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Unitrends 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Unitrends
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
38th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
34
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 (3rd), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Unitrends is 0.5%, down 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
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user177801 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jul 23, 2023
 

Featured Reviews

Todd Guthrie - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution can be used to back up servers and Hyper-V cluster nodes, but its support is super expensive
I wouldn't rate Unitrends a ten out of ten because we had some hard drive failures in the appliance. Typically, when you have OneDrive, you can get it replaced. For some particular reason, the situation caused the entire system to crash. We had to reinstall the CentOS operating system on it, and we lost all our backups. They said there was no way to retain it, and it was pretty devastating and concerning that a drive failure would cause the loss of all the data on the appliance. It was extremely disappointing, and we had to start from scratch after three years worth of backup data. I rate Unitrends a nine out of ten for stability.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When I have had to use tech support, they've been very good."
"I like the fact that you can recover the VMs inside the appliance. For example, they're basically running this appliance on a Linux-based distribution, and they're spinning off KVM virtual machines inside."
"I am impressed with the tool's reporting and UniView features."
"Iinstant recovery (allows a spin-up of your image as a VM on the appliance)."
"The ability to diversify jobs within the same server helps break down a large chunk of data into more manageable and concentrated chunks."
"It is very easy to set up and get started. Almost too easy. We racked this device and had it up and running in less than 15 minutes."
"The simple and fast restore routine."
"It is a quick and easy way to organize my backups and to keep track of them."
"I find it easy to use, and the UI is really easy to navigate. We reduced our time with backups from days to less than half an hour for the same data service."
"Real-time replication is a valuable feature, ensuring that changes made to the production site are immediately reflected at the recovery site."
"The orchestration and automation of the DR and how it replicates the VMs and then picks them up in the DR site have been most valuable."
"The low RPO times of about four to eight seconds are very nice and very valuable to us."
"Zerto's most valuable features include its user-friendly interface, multi-tenancy capabilities, and near-zero downtime recovery."
"We can use Zerto to help protect our VMs."
"The most valuable feature of Zerto is the quick recovery time."
"We use the solution to move servers and VMs between data centers."
 

Cons

"The solution’s UI can be improved. I am saying this because I have seen solutions with better UIs."
"It seems like Unitrends moved away from enterprise customer engagement and moved more towards the managed service provider market."
"Network-based storage stability could be improved."
"In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses."
"​​Follow up for the DRaaS service setup. I'm still waiting to schedule a DRaaS test after upgrading several months ago."
"There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data."
"Making the seeding process more accessible and easier to understand. Also, make more of the undocumented best practices easier to find."
"The amount of updates which are being released. Updates should be limited to two or three a year, focusing more on quality instead of a rushed bug release."
"Our operational teams have discussed the ability to integrate multiple Zerto cloud platforms more seamlessly. For example, we have acquired 22 companies over the last seven years. Some already had it deployed, and integrating those existing deployments into our primary deployment is more challenging than it could be. We have provided our feedback to them."
"The main issue with Zerto is its user interface, which lacks flexibility and presents a steep learning curve."
"We had some issues with replication, especially on Linux, but we have already resolved them."
"There is room for improvement in the upgrades."
"This solution could be improved by including some sort of compression or de-duplication for the same type of files."
"The only negative I would give is that with the latest version of the appliance, setting up authentication was a bit of a challenge, but that is just a matter of using Keycloak and how things have changed."
"Their support can be faster."
"There could be improvements in support. Here, in Malaysia, there is no on-site support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you purchase initially, get into the program which gives replacement hardware for free when you renew your support agreement."
"Talk with the sales guys. They can work with you on the best package."
"No comment."
"With respect to cost, my advice is to get what you need."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing is yearly and it depends on the customers."
"Pricing model constantly changes."
"Their licensing depended on the number of CPUs you had."
"The cost of Unitrends definitely draws you in. The licensing is all included in the appliance, which is a great incentive."
"The last time I looked at pricing, it was very good. It's much cheaper by far than VMware."
"Its licensing is yearly. You can do multi-year contracts, which is what we did. You pay per VM, and you replicate a license per VM. So, we bought about 20 licenses. We paid somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. There is an initial upfront cost. Basically, you buy the license, and then you have a maintenance cost on top of that. So, the upfront cost is somewhere between $5,000 to $10,000. The maintenance is $5,000 to $10,000 over a three-year period."
"One of Zerto's main disadvantages is its pricing structure, which involves significant upfront costs and limited options for startups with minimal initial funding."
"Zerto's pricing model is cost-prohibitive for small—to medium-sized businesses."
"The pricing seems reasonable. It's still within what we consider to be value-add."
"Pricing depends on your future growth. Start small and then scale up."
"Zerto is more expensive than competitors, making the price difference pretty high. While it is very expensive, it's very powerful and good at what it does. The cost is why we are not leveraging it for everything in the organization. If it was dirt cheap, we would have LTR and DR on everything because it would just make sense to use it."
"Its pricing is very competitive. As compared to VMware SRM, Zerto has reduced our OPEX cost by at least 30%."
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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…
 

Answers from the Community

it_user177801 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016
We have recently implemented Zerto as a disaster recovery solution. Not only does it replicated, it allows you to created boot orders for the VM's. This means you can have your SQL server start and set an automatic delay for the applications servers. It can also be configured to bring a failover test up on an isolated network for DR testing. It can also replicate between different hypervisors. ...
2 out of 16 answers
it_user157908 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 5, 2015
Hello, Check the VBA module from networker legato software, it might be what you need. Kind Regards, John.
it_user136023 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 5, 2015
So does that mean you want to have a Disaster Recovery solution where data is not on site your bunker site? but yet allows for a fast recovery in case your primary site is down? - What virtualization solution do you use? - What is the link between the 2 (?) sites? - What RPO and RTO are you aiming for? - How much data do you need to recover?
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
8%
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 Unitrends?
The most valuable feature of Unitrends for me is the automated feedback
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Unitrends?
Unitrends is an expensive solution. We've negotiated deals where they've given us the $ 62,000 to $ 64,000 appliance for free but charged $ 90,000 for three years of support.
What needs improvement with Unitrends?
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't s...
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHL Players Association, Salvation Army, Sligro Food Group, Mason General Hospital, Tec Group, Saldab IT, Baker Tilly, Clinton Savings Bank, Ennit Magna Bank, Manukau Institute of Technology
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 Unitrends vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.