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OpenText Data Protector vs Zerto 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

OpenText Data Protector
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zerto
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
310
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (2nd), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of OpenText Data Protector is 0.6%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 3.0%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Jeroen Vranckaerts - PeerSpot reviewer
Though a highly stable tool, it needs to be made easier to use and configure
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a five out of ten. OpenText Data Protector is complex to configure correctly, but the areas concerning the data and compression are good. Once you get the product to work, it works, but it's much too complex to configure and troubleshoot, as it takes a lot of time and energy, making it not so efficient. Once the tool is configured in your environment, it provides good backup and compression features. In my company, we use OpenText Data Protector as a backup for our servers, and we have a team of 20 people to take care of the data backup using the tool. My company doesn't use OpenText Data Protector as a backup for our client's computers. In my company, we have scheduled the process related to backup, which makes the tool run daily around 30 to 40 times.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features
Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days. Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss. One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization. Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently. Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems. Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages. Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time. Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management. Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works excellently only with Oracle."
"I have used Micro Focus Data Protector for the file backup facilities. My primary use of the software is to backup file data."
"The most valuable features of this solution were the features we worked most with which were telemetry, and the scheduler."
"The reliability of HP Data Protector is the most valuable feature for us."
"Data Protector is quite simple and easy to deploy. The deployment is always the same. It's on a server, and the agents are deployed to the machines in a straightforward way. We have two engineers who deploy and manage all our backup solutions."
"What we find most valuable in Micro Focus Data Protector is that it provides Japanese data protection, for example, it protects information such as the full Japanese name, address, etc."
"The solution allows us to be able to backup and exchange directly, to backup Microsoft exchange."
"It's supports Unix, Linux, all of the OS's. It's very stable software."
"We are in the process of switching over our production data center and Zerto has been a true time-saver that has cost us zero downtime."
"The orchestration and automation of the DR and how it replicates the VMs and then picks them up in the DR site have been most valuable."
"The ability to test that my backup regime is actually doing and working as I want it to do is valuable."
"I appreciate the real-time nature of Zerto. It continuously copies data, maintains synchronization, and allows rapid recovery of key systems."
"I like that Zerto is easy to move and that there is no effect on the user. That is, the user doesn't even know it. We're in the healthcare industry and work for a hospital. We can set up a server in no time whatsoever. It's easy for us to schedule the time because it takes only about one minute."
"The most valuable feature of Zerto is the quick recovery time."
"What I appreciate the most about Zerto is the simplicity of it all."
"We have seen ROI. The biggest way that we have seen it is in avoided downtime. We have had outages before, and we count downtime in terms of dollars spent. We have cut that down so dramatically, which provides us a very quick ROI. We have drastically reduced the amount of time it takes us to recover workloads, from an average of two hours to an average of 10 minutes."
 

Cons

"Micro Focus are improving Data Protector with every new version and since we began undergoing training with the latest version we have not faced any real challenges yet. However, their support does need to be improved, in my opinion. In certain critical cases that we've had, they did not provide a satisfactory level of support."
"VM backups needs to be improved. They need to make it similar to the way Veeam and Commvault are doing the virtual backups."
"Microfocus needs to build a partnership with other vendors in addition to HPE as far as cloud consolidation of backups."
"If you compare the solution with the same specific features and enhancements on another solution, Data Protector is expensive. This is especially true when compared to, for example, Veeam."
"The solution is not intuitive enough. I think they should work on the user experience and the graphical interface. These can be a lot better."
"The online backups of Office 365 have room for improvement. This is now available for the Exchange Online part of Office 365, but we're still waiting for SharePoint Online, Teams, etc. We know that it's coming, but it takes time."
"They should design the solution so that it is much easier for deployment and make the UI easy to use."
"The challenge is that we can't restore a single file from the VM in the data process when we do VM backups. But with Commvault, you can restore a single file even if you have a VM snapshot package. That's one drawback of this tool. When we do VM backups, it should help us browse the VMs to restore a single file instead of doing the complete VM restore."
"Its price should be improved."
"Patch management can be better. Although we are doing patch management on the Zerto platform in an automated manner, it can be improved by leveraging some AI-assisted technology. With the help of AI, things are going to be faster in terms of patching the solution."
"When building out a VPG and doing the machine types within Azure, they were not coming across correctly. It would say it had a CPU and memory of a specific type, but it was not accurate... It was a bug and they were working on it."
"It is expensive."
"They just came out with improvements for ransomware protection last week. I haven't used them yet but, overall, security and preventing ransomware is really a hot topic these days. I would like to see it detect when the ransomware occurs and provide more information on it."
"There could be improvements in support. Here, in Malaysia, there is no on-site support."
"My input would be to have their sales engineers not overpromise and then have the product underdeliver because we were scoped not-appropriately sized target hardware."
"I would like Zerto to provide more detailed information when there is an issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Avoid using many LTO drives; when using fewer drives, the price will be extremely good."
"Pricing/licensing is Data Protector's single best offering. In its most basic environment, the only license required is for whatever target device is required."
"In Data Protector, if you need extra features, you need to buy the agents for these features. Some of the features are Terabytes, some of them are agents. There's some complexity in the pricing and licensing."
"The licensing structure provides cost savings to business."
"The licensing cost was not annual. We didn't pay any license. We paid when we deployed and we didn't pay for anything after that. There were no additional fees after the initial payment."
"They have two types of licensing, one is for storage capacity and the other is client licensing. The capacity licensing here is a bit expensive."
"The pricing is neither too expensive nor very cheap."
"There is a perpetual license involved in addition to support which needs to be renewed annually."
"Pricing is adequate at the standard of the product, but there could be "always" some improvement. We would like to see a consumption model that would charge in a DR scenario, where you're failing over and consuming those resources, instead of a per-protected-node model."
"Its price can be better, but it is not bad. Most small-scale organizations can afford it, but they can come up with more customer-friendly packages."
"It's fair. My biggest gripe with Zerto is the initial scoping. What we were promised didn't work with what we ended up with."
"Zerto is more expensive than competitors, making the price difference pretty high. While it is very expensive, it's very powerful and good at what it does. The cost is why we are not leveraging it for everything in the organization. If it was dirt cheap, we would have LTR and DR on everything because it would just make sense to use it."
"The pricing is very reasonable."
"It is cost-efficient because we have perpetual licenses. We are a small to medium-sized business, so cost is a pretty big important factor."
"You are getting what you pay for, as this is a solution that requires minimal management after it is configured."
"The pricing is top tier but offers good value."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Micro Focus Data Protector?
I haven't experienced any crashes while using the solution...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Data Protector?
The solution is expensive as it requires purchasing all features without the option to negotiate based on client numbers, unlike Veeam which offers flexibility in pricing.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Data Protector?
OpenText Data Protector is not user-friendly, especially for cloud backup. It lacks functions and facilities compared to Veeam, which offers more user-friendliness for virtual machine backups. Ther...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What do you like most about Zerto?
Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?
The setup is somewhat expensive. I'd rate the pricing seven out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Data Protector, Data Protector, OmniBack, HPE Data Protector
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GSK Vaccines, Repsol, Vodafone Group, Siemens AG, Medium Enterprise Transportation Services Company
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Data Protector vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.