NetApp SnapCenter vs Zerto comparison

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NetApp SnapCenter

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Zerto and NetApp SnapCenter compete in data protection and disaster recovery. Zerto leads in pricing and support, while NetApp SnapCenter is favored for its feature set and integration capabilities.

Features: Zerto offers continuous data protection, scalability, and simplicity. NetApp SnapCenter is valued for its comprehensive backup capabilities, high integration with NetApp storage systems, and support for multiple applications.

Room for Improvement: Zerto users mention improving support response times, and resource consumption. NetApp SnapCenter reviews suggest improvements in documentation and a more intuitive setup process.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zerto is praised for straightforward deployment and exceptional customer service. NetApp SnapCenter has a steeper learning curve and mixed feedback on support responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: Zerto is considered cost-effective with high ROI due to minimal setup costs. NetApp SnapCenter, initially more expensive, provides significant ROI through extensive features and integration capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp SnapCenter vs. Zerto Report (Updated: January 2025).

NetApp SnapCenter vs. Zerto

January 2025

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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

NetApp SnapCenter

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

36th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

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

279

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, down from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 2.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

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.

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Shri Sharan

Solutions architect at Kyndryl

Is user-friendly, saves us time, and costs

We encountered some issues during Active Directory recovery. When we implemented Active Directory, we provided feedback to Zerto regarding the challenges of recovering AD from the on-premises environment to the disaster recovery site. Unlike other virtual machines, AD recovery presents unique difficulties due to its active-active nature. It's unclear whether these challenges stem from Zerto itself or limitations within Microsoft Active Directory. However, in our experience using Zerto for AD recovery compared to other technologies, we faced data discrepancies that necessitated workarounds to bring AD online at the DR site. Certain applications we migrated from production relied on Active Directory authentication. To ensure successful application functionality at the DR site, a functional AD environment was a prerequisite to application migration. Therefore, our initial step involved copying and guaranteeing a running AD instance on the DR side before application recovery. However, upon attempting application authentication on the DR side, data inconsistencies prevented successful authentication. To address this, we created an isolated clone of the AD environment and conducted tests. Through trial and error, we were able to develop workarounds to resolve the issue. Notably, these challenges were specific to Active Directory; other VMs didn't exhibit similar problems.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the RBAC, the Role-Based Access Control. In our managed service, we can have different layers of security."

"You can quickly deploy new virtual environments. It provides efficient and easy-to-use data protection. If a file goes missing or corruption occurs, you can restore it swiftly using the snap restore feature, allowing you to return to work almost immediately."

"The simplicity of backup and restore directly with VMware is an advantage and the time to backup and restore is reduced."

"The main advantage is its fast backup and restore."

"What is very handy for our clients is the consolidated view. They have a dashboard with everything, through a single pane of glass. This is what they really need because, within seconds, they can have a good overview and see if there are any errors or any issues."

"The centralized GUI is the best feature, that there is only one webpage where we can see the states of all the backup jobs. We can see all the tasks that are running and we can quickly see if one fails; if they are running or have any issues. We have all that in one place."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"It has very fast backup and can handle a huge amount of data. It also enables really fast recovery."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

"There are several valuable features because of the way we use it. The backup and restore features are definitely indispensable."

"In situations of failback or moving workloads, it saves us hours. If I were to have to move a four or five terabyte machine using something like VMware's virtual copy it has to install on the machine and copy the data over. Then it has to shut the machine down and do a final copy, which means there's a lot of downtime while it's doing the final copy."

"We are doing continuous data protection. It works flawlessly. Our recovery points are measured in seconds. We have all these "baby snapshots" throughout the course of the day, so we can roll a VM back to any point in time, spin it up, and away we go. We're actively using that. It works great."

"I like that Zerto is easy to move and that there is no effect on the user. That is, the user doesn't even know it. We're in the healthcare industry and work for a hospital. We can set up a server in no time whatsoever. It's easy for us to schedule the time because it takes only about one minute."

"The ease of use is one of the best features. Previously, we were using Site Replication Manager with VMware and it was a little bit cumbersome. With Zerto, we liked the fact that it was hardware-agnostic and we were able to spin it up pretty quickly and get it working."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the live migration."

"It's easy to install."

"There are two things that are keeping us with the solution: 1. It does a very good job of keeping the data in sync at all times. 2. In the event of a failover or in the event of a contingency, we are able to retrieve the data very quickly without any issues."

More Zerto pros

Cons

"Some of the minor functionalities from SnapManager did not transfer over to SnapCenter. These should be added in future releases."

"Since the solution's initial setup is complex, it should make training documents available in the public space."

"Groups might be helpful for each site or data center so that we know a given data center has these resources while another data center has those resources. It's not always easy to group hosts by type."

"I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up... The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed."

"The tool could be faster."

"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..."

"What I did witness lately are issues with some Microsoft KBs, the updates. But it happened only once, and not on a major platform, it was on a small one."

"The replication feature needs improvement in future releases."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

"With secure boot enabled, which is the case for newer systems, it is not easy to rotate passwords and we would have to reinstall the DRAs."

"The native Zerto implementation requires quite a big environment. My environment is rather small. I do not have hundreds of virtual machines."

"For what we got it for, it does it great. I use a different solution for my disk-to-disk local backups to where I can have a local backup of files. I don't think Zerto does that well to where it keeps a memory of the files that are there. Basically, when something is deleted on Zerto, it gets deleted on the replicated version. So, some sort of snapshotting or something where I could have backups at different points in time of files would be a really helpful tool."

"Zerto needs to improve its documentation."

"There's one feature that SRM had that Zerto doesn't have, and it's one that we've been asking for. With the orchestration part of the failover, with our DR and our primary sites, the IP addresses are almost identical. The only difference is one octet. With SRM, we could say during a failover change. With Zerto, we keep hearing that it's coming, but we haven't received it yet. It's a feature that would be very beneficial. It would reduce the time a little bit more."

"Zerto could improve its reporting capabilities."

"We have had some issues with trying to get certain parts of the backup or restore functionality to work."

"Zerto's solution could benefit from additional security features, such as malware scanning tools at the recovery site."

More Zerto cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."

"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."

"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."

"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."

"The product is inexpensive."

"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."

"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."

"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."

"They should adjust the pricing because I feel its price is too much. If they reduce the price, there will be more users and customers."

"I'd like to see better tiering for Zerto's pricing. We do multi-tier VMs. I don't think I should be paying a penalty and price for a tier-three VM where I don't need a really tight SLA like I do for a tier-one."

"We paid a big investment upfront with renewal fees each year."

"We believe the pricing, setup costs, and licensing are easy to understand. The pricing seems very reasonable."

"It's a little bit expensive."

"Licensing is VM based so you can buy packages or single VM. Price is not low but the power of application is high, so you will get your money back."

"The pricing is a little more expensive in comparison to other tools."

"The pricing for this solution could be cheaper. They have two licensing tiers. When we purchased it, they didn't have a license for the cloud model. Certain things that I used to get with the basic licensing are no longer available. They are only available in the Cloud. Overall, the licensing model could be simplified."

More Zerto pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user159711

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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.

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?

I would rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around a seven on a scale of one to ten. The pricing model could be more flexible to accommodate startup companies with lower budgets.

Synology DSM vs NetApp SnapCenter

Comparisons

Compared 23% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 22% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 20% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 14% of the time

More NetApp SnapCenter Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs Zerto

Compared 17% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs Zerto

Compared 16% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Zerto

Compared 9% of the time

Rubrik vs Zerto

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Disaster Recovery as a Service vs Zerto

Compared 6% of the time

More Zerto Competitors

Product Reports

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NetApp SnapCenter

January 2025

Download Zerto product report

December 2024

Also Known As

SnapCenter

Zerto Virtual Replication

Learn More

NetApp

Overview

Unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows.

Zerto is used for disaster recovery, business continuity, data migration, and ransomware recovery, providing continuous data protection and near real-time replication. Valued for ease of use, efficient failover processes, and versatile integration, it enhances organizational efficiency, reduces errors, and boosts productivity.

Sample Customers

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies