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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
9th
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
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (38th), Cloud Backup (16th), SaaS Backup (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the MSP Backup category, the mindshare of Altaro VM Backup for MSPs is 6.1%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 17.8%, down from 21.1% 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 Protection17.8%
Altaro VM Backup for MSPs6.1%
Other76.1%
MSP Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Anthony Linder - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Application Specialist at a government with 10,001+ employees
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
Senior consultant at Azend A/S
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."
"What I like the most about it's the ease of use and the reliability that it has when copying information to the cloud."
"The most valuable aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"One of the bigger features and advantages of the solution is that it is easy to integrate with my RMM which is also N-able."
"The most valuable feature is that it's hands-off. I log in every morning and there are pre-canned filters that I've created to make my life easier. I have something called server status color bars, and that gives me all the servers and, in a nutshell, I can see: if any errors are being reported; when the last backup was; if one is not working, should there be one, and it literally jumps off the page."
"The ability to back up, restore, and do different types of testing for the preventative maintenance has really increased our importance to these clients because they see the value in how fast we can get them back up and running. We're saving them money in that way."
"The integration of N-able Cove Data Protection into our existing infrastructure is easy."
"It's their cloud, it's their storage. I don't have to buy a space on Amazon or Google's cloud and then use their software to push it. That works well for me. This way, I don't have to worry about another option or the opportunity that there might be a credential leak."
"The most valuables feature is the alerts and monitoring that catches the failed backups."
 

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."
"N-able Cove Data Protection for Microsoft 365 is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."
"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."
"A disaster recovery console would be an improvement for the product."
"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."
"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."
"There could be a possibility to create a local NAS backup for infrastructure."
"One area I don't like has to do with the agent that goes on the system... if a system stays offline for some length of time, say for a week or so, I may have to go back in and reinstall the agent to get it back in business. I don't know what's causing that."
"The only area that needs improvement is that it is a little bit difficult when you get into virtual machines. The initial deployment of Cove is a little tedious, not for standard machines, but when you get into specialty stuff, like Hyper-V."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"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."
"I believe that the price is very reasonable in comparison to other options. It is cheaper than both Redstor and Acronis and, since we are now using our own on-premise cloud, there is absolutely no comparison since we have unlimited storage rather than paying per gigabyte used for their onsite storage. We are currently able to backup fifty computers for the same price that we use to backup five computers."
"When you have a device/appliance on the site quite a lot of the other enterprise class backup people insist that you have their appliance, which is frankly offensively expensive. Because when you pry the top off, it's just a standard 19-inch tin box with a standard Intel I5 in it, some RAM, and a hard drive. Then, you go, "Why have they just charged me 5,500 quid for a box, which I could have probably build for under 500." Whereas, with the SolarWinds product, they don't have that. The backup appliances that we have onsite are just plain cooking PCs. We can build our own machines, which is reflected in the price that we can offer a customer."
"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is an averagely-priced product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
What is your primary use case for N-able Backup?
Our main use cases for enabling N-able Cove Data Protection include backing up our customers' data on servers hosted in data centers and servers hosted in our own data center, as well as a few onsi...
 

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 Vembu Technologies, NinjaOne, N-able and others in MSP Backup. Updated: December 2025.
879,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.