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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
57th
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
31st
Ranking in Cloud Backup
21st
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
SaaS Backup (10th), MSP Backup (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 2.1%, 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 Protection2.1%
Carbonite Server1.3%
Other96.6%
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

"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"The advice that I have for people looking into using Carbonite Server is that it seems reliable and easy to use."
"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."
"This solution is very simple to use and I will recommend it to anybody."
"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."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"Compared to previous solutions, Cove is equally as efficient, if not more, when it comes to restoring points."
"The integration of N-able Cove Data Protection into our existing infrastructure is easy."
"The most valuables feature is the alerts and monitoring that catches the failed backups."
"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."
"SolarWinds has just completely flipped that around, and that's true for other people inside our org as well."
"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."
"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 monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."
 

Cons

"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"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."
"When you have to restore it, Carbonite takes a lot of time."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"I would like to see an improvement on the management user interface, as well as Kellion integrations."
"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 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 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."
"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."
"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross."
"A feature I'd like to see would be a more customizable admin console."
"We would like to have better reporting."
"This solution is not very good for image restores, but really excellent for files, databases and System State restores."
"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."
"The only reason I wouldn't give them a ten out of ten is we aren't able to restore in the cloud and test everything out as we can on Datto, without having to download the full image onto bare metal hardware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is reasonable."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"The solution is open source."
"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"The pricing is very competitive and it's well worth the price."
"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 cost is around ten dollars per workstation a month and that includes a certain amount of data."
"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."
"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."
"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 pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 Enterprise3
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: June 2026.
900,196 professionals have used our research since 2012.