NAKIVO Backup & Replication Reviews

We're using Nakivo primarily for backup, replication, and recovery. It helps us back up our databases and files in Microsoft or other OS types. There are other features we don't use, like multi-environment management. 

In the future, we might use some of the features they've added in the latest edition, like VM monitoring. I discussed this option today with one of our partners, and they said you could consolidate tools instead of buying another solution for VM monitoring tools. That way, you can manage two solutions from one console. However, we only need backup replication for our current infrastructure needs. We have not used the multi-site capabilities because we have no current demand.

All our customers give the same feedback on Nakivo. They tell us they appreciate the user-friendly interface and the space savings they realize from Nakivo's compression. The slick interface, low price, and compression are valuable for us. 

Nakivo's reporting features have helped a lot. They give my boss high visibility into what's going on, which is crucial because we had a data breach in the past where we lost about 12 years of data. That's why we bought several appliances, and we replicate the same backup twice a day to three different depositories. 

Nakivo is fast and user-friendly. Compression over Othernet is the best feature, and Nakivo's object-level restoration is also excellent. All the features are well designed, work properly, and meet our needs, and there are some extra features that we don't use.

Some of Nakivo's backup features need improvement. For example, I would like some more options for job scheduling. We can only schedule incremental and full backup, but there are no differential backup features in the same job. I can only schedule one incremental and one full backup in a week. 

I schedule three jobs for each repository, which is the simplest way to plan your jobs. It's possible to consolidate three jobs into one, but when you want to explain the backup registration schema to someone, they can't understand what they don't see. When you schedule some jobs, you should be able to see a list of the jobs contained within each. You have to open up the editor to see what is inside. You must click through and edit stuff. Each time, it asks you to save or discard changes. It's very annoying. You only see the name of the scheduled job, and you need to edit it to see what's it's inside.

I am a Nakivo regional reseller, and I've been using this product since 2015.

Nakivo is highly stable. In the past six years, I've never had a backup fail. It can sometimes happen, but only if you run out of space. 

You can scale up just by paying for more licenses. There are options. For example, if you buy a new server, you need extra licenses, and when you purchase an additional license, you must buy another month for the previous license. The scalability is flexible. One of our clients has 12 circuits, but we sell six circuits for each on average.

We had a big problem where we didn't know what happened to our clients' servers, but we ultimately realized it was a problem on our side. Overall, Nakivo's support was fast. They instantly respond via call or via email.

The backup and replication method for most solutions is the same. For example, Nakivo and Veeam are similar, but Veeam has many options we will never use, and we get a lot of questions about features customers don't need.

It's more complicated to perform the same jobs using Veritas, which is designed for huge companies, like telecoms and multinational companies. It's more of an enterprise solution, so the price is much higher.

The deployment process is about the same for any client because some features are grayed out when you have a licensed product. The specific installation and deployment process depends on the licensing, but the basic menus are the same. You can buy Nakivo online and start using it in less than an hour. 

I took two or three different training courses to learn how to use Nakivo. They were helpful. We have several engineers involved in deploying and maintaining the solution, but their jobs are mixed. We don't have one designated person who handles backup solutions.

However, Nakivo handles most of the maintenance on our ongoing projects. For example, if you make a backup, Nakivo will check the integrity of your data. It's a valuable feature. 

A backup and replication solution is an essential investment for most businesses. If you're using replication, you don't need to spend money on testing infrastructure, so Nakivo will save you about 60 percent on testing costs. 

Nakivo's licensing is straightforward compared to some other vendors who make purchasing hard. Nakivo's licensing is flexible. If your infrastructure changes or you have some new needs, you can find the cheapest price. 

I rate Nakivo 10 out of 10. The two major advantages of going with Nakivo are support and price. We work with mid-sized companies, and these are their primary concerns. 

We have used the solution for backup and restoration in a vSphere Environment. Nakivo can be used to backup nearly any virtual infrastructure. For us, it keeps incremental and full backups in a repo with deduplication that will keep storage usage low and restores very quickly. It integrates well with NFS storage for larger storage needs. There is also a monitoring dashboard that we use to monitor our virtual hosts. We use the fast restore option to quickly spin up virtual guests when there is no time to copy it back to the virtual host datastore.

Nakivo has been great for incremental backups of our virtual infrastructure. Restoring from backups is very simple. Nakivo, similar to Veeam Backup gives you peace of mind and confidence in your virtual infrastructure. 

If you were to lose a virtual host or a local datastore or remote datastore, Nakivo quick restore allows you to immediately spin up the virtual guest from backup on another virtual host, eliminating downtime and allowing for quick migrations to new hardware in the case of a catastrophe.  

The following aspects are the most valuable:

Quick Backups. Nakivo backups operate quickly, generally around 50 to 100MB/s, depending on your environment. This speed combined with only incremental changes being uploaded allows for quick hourly or nightly backups that don't bog down your infrastructure and take resources away from other needs.

Lightning-quick restores. Restores can run directly from the Nakivo Repo. You don't need to transfer back to the datastore until you have the time to do so.

Low Price. The price is much lower than competitors that do the same function.  

Support. Support has been friendly and responsive.

It would be great if they had a Let's Encrypt integration. Since LE provides free SSL certificates, it would be great. 

If you already have an internal CA authority you likely wouldn't need this, however, LE integration would allow shops without an internal CA to easily and freely (at no cost) auto-renew SSL certs. As it currently stands, you need to process your SSL renewal on another machine and then import it into Nakivo. It would be nice if Nakivo integrated LE and supported both HTTPS and DNS Validation for those machines behind Firewalls.

I have used the solution for three years.

The stability has been consistent.

The solution scales well.

Technical support offers fast knowledgeable response.

Positive

We tested Veeam, however, the price didn't seem worth it. Nakivo performs the same functions for a better price.

We used the Virtual Appliance for an easy setup experience.

I'd advise new users to reach out to CS at Nakivo and they will be happy to work with you on a quote that fits your needs. They got back to us quickly.

We did evaluate Veeam.

We are using Nakivo for backing up multiple Virtual Machines hosted over ESXi hosts in various locations.

The hosts vary from 6.0 to 6.7 and previously we had Nakivo running for 5.5 hosts as well, which have since been dismissed.

When we started, we had also older 4.1 hosts which were covered by a special transporter used for legacy systems.

Since then, we have performed various upgrades to both the ESXi hosts, and Nakivo always worked flawlessly. It becomes better with each upgrade. 

For us, the capability of using Nakivo with the un-licensed version of ESXi is the biggest selling point.

The ease of use and the intuitive interface are also quite nice, and the various upgrades from Nakivo's side are great.

The UI has been reworked from the 9.x to the 10.x version and the new one is really good.

Thanks to Nakivo, we were able to perform a disaster recovery procedure during early 2021, losing little to no data, and the only thing slowing us down during the recovery was the speed of the new host.

The ability to backup Virtual Machines on the un-licensed version of ESXi is the main selling point for us.

The backups, especially of the incremental type, are really quick (ranging from five to 10 to 45 to 50 minutes depending on the size of the VM).

The recoveries are also quite quick, of course, depending on the host system. Generally, it recovers over the network and does not take more than an hour, again, depending on various factors unrelated to Nakivo.

The ability to retrieve individual files from a backup is a welcome plus which we discovered and found pretty useful.

Personally, I would like to have the ability to backup older legacy systems on the new versions as well.

I'd like the ability to perform individual backups (so a backup from inside the system instead of on the host side) - which right now is limited to newer Operating Systems, which, while is a good thing from a security point of view. That said, sometimes there is an older machine or VM which could use backups like this.

For our usage, we've found the connections to remote shares (like CIFS or NFS) while quite easy to set up are a little bit prone to interruption. Of course, in the next availability check performed autonomously by Nakivo, the connection is restored. This could of course be a problem with the destination share, however, it's really the only "issue" we've had with this software.

I've used the solution since 2018.

The stability of the software is great; we've never had a problem with it or with the updates.

The customer support is awesome and the support service is also great and quite qualified.

We don't have much experience with them as we had to contact them just once for clarification and not a real problem. 

Positive

Previously we had a custom backup procedure. We switched due to the impracticality of maintaining that system and the ease of use of Nakivo.

The initial setup is totally straightforward with little to no specific competence required, at least, not on the networking side.

Our in-house team managed the implementation.

The software did completely repay itself, especially when we had to activate the disaster recovery plan.

The price is really competitive. The offering, as well as the ability to use it with free ESXi, is awesome.

The setup is as easy as deploying a VM.  

We valued other options, both for individual and granular files backups, such as BackupPC, and also for host systems, such as Veeam.

We chose Nakivo due to its higher feature offering at a lower price point compared to other alternatives.

We're pretty satisfied with the product. I'm also evaluating it for personal non-work-related use.

We use the solution as a VM backup from local servers and remote data centers. Nakivo is installed on a NAS device at the office, and it doesn't need any external servers to run. That makes it really easy to deploy, and in case of disaster for servers, the NAS device is totally separate from them, and backups can be restored quickly to another environment where ever is enough resources to run them.

The remote data center can also be backed up to a small repository on that data center and then copied over an internet link to the office, where I have more space to store backups.

Backups are working smoothly with Nakivo Backup. Deduplication and compression of backup repositories save lots of disk space, and I can keep many more restore points compared to situations where deduplication is not used.

Having a couple of the latest restore points saved in the repository at a remote data center allows restoration of them quickly without the need first to transfer them over the internet from the office. It also is nice to be able to copy backups to the office, where I have plenty of more disk space to save them compared to a remote data center.

There is no need to install agents on VMs. It is easy to deploy new VMs and get them backed up instantly.

It can be fully run from a NAS device. There is no need to have separate backups servers and be able to run a full Linux environment without Windows servers.

Deduplication and compression of backup repositories are easy. It saves lots of disk space and enables you to keep many more recovery points compared to a situation where all recovery points are saved as is without deduplication.

It's a lightweight solution built over Linux. It can be run directly from NAS devices and doesn't need separate backups servers installed on the network.

We'd like to see more cooperation with Synology. It can be enhanced to get updates published faster to Synology's store.

I don't have any other complaints about Nakivo Backup, and I like it as it is. I have used many other backups solutions like Veeam, Actifio, and Acronis, and Nakivo has done things better than those other backup solution providers. 

Of course, there can be some cases where others might perform better; however, for my use case, Nakivo Backup does just what is needed, and it is done properly without problems.

I've used the solution for about three years.

I have previously used VMPro, Veeam, and Actifio.

The solution is cheaper than many competitors.

I have previously evaluated Veeam.

We have a VMware environment that needed backup and replication. We run Nakvio on a QNAP NAS and replicate it to another VMware Server.                      

The speed and security of backups have improved my organization.     

The ability to restore in the case of a catastrophic event is priceless since every company must use a backup solution of some sort.

• Instantly recovers entire VMs, individual files, or application objects (Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and Active Directory)
• Deployable in one minute.                                                                       

In the next release, I would like for them to add restore in physical machines.

They should also improve the speed of "Reclaim unused space" in the repository.  

I have been using Nakvio for two years. 

The stability is good. 

It is good for small or medium businesses, we use it for 2 VMware hosts with about 15 virtual machines.

Support is always very available for any request.

Positive

There are plenty of options these days, but Nakivo is a strong contender.

It is easy for basic configuration, it is of medium difficulty for more advanced configuration.

We implemented in-house.

They have competitive prices.

We use the product for the backup of our VMs (Virtual Machines) which are located in a remote location. 

We have scheduled the backups for every day which is very convenient as it runs automatically. 

We can also run backup whenever we want according to our convenient time. The user interface is very easy to use and you can set it up in sometime without any issues. 

They also have cloud integration option for the backup to be stored on cloud platform such as Amazon and Wasabi.                               

We first used Nakivo Backup and Replication for our own HyperV Cluster. Then, we added a physical server.

Having used it for some time, we discovered all of its functionalities and have seen the power of the product.

The web interface is clear and simple to use and learning to use it is very quick.

The email reports are clear.

The support is quick and efficient.

Nakivo Backup and Replication has become an important part of our disaster and recovery strategy.

Our company, being a VAR, has decided to become a reseller of this product to help more and more customers discover it.

I appreciate the management. They really do respond quickly. They reply immediately to any query raised from us as a technician or consultant and they know the pulse of the market and keep updating the features in such a big way. Kudos to the team.

I appreciate the motivation and confidence. It helps to sell Nakivo products when outstanding support is provided and its well-performing software easily beats competitors.

The product license and support delivery have been great.

Updating VM tools on a replicated VM could be better. 

One of the most important things Nakivo can do is stop releasing a new version several times a year. It's important to "get it right" on a version release. Too many updates will cause an issue. 

Any version update should include the ESXi Host as well as the Center - not taking into consideration the vCenter version is a huge mistake and no updates should be released unless they also support the current vCenter version. That came up and I had several issues before I figured out it was a vCneter update compatibility issue.

We needed a backup solution that would back up all over Virtual Machines (VMware) and have a safe, fast, and reliable recovery process when needed.

Nakivo has allowed a worry-free backup process. 

The interface is basic and very easy to use which is what we are looking for. Setup is a simple task I manged to setup all the backup process by myself and if I had any questions the technical team was there to guide me and backup reports and notifications keeps you informed if there is any issues.

The solution is very simple to use in every way - including in the setup process, configuration, and backup process. 

Backups are done if all your connections are online. We tested and keep testing the restore process and we found that the restore process is quick and easy. 

You can also connect to different repositories so that you can have multiple backups on different devices to keep the backups stored in and safe and secure location. 

With Nakivo, we have a worry-free backup process and restore feature.

We always had an issue where we could not download a file if a user deleted it by mistake. We needed to restore the image or use another backup program to be able to just restore single files or folders if needed.

With Nakivo, we can do this and have the option to be able to download single files or folders from an incremental or full backup. It has saved us a lot of time.

You also have the option to download it locally to your PC or restore it back into the virtual machine, which, again, is time-saving and cost-effective in the long run.

We have a lot of clients on the network and we need to back up their local files. Space is always an issue and we try to backup just the files in certain folders, which the users are aware of. A good solution would be if we could create backups of files and folders from the users' local machine.

It might sound old-fashioned, however, we are limited on space and this solution will be a great feature. The user might lose their laptop or have it stolen, so having a backup of their local files would be just what we need.

We are now moving in on two years of working with this product.

The solution is very stable and easy to use. 

Backup times really depend on your overall systems. If you have fast systems, it will back up fast. In regards to our older solutions, it is way more impressive.

Technical support is always ready to respond always helpful.

Positive

We did use a different solution. We switch as the last solution was very expensive.

The initial setup is very straightforward and easy.

We did the implementation ourselves in-house.

We found everything more cost-effective with Nakivo. We had a reduction of 70% in costs when we switched.

We looked at some other options. Acronis and Veeam were some solutions we looked into.

For now, our use case is to backup two Hyper-V Servers with a total of 11 VMs.

The servers are in the same location on two different machines (Fujitsu Servers).

The repository is on Qnap with a secondary repository on a different Qnap in another location.

We plan to expand our backup system to workstations that run on Windows 10/11 later this year.

Our organization was running on Windows Backup and Recovery - with a backup of all servers and VMs to a remote location from time to time.  

Now Nakivo gives us a reliable system that has more options - such as deduplication, replication, and disaster recovery.

Backup jobs are running smoothly every day with job reports sent to email after they finish each job. That gives us peace of mind. Nakivo was easy to deploy and configure in our environment.   

First of all, setting up Nakivo was fast and easy to do.

Configuration of the repositories is simple and the connection to our Hyper-V host was automated and completed in a few minutes.  

Setting up jobs to backup our VMs runs with no major problems.   

Support for some questions or minor issues is great. It is fast and they offer exact responses.

The interface is user-friendly and easy to read (the dashboard has all information needed).

There is always room for improvement statistics could be a little better (job compare, overall job performance), however, Nakivo is a complete product with a lot to offer. Adding new items to the configuration is simple. The backups run fast, and the recovery and replication options are also easy to use. Job reports are clear.

We plan to expand our backup system to workstations as we only backup Hyper-V.

More statistic options would be a great feature.

I've used the solution for a few months.

The solution is very stable with no major problems.

Customer service and support are on a very high level.

Positive

We previously used Windows Backup, however, we needed something more.

The initial setup was straightforward and easy.

We implemented it with the help of a vendor team.

I'd advise new users to make contact with Nakivo support for a few hours of training.

We did not previously evaluate other options.