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Carbonite Server vs N-able Cove Data Protection 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

Carbonite Server
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
55th
Ranking in Cloud Backup
45th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N-able Cove Data Protection
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
34th
Ranking in Cloud Backup
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
SaaS Backup (9th), MSP Backup (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 1.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 1.9%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N-able Cove Data Protection1.9%
Carbonite Server1.3%
Other96.8%
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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

"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."
"The solution is a free engine to help work with the container."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"This solution is very simple to use and I will recommend it to anybody."
"Easy verification of things is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is very stable."
"For starters, this is one of few databases that allow us to backup MySQL databases, most others only support Microsoft SQL. This solution also has a very user-friendly interface accessed through a web browser. Additionally, backups can be easily configured through N-able Backup."
"Compared to previous solutions, Cove is equally as efficient, if not more, when it comes to restoring points."
"Of all the IT companies that we deal with as suppliers, I'm pretty sure they are the best that we have ever dealt with."
"The reliability and the confidence that we have in this product is extremely high."
"N-Able has allowed us to have peace of mind regarding backups, with very easy browser-based backup and restore of files and no more missed backup schedules or need to go on a course to learn how to use the software."
"If you're looking for something that's going to be easy to use, cost-effective, but also provides a great backup and more importantly, a recovery solution, this is definitely something that you should look at and keep in mind."
"The most valuable aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."
"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."
"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"When you have to restore it, Carbonite takes a lot of time."
"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 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."
"We would like to have better reporting."
"We would like to have better reporting."
"Currently you can't dump the files that were backed up. You have to use the web interface and you can only see 30 files at a crack."
"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."
"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."
"For the MSP side, they could have more of a "security user" that can go in and only see certain clients."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"Its price is reasonable."
"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."
"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 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 pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
 

Company Size

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

Carbonite Recover Backup
N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

INLINE Commercial Construction, Hamilton County
Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia
Find out what your peers are saying about Carbonite Server vs. N-able Cove Data Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,576 professionals have used our research since 2012.