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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

"Iinstant recovery (allows a spin-up of your image as a VM on the appliance)."
"When I have had to use tech support, they've been very good."
"The predictive analytics are great and the reporting is awesome."
"I really like the reporting options you get for various email reports."
"The simple and fast restore routine."
"Replication to Forever Cloud."
"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."
"It is fairly stable."
"Zerto is low maintenance, so I can set it and forget it. It has a great process and an excellent solution."
"The main purpose of this tool is to allow failover between different data centers and different locations. When one site is unavailable, we can start the failover activity and perform the failover task. When a primary location is unavailable, or there is some hardware or logical issue at the primary location, it allows us to resolve the problem. We are able to start services at safe locations. We handle the disaster recovery process, and this is the main function for which we are using it all the time."
"What I like most about Zerto is that it just works at the end of the day. It is almost a set-it-and-forget-it solution in relation to its capability of keeping the DR environment in sync."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. The online documentation is very clear and helpful. We are able to solve a lot of problems on our own without having to contact support."
"Real-time or near real-time replication has been the most valuable feature. Our RTO is generally between six and eight seconds. The impact on our RTO is essential."
"Zerto is so easy to use that when I showed it to my manager, he said jokingly, 'Huh. I could use it myself, I don't need you.' Zerto is most elegant."
"The recovery speed is much faster and less complicated."
"Zerto is 400 times better."
 

Cons

"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."
"In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses."
"It seems like Unitrends moved away from enterprise customer engagement and moved more towards the managed service provider market."
"Making the seeding process more accessible and easier to understand. Also, make more of the undocumented best practices easier to find."
"There's a lot that can be made better. For example, it could be more scalable."
"Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit, and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing."
"The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved."
"There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data."
"Zerto could add text alerts if there are critical problems and alerts if changes affect our replication."
"It has a file restore feature, which we have tried to use. We have had some issues with that, because the drives are compressed in our main file system. It is a Windows-based file server. So, it compresses the shares and can't restore those by default."
"Some of the integrations with our internal tools, in particular, company-specific ones, do not work. In cases like this, we have to ask for additional support."
"I would like to see a couple of details regarding awareness of VM events coming outside of ZVR."
"I would suggest improving automatic updates. Their software requires updating level by level to keep it current. I was unaware that I was several versions behind, so I needed assistance to guide me to the current version."
"Zerto is too reliant on VMware's vCenter. It's tough to upgrade, move, or do anything related to virtual servers with vCenter."
"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 alerting doesn't quite give you the information about what exactly is going on when an issue comes up. We do get alerts inside of our vCenter, but it doesn't quite give you accurate information inside the plugin to be able to tell us what's going on without having to go into the actual Zerto application and figuring out what's causing the issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we renew the Unitrends maintenance contract and update it to the latest version, the cost would be $5,000 per year. There are no hidden costs. They've been transparent with the costs."
"When you purchase initially, get into the program which gives replacement hardware for free when you renew your support agreement."
"Make sure you do the homework to size the solution properly. Buy the Enterprise Plus licensing if you can afford it."
"Talk with the sales guys. They can work with you on the best package."
"No comment."
"Initial pricing is competitive. Renewal pricing is steep, so make sure to project costs for the lifetime of the appliance(s)."
"Pricing model constantly changes."
"Unitrends is an expensive solution."
"We found that in an event that was massive enough to cause an entire cluster to go offline we would be happy with our core services up and running."
"It is less expensive than the full solution that we had previously, but at the same time, it's not an inexpensive product either."
"My impression is that Zerto is more expensive than other solutions, although I don't have exact numbers."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable for what it is offering. It gives me the peace of mind that my data is protected. It is worth the cost."
"Zerto’s licensing model has changed a bit over the last year and they are in alignment with others. It is pretty simple and more economical."
"I've been told that when they originally got the quote, it was a little bit of a sticker shock. However, now that we've actually been using it for six months, I've been told that the investment was well worth it."
"The product's pricing is the one area where it is less competitive."
"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."
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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.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.