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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
58th
Ranking in Cloud Backup
47th
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
41st
Ranking in Cloud Backup
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
SaaS Backup (7th), MSP Backup (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Backup Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
N-able Cove Data Protection2.3%
Carbonite Server1.1%
Other96.6%
Cloud Backup
 

Featured Reviews

Dale Dirkes - PeerSpot reviewer
A simple, efficient, reliable product
The efficiency and convenience are excellent. The pricing is very good. It shows you what has been updated via little green dots. The solution is very automatic. I don't have to worry about it. It was easy to set up. Technical support has been helpful in the past. The solution has been problem-free.
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

"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"The solution is very stable."
"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."
"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."
"Easy verification of things is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is a free engine to help work with the container."
"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 aspect is the added protection of having a cloud-based backup service. It provides redundancy in case of data loss."
"What I like the most about it's the ease of use and the reliability that it has when copying information to the cloud."
"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."
"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 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 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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The stability has room for improvement."
"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. 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."
"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"The Hyper-V backup has room for improvement."
"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."
"For small amounts of data, recovery is easy, but when it's large amounts of data, it takes forever. So, if they can have a service where they put our data on a hard drive and ship it to us as fast as possible, it would be great. Even if there's a fee associated with it, it's fine."
"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."
"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."
"Integration with a hybrid cloud is something that I found complicated."
"For the MSP side, they could have more of a "security user" that can go in and only see certain clients. If you give somebody access as a technician, they can see all the clients."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"A disaster recovery console would be an improvement for the product."
"The reporting feature and functionality need improvement. We would like to see a little bit more detailed reporting that offers more CEO or C-level focused reporting options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"The solution is open source."
"Its price is reasonable."
"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"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."
"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."
"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 price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
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: September 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.