Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter 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

Cohesity DataProtect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (8th)
NetApp SnapCenter
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
50th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity DataProtect is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli. - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support
The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup. Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance. We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site. Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.
MervynMorgan - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables us to save data for data projection but could improve its integration with other backup solutions
NetApp SnapCenter is highly efficient because it allows you to automate the creation of snapshots. Instead of manually creating snapshots using IMS or HMS, you can schedule and automate them, specifying the timing and frequency. This eliminates the need for daily manual intervention and streamlines the process. SnapCenter also enables you to assign specific user roles to manage these tasks, enhancing efficiency. SnapCenter ensures that your LPOs and RTOs are extremely quick. Although it may seem expensive initially, after using it for a while, you'll appreciate the efficiencies and gains it provides. I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With the ability to stage an entire lifecycle through versioning, integrated with AWS, it has made it possible to protect our corporation from end to end."
"Some of the most valuable features of Cohesity DataProtect for me include instant mass restore, anomaly detection, and its ability to handle large data volumes effectively."
"Setup was extremely easy from racking to backing up was about one hour."
"The SQL Backup and Restore is very easy."
"It makes our administrators' lives much easier to combine backup, archiving, and services like hosting file shares in one central system with only one user interface."
"We like that we can use production data to run intensive reports that would otherwise bog down the production server."
"Cohesity customer service is the best that I have ever used. They are extremely fast in responding to cases, fixed all issues, and answered every question in a very timely manner."
"The customer service and support are fast and professional."
"Being able to add everything in as resource groups is a valuable feature... Having all the SQL servers put into specific buckets, based on their year of release - 2008, 2012, 2014 - allows us to get almost immediate backups that are easily seen and reported on."
"It's all together managing both storage and backup, which makes it easier for troubleshooting issues and the automation part of it"
"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."
"The reporting feature has been particularly beneficial to upper management... When you do manual backups, you do not get the benefit of seeing successes and failures and how often you have to do restores. With SnapCenter, you get all of that."
"The most valuable feature is that it's centralized. In the old SnapManager days, we had software for each server. Now, with a centralized system, we're able to manage all systems remotely, and all agents remotely, and update them remotely. That's a huge benefit for us."
"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."
"The way that it interconnects with VMware is really handy, because you can go right into your vSphere client, where you spend a lot of the day anyway, right-click on one of the VMs where you have backups running for however long, and you can restore either some files or restore the entire thing."
"It has very fast backup and can handle a huge amount of data. It also enables really fast recovery."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of price."
"It would be great to add SQL ​Object Level restore, so user objects, tables, etc. can be restored without having to restore the entire DB."
"In terms of what could be improved, it just needs some maturity."
"Add the ability to delete View Boxes and External Targets in the GUI."
"Reporting is one area that isn't as robust as it could be."
"Many of the reports are basic, at most, and at times we had to open a support ticket to help find or develop a report for our needs."
"We aren't missing any features. In terms of the solution overall, it's so far so good."
"You need to put the full name instead of a few letters while searching for backup. It should also improve customization."
"The Microsoft environment is its biggest disadvantage due to the central management of all the actions. Because the SnapCenter server is where we deploy everything, it also affects the Microsoft environment, which can cause many difficulties when resolving issues like Windows update problems."
"There is one area that needs improvement and that's in the alerting. When you set up your SMTP alerts, it only has - and I don't understand why - the ability to send an anonymous SMTP. It doesn't do basic authentication, which frustrated me for a while until I figured out that I'm not missing something. It's just not there."
"We have hundreds of servers and systems and hundreds of customers and they're separated in a multi-tenancy way in NetApp SVM. Right now, the problem is that it always scan all SVMs. If I backup Customer A, it scans all SVMs, or tries to scan all SVMs, if there is a backup relationship on the storage. But it doesn't have the permissions, so we run into timeouts or the backup just takes too long. They're fixing that in the upcoming release..."
"The GUI is still so-so. I' don't use the GUI that often anymore because it's really slow, refreshing disks, refreshing hosts, and you have to click a lot."
"The documentation could be a little bit better so that we could handle more of the troubleshooting ourselves, rather than having to go through support."
"When you have role-based access, for example, it's a bit of a problem that the person who creates the backup job is the owner of it. We are struggling a bit with this, that everyone has the same view and the same permissions in there."
"The compatibility with other manufacturers, like Oracle and Hyper-V, could be improved. I would like to see it be more compatible with other software."
"We tend to have a lot of Hyper-V... so now we have two management consoles and we would ideally like to leverage SnapCenter to include Hyper-V."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years."
"Sizing is important and it is easy to overestimate."
"Cohesity came in at the best price."
"The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik."
"The pricing model is impressive and very effective."
"There is monthly licensing."
"Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day."
"The ROI is huge. Not really measurable at this point, but the price of the unit was a fraction of what a couple hours of downtime could result in."
"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."
"The product is inexpensive."
"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."
"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."
"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."
"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."
"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."
"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity DataProtect?
Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with m...
What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?
What areas have room for improvement? Is there anything that could be simplified to make it better?
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.
 

Also Known As

Cohesity
SnapCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tribune Media
All for One Steeb AG, Accenture
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.