restoring and cloning are easy to do."
"The central pane view is the most valuable feature. You have one console where you can monitor all your jobs, as opposed to going to different vCenters."
 

Cons

"There is limited support for legacy systems, which is something that could be improved."
"I would like to see Microsoft Exchange DAG supported as soon as possible."
"Many of the reports are basic, at most, and at times we had to open a support ticket to help find or develop a report for our needs."
"I'd like to be able to pause a backup while it's running and have it resume when I tell it to resume."
"We are waiting on the AIX agent to be released."
"Their UI requires a manual refresh. It doesn't seem like it updates itself sometimes when you're moving from screens or waiting for a change to take effect, so you have to manually refresh."
"For Oracle DBs, we have observed a few bugs. This can be done better."
"A little more documentation on standard faults would help, as new features are being released quite often."
"We have experience some difficulties with our current support. We are engaging in engineering level support because some of our problems are more technical."
"I'm waiting for SnapCenter for hybrid solutions. Right now, we only have SnapManager for hybrid. I need agents for that. People are looking to install SnapCenter in a SQL environment, but where they're running SQL on Hyper-V and using virtual files. Currently, we don't have support for hybrid."
"The tool could be faster."
"There is one area that needs improvement and that's in the alerting. When you set up your SMTP alerts, it only has - and I don't understand why - the ability to send an anonymous SMTP. It doesn't do basic authentication, which frustrated me for a while until I figured out that I'm not missing something. It's just not there."
"When you have role-based access, for example, it's a bit of a problem that the person who creates the backup job is the owner of it. We are struggling a bit with this, that everyone has the same view and the same permissions in there."
"The Dashboard view needs to be more compressed with better ease of access and drill-down features. They should also reinstate Linux filesystem backups of storage volumes (which existed in the prior version)."
"Some of the minor functionalities from SnapManager did not transfer over to SnapCenter. These should be added in future releases."
"We have hundreds of servers and systems and hundreds of customers and they're separated in a multi-tenancy way in NetApp SVM. Right now, the problem is that it always scan all SVMs. If I backup Customer A, it scans all SVMs, or tries to scan all SVMs, if there is a backup relationship on the storage. But it doesn't have the permissions, so we run into timeouts or the backup just takes too long. They're fixing that in the upcoming release..."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more advanced security features than Cohesity DataProtect currently, Cohesity DataProtect is releasing a new solution in the near future that will compete directly with Rubrik."
"The solution's pricing is in the mid-range, where it's neither costly nor cheap."
"Pricing, setup costs, etc. are pretty typical. The initial cost for Cohesity was less than other products the we evaluated. Cohesity's pricing does offer benefits as DR target costs are less than other solutions. You are not charged for DataProtect licensing for target DR data consumption."
"My advice is to always negotiate for better pricing."
"Sizing is important and it is easy to overestimate."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."
"With respect to pricing, make sure that you look at both Rubrik and Cohesity as they are very similar and are quite competitive."
"Ensure that you understand the per TB licensing model. Also, Exchange backups are not native to Cohesity and require Kroll."
"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."
"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."
"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."
"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."
"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."
"The product is inexpensive."
"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."
"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity DataProtect?
Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity DataProtect?
Typically on-premises nodes/clusters are deployed for primary backup (to enable instant mass restore) so price will be dependent on chosen OEM and capacity required. MSPs like us utilise PPU licens...
What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?
While there are improvements to be made, such as providing support for older systems like IBM iSeries and tandem systems from HP, the solution overall shifts from older methods to modern practices....
What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?
Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?
If you have a license, you don't need to buy anything extra. If you have multiple storage systems and want to manage them with a central tool, you are covered.
What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?
There is always a chance for improvement. One thing that might be improved is the ease of management. It might be made a little less complicated.
 

Also Known As

Cohesity
SnapCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tribune Media
All for One Steeb AG, Accenture
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.