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HPE Zerto Software vs Oracle Data Guard comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 11, 2025

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

HPE Zerto Software
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
341
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st)
Oracle Data Guard
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.6%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Data Guard is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Zerto Software2.6%
Oracle Data Guard0.9%
Other96.5%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Azhagupandi Parthiban - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers near-real-time replication for data consistency and continuously introducing new features through upgrades
There are various advantages. First of all, easy to deploy. The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. In other ways, the implementation is very, very important. Like, we have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product. Once you configure it, it goes through the rollback, and then Data Guard introduces this snapshot thing. So once the restoration happens, we can go back to the original thing, and we make that a standard. It's a pretty decent and key function for Oracle. So, enterprise organizations go for Oracle only for features like these.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main reasons for adopting Zerto are data protection and being able to do disaster recovery for site recovery."
"In terms of the most valuable features, having the failover tests where you can see where your actual RTO and RPO would be is really nice, especially for the management level. I really liked the ease of when I need to do a file or folder restore off the cuff. Usually, it takes me less than five minutes to do it, including the mounting of the actual image. That was one thing with Unitrends, it was a similar process but if that backup had aged off of the system, then you had to go to the archive and you find the right disks, load them in, and then actually mount the image."
"One of the most valuable features of Zerto is its straightforward cost model."
"The most valuable feature of Zerto is the quick recovery time."
"I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten."
"The replication feature and DR functionality are most valuable. Zerto has many options when a new server is being provisioned."
"The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most are the continuous data protection and the ability to test."
"The most valuable feature of Zerto is its overall flexibility, where it can be used for standard DR or you can also use it for server migrations, data center consolidations, etc."
"The solution is quite stable. We haven't experienced any bugs, glitches, or crashes. We find it to be quite reliable."
"We use Data Guard for online replication from data center, to data center for high availability. This is the most important feature."
"The solution has been stable so far."
"Oracle Data Guard is scalable. I rate it a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable aspect for me is undoubtedly the failover capability and the assurance of data safety provided by Oracle Data Guard."
"We have not encountered any major challenges with replication. We were able to achieve near-real-time replication. Also, with the switchover failover, we were not getting any technical issues. It's a pretty stable product."
"The most valuable feature is the flashback standby, which allows us to test without scrapping the database."
"We chose this solution for the availability of the databases. We can't afford Oracle Grid, this is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive."
 

Cons

"Its pricing could be better. Also, Zerto needs to improve its reporting capabilities and provide better dashboards."
"There should be an automatic installation in a cluster. When I add a virtual client or ESX source to the cluster, it should automatically install that. There should be automatic installation. Currently, I have to do that manually."
"In terms of improvement, we have VMware and Nutanix, and we are looking for solutions to perform migration between these two setups to save costs."
"Zerto's connectivity with automation platforms could be improved. For example, vCenter can use a VMware-developed tool called Site Recovery Manager. That can be integrated with automation platforms such as Terraform, Ansible, Chef, or Puppet, to perform automated, self-sufficient recoveries to essentially avoid any downtime. To my knowledge, Zerto does not have integration with those platforms."
"I would like Zerto to add support for VMware's lifecycle manager."
"The HPE Zerto Software could be improved by including the ability to use FIDO keys or some kind of hard token for local accounts, not just a straight password or an external MFA, but a physical token."
"HPE Zerto Software can be improved by allowing a system inside my makeshift vault to reach out to the other system and pull backups inside, which would let me punch fewer holes."
"They could improve their online documentation."
"Oracle could be improved by the ability to manage it on the cloud. This on-premises version is secure and reliable, but I'm sure that they will soon provide a cloud solution that will be even better. In one to two years, we will probably move to the cloud—we have already moved to the cloud with Microsoft Exchange, but our databases are still on-premises. I would prefer managing a cloud version of Oracle."
"The only difficult part is the cost factor, licensing. Another area of improvement is support."
"We would like to be able to see the date time stamp when you execute DGMGRL commands."
"One thing that can be improved is the GUI. It would be good to have a very nice GUI to easily configure and administer, providing different presentations to the database administrator. The feature that can be included is the integration with third-party monitoring systems, that is, monitoring systems from other vendors, not only from Oracle."
"It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs."
"A significant improvement for Oracle Data Guard would be enabling the disaster recovery site to handle read and write operations, not just data storage."
"There is an issue with their application on ODG. There were a lot of edits in the logs. Sometimes, we only get a little cue from the Data Guard Broker logs if there's an issue."
"For Italian medium-sized companies, the main challenge lies in the cost associated with licenses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not the cheapest product; it is not the most expensive product, but it works. It is a mid-range product, and it is justified in terms of being pretty quick and easy."
"Zerto is a little expensive."
"All of my customers are happy with how this product works and they like it, but unfortunately, in the market that I represent, Zerto is expensive when compared with the competition."
"We subscribe to their annual license package and we have tier one support with them."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable for what it is offering. It gives me the peace of mind that my data is protected. It is worth the cost."
"License-wise, we budgeted $1,000 per VM. The minimum spend on it, in the beginning, can sometimes be a little bit of a headache for people, and they might have to budget creatively to get there, but once you're there, the renewals are worth it."
"I have heard that it is expensive, but that is not my world."
"The only negative part that I have seen so far has been the cost. It is kind of pricey, but you get what you pay for. Zerto is a lot faster than other solutions and you get enhanced performance."
"The pricing is on the higher side."
"​Oracle Data Guard is a feature available only in Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, and is available for extra cost."
"If you want to have everything automated and done smoothly, you have to add additional licenses."
"The cost is expensive."
"It's a cost-effective solution."
"The cost of the Oracle license will depend on the negotiations with Oracle."
"This is the best solution if you want something similar that's less expensive than Oracle Grid."
"It is not a cheap product, but if you look at the price, features, availability, scalability, and maturity, it is a very good product."
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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
23%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise193
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing, I think on the pricing side, I don't generally deal with it, but from what I hear from my finance team, it's somewhat on the higher...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
It is a very useful administrative IT tool. It saves on costs. I strongly recommend Data Guard. I've been using it for eight years and I would strongly recommend it. I'd rate Oracle Data Guard a se...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
We're Oracle partners. We've worked with databases 11G and 12C. If a company is planning to implement Oracle solutions, I would suggest they also implement Data Guard. I'd rate the solution nine ou...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
This solution is for small to medium-sized businesses, who can't afford to have two data centers or two servers. Oracle Data Guard has many features to ensure that the database is in place. In case...
 

Also Known As

Zerto Virtual Replication
Active Data Guard
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Athenahealth, Discover Financial Services
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Zerto Software vs. Oracle Data Guard and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,785 professionals have used our research since 2012.