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BDRShield vs Carbonite Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

BDRShield
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
20th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (12th), MSP Backup (4th)
Carbonite Server
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
56th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (44th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of BDRShield is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Carbonite Server is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BDRShield1.0%
Carbonite Server1.0%
Other98.0%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Roes - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Switact
Ease of backup and restore improves data management with reliable support
The interface of BDRSuite Backup & Replication is pretty intuitive. Regarding their marketing strategy, I'm very bad at marketing. I always get a little edgy when people try to shove their product in my face. There are two sides to the story. If you don't know something exists, you might not even start to look for it unless you really know that you need it. If you are explicitly looking for a solution, then you'll find it. People that don't know that they should do backup don't have a place in IT. I rate BDRSuite Backup & Replication 8.5 out of 10.
CP
Backup, storage and disaster recovery technical specialist at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
A reliable backup product which needs little management
For most technical users the setup and initial deployment are fairly straightforward and once deployed it 99% of the time looks after itself. Installation of the agents is similar to most other products in that it has an install wizard to guide you, the accompanying documentation is also very useful to assist wherever you are in the agent install and policy setup process. Normally our customers' IT team does the deployment of agents, however, this isn't a daunting task unless you are dealing with multiple servers to protect the product. On a server-by-server basis, the deployment doesn't take long. From the MSP side of things, the infrastructure sitting behind the scenes doesn't take too much to install, configure and maintain.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The support side of it, the usability, the ease of it: It is user friendly; we've tried other software before and it wasn't that great on the user front, but this software seems pretty straightforward."
"I back up one particular server with close to 1.2 TB, and the way the software compresses it is close to 600 or 700 TB. Vembu compresses it to close to 450 gigabytes, that's gigabytes. So that’s really amazing, the way in which the backup compression happens."
"Any organization that is looking to deploy a backup solution in their environment with minimal time commitment and the highest level of confidence in being able to restore their data should be seriously considering one of the Vembu Technologies backup solutions."
"The Linux based deployments were fairly easy to manage, however the constant updates were annoying."
"Vembu helps me deliver an enterprise-level data protection solution and reduce budgets."
"We are quite happy with the latest version and how it works."
"Vembu Cloud BDR has been filling this void for my small clients for a few years now."
"It was very difficult to find a product that supports Red Hat Virtualization natively and to take a snapshot of the VM or a full backup or a dump from the machine. The option that Vembu proposed, to take the machine as an image, take it from the system, is also good."
"The advice that I have for people looking into using Carbonite Server is that it seems reliable and easy to use."
"Easy verification of things is the most valuable feature."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"The solution is very stable."
"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."
"The Granular Restore of SQL feature has been a lifesaver more times than I can count. One of the main reasons for looking at Carbonite was their support for platforms like AIX and AS/400 Series."
"Technical support handled all our issues quickly and effectively."
 

Cons

"Maybe they can add some features regarding working with the vCenter cluster to be able to have more power over the cluster overall, not just over a single or specific host. Also, I would like some enhancements in technology for the web interface, e.g., some interactive technologies to advance the interface of Vembu. Although the current interface is very good, maybe they can use more advanced technologies for its web development."
"There's a feature that does syncing with AWS Cloud backup online. It's not that straightforward to get it set up."
"We have not been able to move our backups from one drive to another one. We can only create a storage pool. However, if we want to change a drive, it is not possible to delete one drive as long there is data on it. For this, we have to call the support. While they can solve this, it is not out-of-the-box."
"With the free version of Vembu, you receive three virtual machine backups. However, if you buy the NetworkBackup Enterprise version, you don't have access to the features seen in the free version."
"The interface could be better because I have to fumble around to find things. I can't just sit down at the terminal and know exactly what to do. It could be just me, but I have used a number of different backup products, and I found them simpler. However, its features are very good, so I don't mind sacrificing a bit of extra time to do what I need."
"There are some limitation in Vembu that can be improved. When you take the backup from any server, the full incremental backup is limited. For example, if you run a weekly full backup and monthly backup, they cannot be run at the same time. I should not have to create a new job, but in this scenario, I am creating two jobs. The limitation is created because if I select monthly backup, then I cannot select weekly backup."
"There was one issue though with the hardware IDs. When I went to a different version of Hyper-V, the hardware IDs weren't restored and the machine got two new IDs. The preliminary unique IDs weren't restored, so I had to reactivate programs."
"I have had issues where it was working and then it stopped and I had to diagnose what had changed or gone wrong to get it back up."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"I would like to see an improvement on the management user interface, as well as Kellion integrations."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is related to marketing. Currently, it is very difficult to find the right paper and stuff for me. Their marketing department should provide better information because currently, it is very difficult to find information on the internet. It was bought over by OpenText, and you won't be able to find a lot of information about this solution on their site. They should also provide training facilities for commercial purposes. Some of my colleagues recently went for pilot training, and they were technical. If I want to get trained, the training has to be more commercial. Currently, there is no such training for users like me."
"The support for object storage isn't quite there yet; its public cloud support can be improved."
"The support for object storage isn't quite there yet. Its public cloud support can be improved. I would love to see the public cloud support for object storage, and it would be great, but what I always hear from the folks at Carbonite is that in a lot of cases, it directly competes with their cloud offering. So, I don't know when or where that will go or if that will go anywhere, but we are hopeful to see something. The dashboard is a little outdated. If they gave it a facelift and put some better design around their dashboard, that would be tremendous. I generally care less about the visual aesthetics of an application as long as it does what it needed to do, which is true in the case of this solution. We also have the Microsoft 365 platform. Because they're two separate platforms, I have to log in to my Microsoft platform to manage it, and I have to log into my Carbonite server backup platform to manage it. Having these two coexist together in one management console is really what we're looking for, but we went for it knowing this. We also knew that there would be some integration coming down the road. So, we're again hoping to see some of that coming in 2021."
"The Hyper-V backup has room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has actually benefited my operation a fair bit. VMware requires a special hardware while Hyper-V runs on pretty much anything. It doesn't require any special hardware, so it saves a bit of money. Because Vembu does Hyper-V backup, there is no limit on how many VMs you can have. The newer version has a 100 VM limit on the single license, which has been greatly beneficial, because on one host a 100 VMs is a fair bit."
"The best thing about the product is the license management. It is a true managed service provider solution. It has a good price. The licensing is quite flexible, which is one of the most important things for us."
"We were able to take advantage of a promotional pricing campaign."
"Pricing is fair enough. What was not clear enough in the documentation on the website was that that you're licensing per CPU socket and you are only licensing on the restore sockets, not the backup sockets. It's a bit technical, but it was very well explained during the demonstration that we had during the evaluation period."
"The only thing with room for improvement, as everybody says, since I'm in a home lab, would be the price for the CPU; the cost... As far as competitors' prices go, Vembu was definitely better than all the competitors I found."
"The return of investment was very fast, within half a year."
"The subscription model that we're signed up for is very good. The only thing that is something of a sticking point is the fact that you can't do PO-based licensing. It's all just credit card."
"This solution provides much more value than other products that provide similar functionality. If price is a consideration for anyone who is looking to improve their backup processes, they owe it to themselves to look at the Vembu BDRSuite."
"Its price is reasonable."
"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"The solution is open source."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
15%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BDRSuite?
BDRSuite is cost-effective because you can purchase a perpetual license that covers multiple environments. You only renew the support costs annually. It offers advanced features at roughly 75 perce...
What needs improvement with BDRSuite?
I really don't know what could be improved about BDRSuite Backup & Replication. I've never had anything that I thought would be nice if that was possible. Every time I thought that, it was alre...
What is your primary use case for BDRSuite?
BDRSuite Backup & Replication is used in my company and I recommend it to my customers.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Vembu BDRSuite, BDRSuite Backup & Replication
Carbonite Recover Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NASA, Intel, CISCO, PHILIPS, Atos, HEXAWARE, Motorola
INLINE Commercial Construction, Hamilton County
Find out what your peers are saying about BDRShield vs. Carbonite Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.