Synology DSM vs Zerto comparison

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Synology DSM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Zerto and Synology DSM compete in disaster recovery and data management. Zerto has the upper hand in specialized disaster recovery features, while Synology DSM offers more versatile functionalities.

Features: Zerto provides robust disaster recovery, data replication, and protection with minimal data loss. Synology DSM offers extensive storage management, multimedia capabilities, and a comprehensive suite of apps.

Room for Improvement: Zerto needs better user training and more intuitive management tools. Synology DSM should improve its disaster recovery features, simplify setup processes, and enhance user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zerto's setup is straightforward but requires technical expertise, with customer service needing more proactive support options. Synology DSM's deployment is more complex but efficient once set up, with customer service noted for delayed response times.

Pricing and ROI: Zerto's higher setup costs provide substantial ROI through reliable data protection, making it ideal for critical environments. Synology DSM offers competitive initial pricing and strong ROI through versatile features, especially for small to medium-sized businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Synology DSM vs. Zerto Report (Updated: March 2025).

Synology DSM vs. Zerto

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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

Synology DSM

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

18th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

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

299

Ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Synology DSM is 1.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Michael Adejoh

Solutions Manager at Excel Connect Ventures

Reliable and cost-effective

One area where Synology DSM could improve is in enhancing its ability to detect and respond to security threats during backups and replication. Currently, it lacks the capability to automatically stop backups if it detects a virus or suspicious network activity, as some third-party solutions can. Having AI-driven analytics to identify anomalies and halt backups during potential attacks, along with notifications to administrators, would be valuable. Additionally, providing a dashboard for monitoring the backup environment's security would be a beneficial feature. These improvements would help address security concerns and make Synology more competitive in this aspect.

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Sachin Vinay

Assistant Manager-Networks at Amrita

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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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because of its simplicity and the wide array of features it offers, I would recommend DSM for both tech-savvy individuals and those who prefer a straightforward file-serving solution."

"The most valuable features of Synology DSM are its security and connectivity."

"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its ease of use, making it the tool's most interesting part."

"The most valuable aspect is its ability to handle multiple disks."

"Synology DSM is very easy to work and operate."

"The most valuable features are the basic storage, file management, Btrfs file system, and built-in backups that come with the solution."

"It offers a variety of software options through its package center, allowing users to customize their NAS device to serve multiple purposes."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it serves as a backup for our company's virtual machine."

More Synology DSM pros

"The time it takes to fail a server over to DR has been great."

"I found VM level replication and being able to group the VM levels to be valuable. I like not having to worry about whether a particular VM is in the right storage group; some of those sorts of things would trip us up previously."

"The low SLA times are valuable. It is very easy to use with a straightforward user setup."

"The disaster recovery features are the best I've found."

"The constant replication between the primary and the DR site is valuable. Zerto's near-synchronous replication is excellent."

"Some of the most valuable features are the synchronous replication and migration with RDMs. I really like the conversion of RDM VMs for migration."

"Zerto's ability to test failovers with a record of how long it takes to fail the motor is beneficial, as it allows us to know the timing in the event we have to do it live."

"I've found the migration feature very valuable."

More Zerto pros

Cons

"The product's only shortcoming is pricing, as it is an expensive solution."

"The platform could be much more cost-effective and flexible for integrating third-party products."

"Even though Synology provides a backup solution, it does not recognize the VM movement across cluster hosts."

"There's a surveillance application that allows you to connect IP cameras and stream footage to Synology and it is a great feature, but it's not always clear that adding more cameras may require purchasing additional licenses."

"Users may lose their data if they don't configure the solution properly."

"The only bothersome aspect is that the device is aging."

"Synology DSM is a good enough solution for small and medium companies, but I have not seen a big configuration of the solution for a big organization."

"Synology DSM's user interface is not quite intuitive."

More Synology DSM cons

"The biggest area for improvement is the technical support side. Although it has improved somewhat, after the HPE acquisition, it became apparent that level-one technical support was moved to groups unfamiliar with the Zerto product."

"The technical support response time has room for improvement."

"The only complaint is that if I remove a host from a cluster, it does not like that. If I move and put the host in maintenance mode to fix it, and vRA is down, Zerto does not like it. Zerto should figure out that this host has an issue and it went down. Zerto should then let me upload that vRA information to another vRA."

"We'd like to be able to migrate data without its operating system or any other functionality and without having to go through a virtual machine or server."

"It would be helpful if the reports can be generated periodically, on a schedule."

"The biggest improvement would be exporting VPGs and a configuration of VPGs, as well as increasing or improving their IP customization rule set."

"I would like to see different reporting options than what is currently available. I would like to be able to grab different data points that do not currently exist in the reporting system."

"Now, everything is moving to the cloud and many modern app solutions are based on virtualization and cloud, however, for situations where Unix platforms are used, we'd like them to be able to support that."

More Zerto cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is very good."

"It is quite an affordable solution."

"The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."

"The pricing varies widely, catering to a broad range of needs."

"Synology DSM is a free tool."

"The licensing part of the solution is free. The hardware is more expensive than the other solutions in the market, but it's okay in the long run."

"Synology DSM is a cheap solution."

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

"From a customer perspective, the price is okay. From an investor's perspective, however, it is a little bit high."

"The pricing is top tier but offers good value."

"I am not very involved with the pricing, but from my understanding, it is fairly expensive for us. This is why we limit its use to our tier-one customers. We have other disaster recovery solutions for our other customers due to the cost."

"From a pricing standpoint, there is value in it without question. 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."

"It is not the cheapest option on the market, but it offers a number of features that make it a good value for businesses that need a comprehensive disaster recovery plan."

"My understanding is that it's expensive but worth the price."

"Its pricing is way better than Veeam."

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

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Synology DSM?

The most valuable features of Synology DSM are its security and connectivity.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Synology DSM?

The solution’s pricing is neither cheap nor expensive.

What needs improvement with Synology DSM?

Users may lose their data if they don't configure the solution properly.

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.

Veeam Data Platform vs Synology DSM

Comparisons

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Compared 6% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Synology DSM

Compared 5% of the time

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Veeam Data Platform vs Zerto

Compared 16% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs Zerto

Compared 14% 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

Synology DSM

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Also Known As

Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM)

Zerto Virtual Replication

Overview

Synology DSM (DiskStation Manager) is a comprehensive software platform designed for Synology NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. It serves as the operating system for these devices, providing a wide range of features and functionalities.

The primary use case of Synology DSM is to centralize and manage data storage for organizations. It allows businesses to store, access, and share files securely across multiple devices and platforms. With its intuitive user interface, DSM simplifies the management of data, making it easy to create shared folders, set access permissions, and monitor storage usage.

One of the most valuable functionalities of Synology DSM is its robust data protection capabilities. It offers various RAID configurations, including SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID), which ensures data redundancy and safeguards against drive failures. DSM also supports advanced backup and disaster recovery solutions, such as Snapshot Replication and Hyper Backup, enabling organizations to protect their critical data effectively.

Furthermore, Synology DSM provides a wide range of productivity and collaboration tools. It offers applications like Synology Drive, which allows seamless file synchronization across devices, and Synology Office, a web-based suite for document editing and collaboration. DSM also supports various third-party applications, including popular cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, enabling organizations to integrate their existing workflows seamlessly.

Synology

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

Information Not Available

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

Synology DSM vs. Zerto