NetApp SnapCenter vs Unitrends comparison

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NetApp SnapCenter

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Unitrends and NetApp SnapCenter compete in enterprise backup and recovery. NetApp SnapCenter has the upper hand due to its advanced features and efficient management capabilities.

Features: Unitrends users find value in comprehensive backup options, easy integration with multiple platforms, and straightforward deployment. NetApp SnapCenter users appreciate its extensive feature set, user-friendly experience, and efficient management of virtual environments.

Room for Improvement: Unitrends needs improvements in reporting, a more robust user experience, and enhanced customization. NetApp SnapCenter requires better stability, more intuitive workflows, and improvements in user interface elements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Unitrends is praised for straightforward deployment and strong customer support. NetApp SnapCenter offers excellent documentation but faces challenges with complex configurations. Users are more satisfied with Unitrends’ deployment and customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Unitrends is preferred for cost-effectiveness and quicker ROI, appealing to budget-conscious users. NetApp SnapCenter, though more expensive, is viewed as delivering strong value over time with its comprehensive features. Users feel the premium price of NetApp SnapCenter is justified by its capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed NetApp SnapCenter vs. Unitrends Report (Updated: April 2025).

NetApp SnapCenter vs. Unitrends

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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

NetApp SnapCenter

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

50th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Unitrends

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

37th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Unitrends is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command

It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

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Todd Guthrie

Director Of Information Technology at Creation Technologies

The solution can be used to back up servers and Hyper-V cluster nodes, but its support is super expensive

I wouldn't rate Unitrends a ten out of ten because we had some hard drive failures in the appliance. Typically, when you have OneDrive, you can get it replaced. For some particular reason, the situation caused the entire system to crash. We had to reinstall the CentOS operating system on it, and we lost all our backups. They said there was no way to retain it, and it was pretty devastating and concerning that a drive failure would cause the loss of all the data on the appliance. It was extremely disappointing, and we had to start from scratch after three years worth of backup data. I rate Unitrends a nine out of ten for stability.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It allows us to easily take a Snapshot and use it with any backup tools. We can also take Snapshots on the application side. We can also take Snapshots on the application side. If we want to restore an SAP or an Oracle machine, a normal Snapshot won't do it, but we can do so with SnapCenter."

"It's all together managing both storage and backup, which makes it easier for troubleshooting issues and the automation part of it"

"The central pane view is the most valuable feature. You have one console where you can monitor all your jobs, as opposed to going to different vCenters."

"It helps with strategic planning because it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery."

"A feature that stands out is cloning databases. If you have a SQL database and it's huge, like one terabyte, the classical SQL way would be to do a backup-restore to create a clone of your database for test purposes. With SnapCenter now, we can clone a database but through the Snapshot technology, which means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly."

"It's a centralized, easy-to-use solution empowering RBAC management, monitoring, notifications, extensive logging, and backup schedules for standalone as well as groups of the same types of environments. The cloning capabilities accelerate development."

"The centralized GUI is the best feature, that there is only one webpage where we can see the states of all the backup jobs. We can see all the tasks that are running and we can quickly see if one fails; if they are running or have any issues. We have all that in one place."

"It's integrated with VMware vCenter. You can also see the backups there and you can do a restore completely out of vCenter."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

"I really like the reporting options you get for various email reports."

"The simple and fast restore routine."

"When we talk about a backup point of view, from a backup perspective, it's a good one."

"Being an appliance-based solution, we were able to migrate backup solutions without having to purchase a lot of hardware separately."

"Backup/archive to multiple locations."

"It is fairly stable."

"It is an easy system to use. The support, if needed, is always willing to help."

"Unitrends has helped us cut down the time that it takes to restore a server to its original configuration."

More Unitrends pros

Cons

"I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up... The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed."

"The replication feature needs improvement in future releases."

"We would like to see more granular repording and reporting in bigger sets available in SnapCenter."

"It needs to support vSphere 6.7."

"The DBAs are comparing it to SMO but it doesn't have a lot of the functionalities that SMO has."

"Reporting of the jobs could be better."

"Groups might be helpful for each site or data center so that we know a given data center has these resources while another data center has those resources. It's not always easy to group hosts by type."

"Plugins should be developed in shorter times. Performance generally could be a little bit faster."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

"Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit, and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing."

"I would like to see more storage options for the free version."

"The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved."

"The solution's base operating system needs to be improved."

"There are a few quirks where the GUI, agent, and back-end are not precisely meshed."

"It would be great to have the job throttle/limit the max number of backups on a single ESXi host."

"There are some questions as to how safely they are storing backup data."

"In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses."

More Unitrends cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."

"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."

"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."

"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."

"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."

"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."

"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."

"The product is inexpensive."

"Talk with the sales guys. They can work with you on the best package."

"Their licensing depended on the number of CPUs you had."

"You should be aware how much the monthly costs are to use, what the initial costs for hardware are, and what the options to expand are, if needed."

"When we renew the Unitrends maintenance contract and update it to the latest version, the cost would be $5,000 per year. There are no hidden costs. They've been transparent with the costs."

"Unitrends is an expensive solution."

"The cost of Unitrends definitely draws you in. The licensing is all included in the appliance, which is a great incentive."

"Pricing model constantly changes."

"We found that the cost of Unitrends was about the same as the Dell DR6300. We liked the fact that the Unitrends appliance was all-in-one."

More Unitrends pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Educational Organization

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?

Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?

The product should be free because it is just software to administrate systems purchased from NetApp, which are already expensive.

What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?

The interface usability needs improvement. It should be more user-friendly and easier for customers to use.

What do you like most about Unitrends?

The most valuable feature of Unitrends for me is the automated feedback

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Unitrends?

Unitrends is an expensive solution. We've negotiated deals where they've given us the $ 62,000 to $ 64,000 appliance for free but charged $ 90,000 for three years of support.

What needs improvement with Unitrends?

In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't s...

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 61% of the time

Rubrik vs Unitrends

Compared 16% of the time

Acronis Cyber Protect vs Unitrends

Compared 13% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Unitrends

Compared 10% of the time

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Product Reports

NetApp SnapCenter

Download NetApp SnapCenter product report

Download Unitrends product report

Also Known As

SnapCenter

No data available

Overview

Unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows.

NetApp

Organizations rely on Unitrends to back up and protect both physical and virtual servers with compatibility for legacy systems and an appliance model.

Unitrends supports Microsoft Hyper-V clusters, VMware ESXi clusters, SQL databases, and Exchange DAGs. Valuable for K-12 schools for continuous monitoring via a graphical interface, it also offers real-time synchronization, file restoration, report generation, email status updates, redundancy, and ransomware protection. Features include effective technical support, instant recovery, detailed reporting, real-time synchronization, global deduplication, cross-compatibility for OS backups, and frequent updates. Easy to install for Hyper-V appliances, the platform benefits users with its dashboard insights, saving time and ensuring reliability. While improvements are needed in high availability features, customer engagement, cloud capabilities, storage options, and the free version, the UI, configuration complexity, pricing, and support costs also demand attention. Users find scaling challenging and desire better feature parity with competitors, clearer recovery information, improved scripting, and flexible retention settings based on repository.

What are the most important features?

Effective technical support
Instant recovery
Detailed daily and email reporting
User-friendly interface
Real-time synchronization
Global deduplication
Cross-compatibility for diverse OS backups
Frequent updates
Ease of installation for Hyper-V appliances
Automated feedback
UniView features
Instant power-on
Cost-effective pricing
Time-saving dashboard insights

What benefits or ROI should users look for?

Time-saving features
Efficient data synchronization
Enhanced data recovery and protection
Accurate reporting and insights
Cost-effective and reliable solution

K-12 schools use Unitrends for continuous monitoring and verification via a graphical interface. Its real-time synchronization, file restoration, and report generation features support educational institutions' needs, ensuring data protection and operational efficiency.

Sample Customers

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture

NHL Players Association, Salvation Army, Sligro Food Group, Mason General Hospital, Tec Group, Saldab IT, Baker Tilly, Clinton Savings Bank, Ennit Magna Bank, Manukau Institute of Technology

NetApp SnapCenter vs. Unitrends