NAKIVO Backup & Replication Reviews

I use the product for backing up my VMware VSphere and Microsoft HyperV Server. 

The first time I chose Nakivo was because we were facing a problem with a system that we used which was very expensive to renew. 

We found Nakivo from a website - one for VMware experts - and we tried to download the trial version.

The first time, we installed it on a physical machine that was running on a Windows Server - a 2012 Standard Edition.

At that time, we had 7 servers, including VMware ESXI and 1 VMware VCenter. Our VM at that time was around 50 VMs. After the trial, we were very interested in this product. After we tried to back up our Hyper-V VM in another system that we had, we found that all the systems were running well. That made us happy because we finally found a good product for backup that had a reasonable price.  

Basically, we were very interested in Nakivo because it was easy to install and support was able to install on devices like Synology, Windows Server, or even a client virtual or physical server. Using the web interface made it easy to configure and manage. 

It was easy to deploy a transporter to make process backup and replication faster and more reliable. Nakivo ensured our organization had good backup and replication software. 

We like the capability of Nakivo in terms of being able to restore files, folders, Active Directory objects, and so on. 

One feature that we like most is network acceleration. It also makes process backups between sites that we have more reliable. 

We like the site recovery system that Nakivo offers because it helps us with orchestration site recovery on our VM from one site to another site without having to deal with any manual processes. 

The transporter is one thing that we often use when we have installed a new server for our system. 

The chat functionality with Nakivo Support in the web interface is very unique and we love it.

In my opinion, Nakivo should consider having native abilities to be able to backup and replicate several applications. For example, an application based on a microservice such as a container app or orchestration using Kubernetes would be better if Nakivo had the ability to backup or replicate without depending on a hypervisor. 

Right now we know that Nakivo has the ability to back up as an incremental process and restore backups across several criteria. However, it would be good if we had the ability to backup a system like PostgreSQL.

I have been using Nakivo for around 5 years.

In my experience with Nakivo, we like that every backup process is successful and when we restore it, it is as is like the source material. Until now, it has been very stable and we have not had any problems.

We can add more storage as a respository very easily because it supports several systems such as NFS and CIFS.

We only have contacted customer service and support once. They were very responsive and helped us solve our problem.

We have changed from a previous system because that product was too expensive to renew and we needed a Windows license to install the backup system.

The setup is very straightforward and very easy to install, deploy, and configure.

No, we deployed the product ourselves.

Nakivo is a solution with reasonable TCO. 

After we calculated the fact that it was easy to install, easy to manage, etc., Nakivo still was the best option with a reasonable license price and renewal price year over year. 

Yes, we have tried several products such as Acronis, Commvault, and many more.

We are using Nakivo Backup & Replication to back up ten virtual machines from our Nutanix cluster with some 80 virtual machines. Our goal is to replace the existing backup solution completely with Nakivo Backup and Replication and to have an offsite backup of all important servers to one of our branch offices with a Synology NAS with Nakivo Transporter installed. Offices are connected with a 500 MB VPN; the Nakivo appliance is running on our Nutanix cluster. Currently, we are using an Enterprise Essentials license.

Veeam Backup and Replication is the main backup solution at our customer's site, but it stopped working while backing up our now 5TB file server - and after some weeks of investigating the whole issue with Veeam support, I had to decide to search for an alternative solution. Nakivo offered a free trial which was very easy to set up and immediately worked. To be totally honest, it has an affordable price. 

The bandwidth-optimized deduplicated offsite backup to a Synology NAS was another must-have, which would have been possible with Veeam, too, but we would have had to build a Windows-based server for that.

The first really good thing about Nakivo Backup and Replication was the fact that I could install and configure the trial version in maybe half an hour and had a successful backup of our file server on the same night. I used different repositories to test - a Synology NAS with Nakivo Transporter and a CIFS share on a Windows bases server. Both worked without any problems. Then there was another point, that was really important to me: having an offsite backup to a Synology NAS at an office branch. I had to take a look at some options to optimize data flow, but the backup copy job works like a charm.

At the moment, there are actually not many features I am missing. It would be good if I could have a remote upgrade of our Synology Transporters, but the manual upgrade is easy and no problem at all. 

Some SNMP features to configure our monitor software would be great since emails sent to me sometimes could be lost in all those other mails. 

Some customers from Germany might have a problem when contacting English speaking sales and support team, but that has never been a problem to me, although my English hasn't been used much in the last couple of years.

I've been using Nakivo Backup & Replication for Nutanix since 2020.

There have been no crashes and no unfixable errors (there is a good knowledge base, and self-explaining error messages).

Since I'm using Nakivo to backup only ten virtual machines at the moment, I will have to wait until I backup my whole Nutanix cluster to find out about the scalability.

The sales representatives are nice; we didn't need technical support.

I'm still using Veeam Backup and Replication, but since this solution had huge problems backing up our file server (5 TB), I switched to Nakivo for some servers and will be completely replacing replacing Veeam by the end of its maintenance.

Yes, if you just follow the steps outlined in the setup assistant, you get it going in less than half an hour.

I implemented the solution by myself.

After weeks of working with Veeam support without any success, I can say it was worth every Euro spent since I have a working solution and can sleep better.

Nakivo has way lower licensing costs than Veeam - at least in our environment, with Nutanix as the protected cluster. Talk to your sales representative; they sold me the right license.

I am using Veeam and tested only Nakivo as a possible replacement.

I do not have any other comments at this time. 

I use NAKIVO backup and replication for several of my clients. I have replaced the product called Veeam Backup and Replication. We are a small IT service and repair center and we have many large clients running VMware 6, 6.5, and 7.  We use vCenter for all of our VMs. I have three different clients using this product. One client has four servers running two CPUs each and ESXi 6.7.  This client is running NAKIVO 10.2 as an appliance server and replicating the other three server's VMs.

The general cost of doing backups has been reduced. Also, the screenshot verification feature is priceless. I know right when I have an issue. At first, NAKIVO was a bit of a learning curve. It took several failures to figure of that some error messages were just canned messages and I had to dig deeper into the issue. As it turns out, the version of ESXi or vCenter with the proper version of the VM tool is very important for NAKIVO to get a good replication. The cost has been a huge issue using Veeam in the past and if you have ever tried to buy a license for Veeam, you already know it is almost impossible.

The test reboot of replicated VM and screenshot verification is great. NAKIVO is easy to use and pretty easy to set up. I use the appliance for all of my VM backups and replications. It runs as its own VM and you connect via a web browser. I have found Edge works best. The ease of purchasing a license from Nakivo has been one of the many features I have appreciated. I could not dislike purchasing a Veeam license more than anyone else in the IT industry. Having to jump through the hoops at Veeam and then after 10 plus emails, you might get an order from Techdata. It's just a joke.

Updating VM Tools on a replicated VM could be better. I think 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. Also, any version update should include the ESXi Host as well as the vCenter. 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.

I have been using the solution for one year.

It can be a little touchy. When the IP cannot be reached there is not much you can do. You have to figure out why the IP of the appliance cannot be reached.

The solution can scale. I have it backing up and replicating 4 servers with almost no issues.

It has not been the best. I ran into some issues right away and support got on and tried to help me. I ended up working on the issue for a week and ended up figuring it out myself.  I have tried to stay away from support altogether since then.

I used Veeam previously. I switched mainly because of the problems I always encountered while trying to order Veeam. This company is the absolute worst in the business - not to mention the price of a license.

Yes, I did not have any issue installing the solution.

I handled the setup myself.

The yearly maintenance fees are okay but they could be better.

The cost is important but I think using the appliance is probably the best as it's easy to install.

I did not evaluate other options.

I do not have any additional comments.

Our primary use case of Nakivo is to backup a three-way vSphere cluster hosting approximately 50 virtual machines.

We changed backup solutions because our previous one became so top-heavy and cumbersome to use.

We are a large site and use Nakivo to back up to disc between buildings in a limited time window. It then moves backup sets to the cloud as required.

We also use the replication feature to snapshot some of our most critical VMs to a backup server, which could be used if we lost our main datacenter. 

It has enabled us to backup (and replicate) our virtual machines much more frequently than was previously possible. We can now backup our entire vSphere cluster to disc on-site and then move backups to the cloud later. This enables us to do quick granular file recovery as and when required but also to do whole-site relocation in the case of a total loss scenario.

The small footprint of the main software ("Director" ) and transporters is excellent, too. I've often wondered why some of the agents we have had to install for other backup solutions need so many resources. You don't need an agent for Nakivo either, just a "transporter" that can handle loads of VMs and jobs.

Also, the ability to use a variety of cloud providers rather than being tied into one is a huge bonus. 

Creating new jobs is quick and easy, with only a few clicks and you're done.  

The backup copy option is handy if you start running out of space. You can just move backup sets to alternate locations.

The ability to fire up replicated VMs and grab a screenshot of the running OS as proof the replication has worked is great for peace of mind!

The web-based GUI on Nakivo is rapid and the ongoing development of the product is steady and sensible. Not just a case of adding every option under the sun as some manufacturers try, and fail to do.

The simplicity of Nakivo is its best feature. It does exactly what it should, which is to create restorable backups!

My first thought was maybe the GUI could be improved, although it works.

We have been using Nakivo for the past four years.

It's not gone wrong in four years, so I'd say it's stable.

Nakivo is very scalable. You add more licenses for sockets if you need to; otherwise, deploy more transporters to cope with more simultaneous workloads.

We have only needed to use technical support twice. Once was a user error on our part and the other was a licensing issue. Both times, customer support was very good.

Our previous solution became too bloated and cumbersome to use. We got sick of waiting five seconds for screens to load.

The initial setup is very easy, with simple instructions to follow.

We deployed in-house.

The ROI is unmeasurable.

My advice is that you get the trial, as there is nothing to lose!

The licensing model is crystal clear on the website.

We looked at several others but it's that long ago, I can't remember which products.

I have serious reservations suggesting features for something which is spot on as it is. Over my many years working in IT I have seen good products ruined by overzealous "improvements". The software can quickly become bloated and go on to lose its long-term customers and then end up in a constant battle to be the most feature-rich product.

We use Nakivo as a great addition to our Disaster Recovery and Backup of our VMware environment. We have multiple datacenters and wanted a quick, easy, and scalable solution that would perform at a high level.

This product was going to be a temporary solution at the start of our journey but ended up becoming a mainstay in our portfolio of products that we can't live without.

We have had several instances where Nakivo has really shined and helped up recover from potential issues very quickly. Nakivo hasn't only met those expectations, it's surpassed them!

We utilize multilayered approaches with our Security and Disaster Recovery. Nakivo has fit the bill for what we were trying to accomplish and has given us peace of mind knowing that our data is safe and secure.

We have had several instances where Nakivo has helped us with potential disaster recovery issues and each time, the product has performed better than we had expected.

Our organization is now safer, more secure, and more reliable because of our implementation of Nakivo. The product has also gained more ability since we first implemented it, as feature requests are added all the time!

Cloud integration is valuable because the ability to not only backup locally, but to the cloud, has been a great addition to the already fantastic product.

It's a much cheaper solution and a better performing product than many of its peers.

This product is fast and the speed of backups is a valuable feature. This product works faster than its peers, and its reporting features are fantastic.

Updates are well tested before put into general use. We have never had any issues with moving from old versions to new versions.

I would love to see BackBlaze B2 implementation in the future, as that would be our preferred cloud destination, but Amazon and Wasabi are both very great choices in the meantime. Other cloud initiatives would give this product a distinct advantage over other products. 

Other than that, I don't see any other areas that I can see for improvement. The product has several different tiers, all of which are easy to understand. The product works just as well as advertised, and is easy to implement into an organization.

I implemented Nakivo into our organization about four years ago.

The product is super stable and works like clockwork once it's setup and configured. I have never had any crashes or major issues with this product. Product updates add functionality and better performance and are well tested before going into production, as I have never had any issues with the product after updating. 

This is a highly scalable solution. We are always adding on to ours. 

They have great customer support and I can't brag about it enough. We don't need it much because the product works so well, but when we have the need for their services, they always help us quickly.

Our previous solution had less viability, fewer options, and was very expensive to utilize cloud offloading with it.

The initial setup is very easy to follow. Support even offered help after we went through a general demo. It wasn't needed because the product is so easy to set up and work with.

All in-house implementation. 

The product is very cost effective and has already helped us with potentially major issues that would have more than quadrupled the initial setup costs. We are very happy with our ROI.

This would all depend on how the product was implemented, as I'm sure each organization has different needs. The pricing, setup costs, and licensing are easy to understand, no matter how you want to implement it.

We evaluated Druva, Zerto, Unitrends, and Veeam. Nakivo fit right in with what we wanted and has outperformed our expectations.

Choose Nakivo. You won't regret it. As a primary, secondary, or other option in your disaster recovery portfolio, you will not regret the decision.

After looking around the internet for a quick, simple, and easy solution, I gave Nakivo a chance. I implemented it for backing up a small customer environment with one VMware host and four guests. The guests are two Linux and two Windows servers.

It's connected to a Synology NAS station via an NFS mount. The customer was looking for a quick way to back up their environment after recently suffering a significant data loss due to a user error. It had a real impact on their business and they asked for my help in putting something in place.

The customer didn't have any backup solution in place to protect their current server environment. This was a very quick and simple solution that fit their needs, and it was free!

They are now able to get a daily backup of their environment, including their main file share that has thousands of files stretching back for at least seven years. The loss they sustained cost them at least two man-weeks of effort to restore. 

Nakivo is very easy to set up and configure, and I chose the simplest install option possible. It is an OVA running on their server, which plugged right into their environment.

Nakivo's installation and background documentation is on point, answering a few simple questions I had.

This product has a very clean and intuitive GUI.

After running this for a week, I've found that the data compression and data deduplication is extremely valuable and efficient.  The server also has a very low overhead impact on the VMware server.

I would think that as it's used in larger environments that might be more than one server, and you're going to need a better authentication mechanism. For example, integration into Active Directory or some other form of LDAP would be helpful.

I had to manually install SNMP, which wasn't hard, but a step I had to take, to plug this into the monitoring system.

I've been using Nakivo for a couple of weeks.

Nakivo has been extremely stable so far.

I am not sure about scalability because I haven't used it in a large situation yet.

I haven't needed to interact with technical support.

They had no previous backup system.

Very simple and easy to use via an OVA setup.

I deployed it myself.

The ROI is Infinite because it's free for this kind of small environment!

As a free solution for a small environment, this is a great solution!

I spend about an hour browsing other free solutions, but they were either limited by too few backup targets or didn't provide dedupe.

For the most part, I don't have anything I'd change for this small type of environment. It has been super simple and easy to install, configure, and use. The operation of the application works as advertised.

We have used Nakivo to provide a fully automated backup solution without user intervention with on-site backup and copy to the cloud. 

We provide support and consulting services to SME businesses in the UK, and simplicity and a lower cost are paramount. 

We have implemented Nakivo for these clients, installed to a stand-alone NAS device. This can sit on the network alongside the existing systems and simply be pointed at the servers and workstations targeted for backup. It can manage the backup externally and the backed-up resources will run without any staff intervention. 

This has allowed us to move our clients to an automated solution that simply plugs into their existing infrastructure, removing the need for manual media handling. We have seen an increase in resistance to clients using staff resources to manage manual media handling. 

Nakivo's solution based upon a discrete NAS has provided a very neat "plug-in" solution that connects to their networks and targets their existing servers and creates a local disc-based backup resource. To this is added a simple AWS EC2 resource, which is an automatically configured host for cloud copies of the local backups for DR and archive. 

The ability to install a solution to a stand-alone, low-cost NAS and run and manage from there has been a very helpful facet of the projects. The ability to eschew manual media handling is an essential change in SME environments, where the staffing overheads for media handling and storage in the age of cloud backups was becoming onerous. 

The main advantage from our perspective is the ability to plug this solution into an existing infrastructure on a cheap device and point the backup at the server targets and configure the backup options in a simple menu; linking to a cheap cloud resource for a simple solution for off-site storage.

There has been a slight tendency to bloat, where each new feature uses slightly more resources. It would be helpful to be able to have a custom footprint so that only the required features are installed.

We have been using Nakivo for approximately two years.

It has proved very stable on the whole.

As it can be run from different platforms, it is very scalable.

Nakivo support has been very flexible and responsive. 

Previously, we used Veritas BackupExec and we changed due to the ease of use of Nakivo and the LCO.

Very simple to set up, including automatic installation of agents and build of AWS resource. 

This is a product that we set up and manage for our clients.

Cost is very appropriate for SMEs.

We evaluated Acronis before choosing Nakivo.

Support has been very good and product development and enhancement very active.

Nakivo software is available on a white-label basis. The DimenXional Cloud product with our enhancements is called WatchDog-BaaS for Backup as a Service. DimenXional Cloud has also developed WatchDog-DRaaS, which is Disaster Recovery as a Service. The white-label solution provides the API capabilities that DimenXional Cloud not get from other suppliers of this type of software. The finished solutions are bundled with the tasks for our market. The DimenXional Cloud (Very Small Business) market doesn't care what name is on it. They care about if it works or not and if it is reliable. Above all, our markets want to know that the software is easy to use and it has the right price.

1. Most valuable for DimenXional Cloud is the API provided by Nakivo which allows us to implement the software in all types of solutions.

2. It has all the features we need for our customer base.

3. The solution is very competitively priced.

While the solution provides mostly what we need, it would be ideal if there were some additional feature capabilities for the API.

I can't really specify which features are missing, as they've done everything that we've asked for so far. Our plate is full of getting what they've done into the marketplace. It's going to take us another two, three months to do that, including engineering work and testing and that type of stuff. I wouldn't be able to answer the question of if there are missing features for at least another three to six months.

We haven't been using the solution for too long.

DimenXional Cloud started our programs with Nakivo in the past year.

We used Veeam, and we still have legacy systems that use Veeam. We are switching because of the price advantage Nakivo provides.

If we're talking about Veeam, it costs us 30% more to do what we are doing. That 30% made us uncompetitive. Nakivo has allowed us to price the product about 10-15% below the competition, and that's significant when you are talking about small dollars. With COVID-19 and the current market conditions, it's important to be very competitive.

We're part of the RESA MSP program. It's basically a partnership with the solution.

Overall, I would rate the solution at a nine or a ten. They've been a very good product so far. It's basically everything we need.

We have a new VMware vSphere Cluster with several Virtual Machines (Windows-based and Linux-based). We needed a new backup solution for those new workloads. I deployed in a second site, a new backup server with a storage SAN directly attached. I deploy NAKIVO B&R in a virtual appliance and with it, I protect all of the inventory of the VMs and save the backups and data in a backup repository with an immutability feature.

At the moment, we don't use Replication, however, I studied this feature. Maybe I will deploy this feature in the future on some new vSphere hosts in a DRP site.

Nakivo's replication feature can permit configuration replicas in a different hardware platform with VMware vSphere. We protect all of our virtual machines in VMware vSphere and secure our data with the immutability feature; our virtual machines are Windows-based and Linux-based. We have SQL Server, IIS, Active Directory Instances, PACS, and File Servers.

The virtual appliance for VMware vSphere is easy to deploy, easy to manage, and we have no need for additional Windows licenses. NAKIVO has an immutability feature that protects our backup data. Nakivo is a backup solution good for the first steps in backup and replication uses cases. It offers low license costs and is very easy to deploy. 

I recommend the Virtual Machine Appliance for all VMware vSphere Infrastructures.

I deployed it to a second site with a new backup server with a storage SAN directly attached. I deploy edNAKIVO B&R in a virtual appliance and with it, I protect all the inventory of the VMs.

They need a better knowledge base with more information about support issues. 

I would like new recovery methods for my VM and live full VM restore overwriting and the ability to restore individual files on the VM (like VMDK, VMX).

I would like it if Nakivo could protect virtual machines with WSFC deployed on VMware (usually SQL Server clusters virtualized). 

I would like to restore my data on a cloud site. I would like a new replication method with zero RTO (better than snapshot replication). 

I would like new features for the backup agent for physical machines.

I've used the solution for one year.

We did previously use a different solution.

Nakivo is good for the first steps in backup and replication. If comes at a low license cost and is very easy to deploy.

We did evaluate other options.