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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
31st
Ranking in Cloud Backup
21st
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
30th
Ranking in Cloud Backup
17th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
SaaS Backup (9th), MSP Backup (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Jack Henson - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to back up workstations and servers, and saved us time when checking endpoints and the viability of backups
I have some issues with the agent failing on workstations. I've had to completely uninstall several of them, delete everything, and start over to get them to work. That's been the biggest source of my problems recently. The problem is that when we delete one, we lose the backup. Consequently, it means we're without a backup unless we have a local copy. When we delete the agent, there's the problem of how to go back and restore it. I haven't had to deal with it yet, because I haven't had a failure that occurred while I was doing that. I had a workstation that started failing, and we couldn't get the services to run. I don't know what caused it. I had to reinstall the agent, which didn't work. I had to go into the machine and delete everything and load another agent onto it. Once I did that, I was able to make it work, but 90% of the time I never have an issue. During the other 10% of the time when I have a problem, it's a mess. The ability to recover to a different workstation or a different data point is a little bit clumsy. It could use some work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is a free engine to help work with the container."
"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."
"The solution is very stable."
"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."
"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"Technical support handled all our issues quickly and effectively."
"Because the package includes cloud storage, we don't need to worry about hosting it inside. That was very important to us. And because the vendor has data centers worldwide, our reps in Europe and other places can get to what they need quickly and easily."
"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 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."
"I know I won't have an issue if the data is there. The reliability and the confidence that we have is amazing. It doesn't matter. We've had customers have ransomware. We've had customers that have had corruption. We've had customers that have had employees destroy their data. As long as it's been backed up, I know that I can get it back and I know I have nothing to worry about. Our confidence level is very high."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."
"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."
"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
"The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"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."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"The Hyper-V backup 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 one thing they don't are Linux servers, it's Windows only. I understand that directive. I have another product that I use for our Linux servers and stuff, but it would be nice if they had that flexibility on the Linux side. I understand the development and the world is geared towards Windows in 365, I know that's where the clienteles are and the business and the money is."
"There aren’t any challenges. Regarding the additional features, Cove is limited to disaster recovery with Azure. It would be great to make disaster recovery compatible with AWS."
"Having the licensing available for partners to be able to take advantage of testing without paying would make a big difference."
"The recovery side, the restore side, could be a little more optimized."
"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."
"A disaster recovery console would be an improvement for the product."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is open source."
"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"Its price is reasonable."
"The cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"The pricing, for now, is good. The package that they gave us recently is pretty good. It depends on how many clients you have, and you pay for certain terabytes per license. These terabytes, if not used, are pooled together."
"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"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."
"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."
"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 is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Carbonite Server?
I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable.
What needs improvement with Carbonite Server?
The ability to perform instant recovery would be a game changer. For a large user base, the creation of user accounts at this time is a little cumbersome, there isn't any Single-Sign-On (SSO) integ...
What is your primary use case for Carbonite Server?
I work for a managed services provider, and we supply the solution for various sized customers.
What do you like most about N-able Backup?
The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.
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?
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 lo...
 

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 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.