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Azure Backup 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Azure Backup delivers cost-effective, automated security and stability, offering potential ROI influenced by environment size and modernization efforts.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zerto offers significant cost savings and efficient disaster recovery, transforming complex tasks, greatly enhancing operational efficiency and financial benefits.
Before, it was a huge cost. It was several thousand dollars to do a DR test, whereas now, I click a button.
The return on investment is evident, as Zerto saves more than 60 percent of time in various operations compared to the previous manual processes.
Most people like me hope we never have to use it. It is like insurance.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
9.0
Azure Backup's support is responsive but inconsistent, with mixed feedback on speed, communication, and technical expertise.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zerto's customer service is praised for quick, helpful support, though opinions on post-acquisition quality by HP are mixed.
The technical support from Microsoft is good
I have never had an issue that was not resolved, and I have never been in a situation where they did not respond.
I would give them a rating of ten because it represents the highest level of support based on the technical knowledge of the support team, response time, and effectiveness of the provided resolutions.
When I open a ticket, I usually get a call within an hour or two.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Azure Backup is highly scalable, ideal for varied business sizes, with noted improvements needed for horizontal scaling across regions.
Sentiment score
7.6
Zerto offers scalable, flexible solutions for diverse environments, easily handling multiple sites and virtual machines with major cloud compatibility.
Azure Backup is scalable since it is a global solution.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Customers need to follow good engineering practices for optimal product use.
By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Azure Backup is highly stable, reliable, and resilient, often rated 7-10 for stability, outperforming traditional solutions.
Sentiment score
8.0
Zerto is highly praised for its stability and reliability, with users appreciating its dependable performance and quick recovery.
I would rate the stability of Azure Backup as nine out of ten; it shows high stability in my experience.
Azure Backup is stable for Microsoft environments.
I promptly delete the malfunctioning elements and set them up again to resume replication, ensuring stability.
The ease of use was so good with Zerto that they were able to migrate things much quicker.
It is very reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Backup needs interface improvement, better database support, and enhanced features like VMware integration, notifications, and user experience.
Users urge Zerto to enhance documentation, support, flexibility, integration, automation, and control over intrusive alerting functions.
It is not a perfect tool for restoring SQL databases since it requires replacing everything instead of restoring specific files.
The reporting functionality of Azure Backup needs improvement.
The area that I believe needs improvement in Azure Backup is the restoring time.
If I have 350 objects that I am protecting, I would like Zerto to be able to fire them up in one order, rather than having to manually bring them up in a sequence.
If the host has a lot of VMs on it, there may not always be enough time to relocate all of the VMs from a protection group standpoint to other hosts before the replication appliance that Zerto uses to manage that powers itself down.
To increase accessibility for small and medium businesses, Zerto should consider a competitive pricing strategy, possibly including subscription-based licensing options.
 

Setup Cost

Azure Backup offers moderate, flexible pricing with cost-effectiveness appealing to enterprises, despite potential high costs without proper management.
Zerto offers VM-based licensing seen as cost-effective for disaster recovery but expensive compared to competitors like SRM and Veeam.
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it.
The pricing of Azure Backup is fine; it is a low-cost solution.
If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different.
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.
Zerto is easier to set up and use, and it's less expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Azure Backup offers seamless integration, automation, scalability, and security for cost-effective, efficient data protection and disaster recovery.
Zerto provides easy, fast disaster recovery with seamless integration, automation, and cost-effective data protection across diverse environments.
The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its simplicity.
It has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution.
We use the normal features for Azure Backup, specifically to make backups of the VMs.
Zerto offers excellent technical support with responsive and helpful experts.
If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked.
The replication time and the minor amount of time it takes to sync a new server outside of any of my huge 40-terabyte boxes is ridiculously quick.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
57
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
306
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 3.0%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost savings and efficiency with high-level restore capabilities
I use Azure Backup mainly for backing up virtual machines The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore. Additionally, it has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution. The area that I believe needs improvement in…
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.
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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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it. I do not have specific details about the licensing cost as it falls under another department.
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?
The setup is somewhat expensive. I'd rate the pricing seven out of ten.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
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 Azure Backup vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.