AWS Snowball vs HPE Zerto Software comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are both solutions in the Cloud Migration category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #13 with an average rating of 7.8, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #1 with an average rating of 9.0. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 1.6% mindshare in CM, compared to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users who would recommend it.

AWS Snowball

Read 10 AWS Snowball reviews

3,164 Views
253 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

HPE Zerto Software

Read 355 HPE Zerto Software reviews

20,772 Views
1,454 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

AWS Snowball

HPE Zerto Software

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

HPE Zerto Software and AWS Snowball compete in the data management and recovery space. HPE Zerto Software has an edge in cost-effectiveness and user-friendliness, while AWS Snowball's advanced features and reliability provide value through efficient data handling capabilities.

Features: HPE Zerto Software supports continuous data protection, automated failover, and near-zero RPO, making it ideal for business continuity. AWS Snowball offers scalability, advanced data transfer, and physical security, addressing large-scale transfer and storage needs efficiently.

Room for Improvement: HPE Zerto Software could enhance its analytical monitoring and focus on broader solutions than narrowing down services. AWS Snowball might improve ease of deployment and reduce dependency on extensive setup, especially for initial hardware requirements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Zerto Software is noted for its seamless integration and responsive customer service, supporting efficient virtual environment setup. AWS Snowball provides reliable dedicated support for complex deployments, although its on-site setup may require more initial time.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Zerto Software offers a lower initial setup cost, providing good ROI for disaster recovery-focused businesses. AWS Snowball's higher setup cost is offset by its efficiency in managing large data volumes, offering significant ROI over time for scalability-focused deployments.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Snowball vs. HPE Zerto Software Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. HPE Zerto Software

April 2026

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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

AWS Snowball

Ranking in Cloud Migration

13th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Migration Appliances (1st)

HPE Zerto Software

Ranking in Cloud Migration

1st

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

355

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (2nd), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st), Autonomous Operational Resilience (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Migration category, the mindshare of AWS Snowball is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 4.9%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Migration Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
HPE Zerto Software	4.9%
AWS Snowball	1.6%
Other	93.5%

Cloud Migration

Featured Reviews

Kevin-Davis

Global CTO AWS Business Group at Eviden

Seamless data transfer and efficient migration with customizable storage sizes

I like that I can take data and send it straight to S3 when it loads in. The interface for getting my data onto the Snowball is so streamlined. I don't know if you've ever seen it before. It's really cool. I connect them to the backplane of our existing network. I'm able to address it quickly and move the data quickly inside my customers' data centers. There's a little screen on it, which changes the UPS codes and all that stuff. The label and everything AWS electronic, so I don't have to deal with shipping issues. It makes it super simple and easy to use from end to end.

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reviewer2802231

Dev Ops Engineer at a media company with 201-500 employees

Near-zero downtime has protected critical workloads and now simplifies hybrid cloud recovery

The best features of HPE Zerto Software are mainly very sophisticated and relevant to the current market. The data protection CDP part has real-time replication, unlike other solutions that have snapshot backups. We can set it up hourly, making it ideal for use with workloads. Another attraction is the near-zero RTO, with automated failover within minutes and one-click failover and failback. Currently, we are using a hybrid cloud solution, and HPE Zerto Software supports multi-cloud environments, making it easy to migrate between on-premises and cloud. Regarding the impact of HPE Zerto Software on our RTOs, we have near-zero RTO, meaning the system must be back online within thirty minutes if we measure the time. It is very quick to recover services. With HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication, we have some CDP protection, so we typically write interceptions along with some asynchronous replication. There is almost real-time replication available.

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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

"AWS offers managed services which save time and reduce administrative overhead."

"It's a nice way of shipping a lot of data without using a network."

"The interface is great! It's user-friendly."

"The solution is elastic."

"From our point of view, one of the most important features are the ability to combine, to mesh data together, and the ability to have them compute out of AWS rather than buying our own infrastructure."

"The way the data is moved is very clever. Also, the interface is very simple and user-friendly."

"You are able to scale the solution vertically. It's very scalable."

"The solution is elastic."

More AWS Snowball pros

"The simplicity of use is valuable. It is easy. We just click Failover and do it. It is pretty straightforward. If someone wants to do a test failover, they log in to the console and do a test failover"

"Most of the time, this is at least a two person job. We used to have three people doing it. Previously, when we had a disaster recovery drill, the way it worked was 12 of us would show up in the office on a Friday night and work overnight from 12:00 AM on Friday night to 8:00 AM in the morning on Saturday. Then, three of us would be working for four hours out of those eight or nine hours just getting applications up and running in Arizona. Now, for the disaster recovery drill, I just stay onsite to help and assist anybody else as they need during that time frame and my work is done in about a 30-minute time frame. This is compared to the four or five hours it used to take for the three of us to do it."

"Zerto simply is the tool for protecting any virtual workload."

"What I appreciate the most about Zerto is that it is the easiest to install, upgrade, and manage."

"When we need to failover or move workloads, Zerto significantly decreases both the time it takes and the number of people involved. It only takes a single person to activate a failover and we can pretty much automate everything else."

"The most valuable aspect of Zerto is synchronized replication, which is very useful."

"Bottom line, its a great product that brings standardization and simplicity to DR/BC."

"Because we work in a public safety environment, we can't have downtime."

More HPE Zerto Software pros

Cons

"It would be helpful if Snowball provided more kinds of connectivity. That will make it easier to add and move data."

"I think AWS Snowball could improve by expanding its availability to more countries."

"The stability of the solution isn't ideal and should be improved."

"AWS support could be more responsive."

"24/7 support is more expensive on AWS compared to Azure."

"It's not cheap."

"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but if you're a professional, it's easy to understand."

"It's not an easy product to start using for a beginner, but If you're a professional, it's easy to understand."

More AWS Snowball cons

"The only negative I would give is that with the latest version of the appliance, setting up authentication was a bit of a challenge, but that is just a matter of using Keycloak and how things have changed."

"It needs more documentation and automation features. I would like more documentation on designing an environment and network operations. On the automation side, I would like automation to clean up the environment in cases of a failed DR effort. An API interface to perform the DR exercise would also be nice."

"It took me a little bit of time to get used to Zerto's terminology and to relate it back to how you do a backup traditionally. It was a little different. It took a little while to understand what a VPG is and what it does. That's an area that they could probably improve on a little, making the documentation easier to understand."

"Backup dedup and online restore, support for SMTP authentication."

"Their offsite backup is a bit clunky, but it will probably improve."

"I definitely would like to see the continuation of the migration capability to Hyper-V included in the next release of HPE Zerto Software, as well as adding migration capabilities to other hypervisors, such as Nutanix Acropolis."

"The syncing of the replication needs improvement. My experience has been that, every once in a while, when you go to do a failover, it tells you it's not syncing. Then you have to troubleshoot and figure out why it's not fully synced up."

"Its pricing could be better. Also, Zerto needs to improve its reporting capabilities and provide better dashboards."

More HPE Zerto Software cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not a cheap solution, but the price is right for the product."

"The tool's pricing depends on the type of Snowball device you choose, the amount of data you need to transfer, and the service fees involved. There’s a standard price for larger data transfers and a flat job fee, which includes the first ten days of on-site usage. Typically, there are no additional data transfer fees."

"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."

"The pricing is straightforward."

"Its licensing is yearly. You can do multi-year contracts, which is what we did. You pay per VM, and you replicate a license per VM. So, we bought about 20 licenses. We paid somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. There is an initial upfront cost. Basically, you buy the license, and then you have a maintenance cost on top of that. So, the upfront cost is somewhere between $5,000 to $10,000. The maintenance is $5,000 to $10,000 over a three-year period."

"To ensure proper data protection, we require a separate backup solution alongside Zerto for disaster recovery therefore the price for Zerto is high."

"Zerto is a little bit on the higher side in terms of pricing. It would be better if they had a pay-as-you-go package."

"Currently, it is good, but the license we are using is based on VM count. We are only protecting mission-critical servers, so we are using a very low number, about 300. However, we have 3,000 or more servers. If we consider using Zerto for data protection, it would cost us more than what we have for data protection now."

"If it were easier to license, and to scale it out a little bit more economically, that'd be a godsend. At the end of the day, my druthers would be to have all 200 of our servers protected by this platform. But for a company our size, that stretches our IT budget and it just doesn't make economic sense."

"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."

More HPE Zerto Software pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user159711

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	94
Large Enterprise	202

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Microsoft Azure Data Box or AWS Snowball?

Microsoft Azure Databox is a 45-pound, super rugged, tamper-resistant, human-managed hardware appliance that can transfer up to 100TB of data capacity to copy, store, then send to the Azure cloud. ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Snowball?

Depending of what is your priority; UseAWS Snowball if you are heavily invested in AWS or need edge computing features Choose Azure Data Box for smooth integration with Azure and potentially lower ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Snowball?

It's difficult to make a comparison and it depends on the customer. When analyzing costs, I must see how the customer uses AWS, Azure, or Google. Google is particularly interesting, for example, fo...

See all answers

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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?

In terms of pricing, I'll not say HPE Zerto Software is very cheap, and I'll not say that whatever features it provides, it's very highly priced. However, there could be room for negotiation on the...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Zerto?

The documentation is very good. The GUI is kind of an old one. More development on the GUI can be useful for the users.The areas that have room for improvement include the GUI. The other thing is t...

See all answers

Comparisons

Google Transfer Appliance vs AWS Snowball

Compared 46% of the time

Microsoft Azure Data Box vs AWS Snowball

Compared 16% of the time

Cloudwick Amorphic Data Platform vs AWS Snowball

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Cloud Mass Data Migration vs AWS Snowball

Compared 6% of the time

Densify vs AWS Snowball

Compared 2% of the time

More AWS Snowball Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 10% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 4% of the time

Rubrik vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 4% of the time

Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 4% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball

May 2026

Download AWS Snowball product report

Buyer's Guide

HPE Zerto Software

April 2026

Download HPE Zerto Software product report

Also Known As

Amazon AWS Snowball, Amazon Snowball, Snowball

Zerto Virtual Replication

Overview

AWS Snowball is an efficient tool providing high-speed data transfers, end-to-end encryption, and scalability to organizations in need of reliable data migration and integration with AWS infrastructure.

AWS Snowball offers robust data transfer capabilities, ensuring efficient management of large data volumes. It provides end-to-end encryption and tamper-evident features, enhancing data security. The interface is user-friendly and supports seamless integration within AWS. Its scalability and flexible integration options make it a valuable choice for managing complex data migrations. Despite the need for improved connectivity and broader geographical availability, continuous innovations and managed services optimize resources and time.

What are the key features of AWS Snowball?

High-Speed Data Transfer: Facilitates quick migration of large data volumes.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies the process of data management.
End-to-End Encryption: Ensures data security during transfers.
Scalability: Easily integrates with AWS systems.
Edge Computing: Provides on-site processing capabilities.
Physical Durability: Designed for reliable data transport.

What benefits can users expect when implementing AWS Snowball?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces expenses associated with large-scale data transfers.
Time Optimization: Saves time in data migration processes.
Resource Optimization: Managed services enhance resource efficiency.
Seamless Integration: Supports on-premises to cloud migrations.
Security: Protects data with encryption during transfer.

Organizations across various industries utilize AWS Snowball for efficient cloud migrations and disaster recovery. In fields where bandwidth is limited, Snowball provides a solution for large-scale data transfers. Financial institutions use it for ETL processes and integrating analytical layers over current data warehouses. Industries with data validation requirements appreciate its secure data transfer features and the ability to reduce dependency on internet connections. Its edge computing capabilities address diverse environmental needs, ensuring data accuracy during migrations.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Zerto is used for disaster recovery, business continuity, data migration, and ransomware recovery, providing continuous data protection and near real-time replication. Valued for ease of use, efficient failover processes, and versatile integration, it enhances organizational efficiency, reduces errors, and boosts productivity.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sample Customers

Wazee Digital, Craftsy, Live Nation, Essess

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies

Buyer's Guide

AWS Snowball vs. HPE Zerto Software

April 2026

Free Report: AWS Snowball vs. HPE Zerto Software

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