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Altaro VM Backup for MSPs vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Altaro VM Backup for MSPs
Ranking in MSP Backup
6th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N-able Cove Data Protection
Ranking in MSP Backup
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (33rd), Cloud Backup (18th), SaaS Backup (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the MSP Backup category, the mindshare of Altaro VM Backup for MSPs is 5.1%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 22.6%, up from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
MSP Backup Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
N-able Cove Data Protection22.6%
Altaro VM Backup for MSPs5.1%
Other72.3%
MSP Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Anthony Linder - PeerSpot reviewer
An incredibly stable product with a great user interface
Improvements are needed in the solution since it might get difficult if you just drop a technical person who doesn't necessarily have a lot of experience with Altaro VM Backup for MSPs. A technical person who hasn't received any dedicated training or hasn't gone through the documentation part of the solution may find the product to be a little non-intuitive at times. In Altaro VM Backup for MSPs, if you expect something to be somewhere else or when you expect a certain part of the user interface to function in a specific way, it doesn't happen so since the functionality that you expect to be there in the product isn't present on that screen and you need to go somewhere else for that piece. I think that is the case with the most complex tech products. I would like to be able to store a full cluster environment inside of Altaro VM and make sure that the cluster communicates inside of the product, presuming that we have the necessary backup drive in our company. Altaro VM already can test individual VM restores, but one can't really go beyond that scope, at least with the version of the solution that we have in our company right now.
Per MøllerJacobsen - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers cost-effective data backup with room for search improvements
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for something—you need to know where it was and when it was there to restore it, plus it would be nice to take out data from Microsoft 365 in some portable format, which is currently not an option. I would like to extract the data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format, something like a database or maybe just to take out a PST file or SharePoint and Teams files to the file system. Especially in these times, where we discuss potential risks with the Microsoft cloud for European companies, companies would want to know how to access their data from the backup if they suddenly don't have a tenant. I believe there should be the ability to take out data from Microsoft 365 in a portable format. I know that Cohesity is working on making such a thing. It's not there yet; I asked last week for something for forensics, and the support team said it's not possible yet, but I know from our technical account manager they are working on some solutions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Granular restoration is extremely useful in Altaro VM Backup for MSPs since it is something that we make use of the most in our company."
"The most valuable feature by far is the Virtual Disaster Recovery. On top of that is the bare-metal recovery. The recovery options that we have are great. We have tested the Virtual Disaster Recovery and the bare-metal recovery in just about any scenario you can think of. We have even restored bare metal, a full server, to a laptop, and had full functionality. It's just insane how well it works and how simple it is. It does most of the work for you."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."
"The solution has reduced backup times by an immeasurable amount. Its backups are incremental, so you are only backing up data changes based on the last 24 hours or so. If you are also maintaining the stored images, the restores are also only incremental, happening in minutes. Whereas, with a lot of the other solutions that we have looked at, each time it goes to refresh the restore, then it has to build a completely new image. That takes forever. This solution also improves recovery time."
"The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"It's extremely important that Cove provides cloud-based data protection with backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. That is a necessity for my insurance. As an IT company, my insurance would cost more if my backups were not offsite and off-network."
"The most valuable aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"The integration of N-able Cove Data Protection into our existing infrastructure is easy."
 

Cons

"A technical person who hasn't received any dedicated training or hasn't gone through the documentation part of the solution may find the product to be a little non-intuitive at times."
"A feature I'd like to see would be a more customizable admin console."
"A better default view on my dashboard would be great. There is a lot of useless information there that it pulls up. They could present the dashboard slightly better, in terms of the extra information after the first five columns. The first five columns are awesome. After that, I don't care about the rest, and there are another seven things after that."
"N-able Cove Data Protection does not provide a lot of SaaS backup products, which is an area they can improve. Additionally, there are some limitations on the storage side, where I cannot have a lot of employees backing up their data."
"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."
"The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems."
"There could be a possibility to create a local NAS backup for infrastructure."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"The one thing they don't are Linux servers, it's Windows only. I understand that directive. I have another product that I use for our Linux servers and stuff, but it would be nice if they had that flexibility on the Linux side. I understand the development and the world is geared towards Windows in 365, I know that's where the clienteles are and the business and the money is."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"N-able Cove Data Protection is an averagely-priced product."
"The pricing is affordable. N-able Cove Data Protection has a direct-to-cloud architecture, but it also allows saving backups locally without extra storage costs."
"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"There is no per node cost, at least not the way I am doing it. I am on bulk. New customers can be set up on a trial, where they can get things all squared away, then they can switch over to being a billed customer."
"The only option I would like to see is an adjustable scale. Right now we have 250 seats and we're not using all of them. It would be nice to be able to save that little bit of money by being able to buy just what we need."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Altaro VM Backup for MSPs?
Granular restoration is extremely useful in Altaro VM Backup for MSPs since it is something that we make use of the most in our company.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Altaro VM Backup for MSPs?
To be honest, I don't get to see the bill for Altaro VM Backup for MSPs.
What needs improvement with Altaro VM Backup for MSPs?
Improvements are needed in the solution since it might get difficult if you just drop a technical person who doesn't necessarily have a lot of experience with Altaro VM Backup for MSPs. A technical...
What do you like most about N-able Backup?
The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?
In terms of pricing, N-able Cove Data Protection is neither cheap nor expensive compared to other competitors.
What needs improvement with N-able Backup?
The challenges I face especially are those I've mentioned, that finding some specific data in N-able Cove Data Protection is not as easy as it is in some other systems. You cannot just search for s...
 

Also Known As

No data available
N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Alpha & Omega Computer Consultants, Chorus
Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about N-able, Vembu Technologies, NinjaOne and others in MSP Backup. Updated: August 2025.
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