NAKIVO Backup & Replication Reviews

We were looking for backup software to permit us to save our big environment in a fast and easy way. After a  careful analysis of the market leaders, we chose Nakivo. We use Nakivo to save all our Virtual Machines in a VMware environment and to save all the data in our file system. In our environment, we have around 100 Virtual Machines. Those Virtual Machines are both of production and staging. We are saving around 4 TB in our file systems. Daily, the backup saves more than 900MB from file systems and more than 1 TB from VM.

Before using Nakivo Backup & Replication, all of our data backup processes took a long time and did not optimize the disk space reserved for backup. With the introduction of Nakivo Backup & Replication, savings time has been reduced by almost half (thanks to the use of several simultaneous transporters) and the space occupied has also had a very important reduction.

In addition, all restore test processes are carried out quickly and easily. You can restore a single file, a single folder, or a single database in a very simple way. There is also the possibility to receive the restored files or folders directly on our PC by downloading the browser or by receiving e-mails   

We have found many fundamental features in Nakivo Backup & Recovery.

The main ones are: 

• The ability to use multiple transporters in parallel to have very efficient speed savings
• A very clear graphical interface and guided procedures in a simple and fast way
• The method of restoring the various backups that allow you to restore even the individual
• Virtual Machines on the same Hypervisor but with a different name or the ability to choose a different destination network. 
• Finally, the data compression that the software is able to carry out by saving costs related to disk space. 

The Nakivo Backup & Recovery product is already a very complete product and fully satisfies all of our current needs. Lately, thanks to the personalized presentation that was made to us by both the marketing and technical teams, we have learned about the new features released in the latest versions. Among these, the ability of having the replica of our Virtual Machines in a dormant state and ready to be activated in case of problems on the primary site has great value on the Disaster Recovery site. 

In the press releases, it would be useful to make sure that the manual space reclaim procedure does not have to be performed but that it happens automatically, thus optimizing the use of space.

We have been using Nakivo Backup & Replication for more than three years.

It is very stable, in more than three years we always had daily backups.

It is very scalable and affordable.

All our requests were dealt with within one hour of opening.

We used another solution but the performance and stability were not comparable to that offered by Nakivo.

It was very easy.

We implemented it ourselves.

Nakivo has a pricing solution that can meet the various needs of companies in order to pay only for actual use and needs.

We also tested Veeam.

I would recommend Nakivo to those who need to have safe, performing, and simple backup software.

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.

We are using Nakivo internally for backup/replication and cloud backup of our little datacenter, in a server farm.

Our customers use Nakivo Backup & Replication on a daily basis for backup and recovery of VMs and files. These environments are heterogeneous, as we have many Linux VMs, Windows VMs, and dedicated virtual appliances. This is no issue with the backup and recovery of entire VMs or single files, granularly.

We also appreciate the easy-to-use web interface, and our customers are completely independent in the management of Nakivo.

Nakivo Backup & Replication reduces the time to set up and configure a backup solution in a VMware environment with many types of backup destination.

Before Nakivo, our technicians spent a lot of time every day assisting end-users or our customers' IT departments. Now, all is very clear and simple.

We really appreciate the simplicity of the solution. Every tab in the web interface has a simple target, and everything is structured such that it can be found in a few seconds.

Another great feature of Nakivo Backup & Replication is support for backup to the Wasabi cloud infrastructure. This allows us to offer a complete solution to our customers.

Setup on a NAS device helps us to have a distributed backup solution, in case the customer has many remote offices. We can install a little NAS on the remote site and have a bandwidth-optimized offsite backup.

What must be improved is the response time to technical support requests.

We have been using Nakivo for five years.

This product has great stability.

Generally, I don't have issues with Nakivo. The sales department is very responsive to every request and they reply in a few hours. However, technical support could be faster.

Often, as a reply to my email, I receive a message that says "We have received your message and the second level of support will reply to you soon". When they reply fast, at least two days pass!

In case of emergency, where we must recover something and it does not work as we expect, 48 hours to have a reply is too much time.

Nakivo Backup & Replication also have another great value, which is that it is one of the lowest prices on the market. The customer does not need to spend many thousands of Euros, and in the sales phase, we have fewer issues with the CFO or management.

Prior to Nakivo, we tested Acronis, Veeam, and Anexia.

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.

I use it for my VM (Virtual Machine) backups. I logged into it, created myself an account, and then I created my backup jobs. Then I can run the jobs to do the backups when I want. I can schedule it to run when it is convenient — say at 10 o'clock at night — or I can say run it right now, or whatever. It is pretty intuitive in that sense. Pretty easy to set up and use.  

What I like most about it is their solution runs either on Windows or Linux or even on something like Synology. Nakivo is versatile and able to work with other systems.  

The lack of that capability is one of the big reasons that I do not like Veeam. Veeam is strictly a Windows solution. That is a big negative in my opinion. Plus Veeam is good — it is not that it is not good, it works great — but it is also expensive.  

I do not know that I see a lot that needs to be improved with Nakivo. It seems maybe that the interface could be a little bit better, but it is what it is. You can always improve on the interface on anything.  

For me, I just work with the product in a simple way. For instance, I have not even looked into whether you can hook it up with Active Directory which may be helpful if you are going to add different users and give them the capability to back up or do certain other tasks. You might be able to do that already now. I just have not had the need or opportunity to look into it. If it is not there it is the type of thing that might be added.  

I have been using Nakivo for a couple of years on-and-off.  

The stability and performance can depend on how many VMs you have and the volume of what you are backing up. I think I set it up for one customer in their lab and they had 50 or 60 VMs running and set it up to kickoff at say at 10 o'clock at night and do the backup. Nakivo just does its thing on schedule. Here when I back it up, when I back up my Atlassian tools, I will back up three of those VMs at one time. 

So it is pretty stable when it comes to carrying out what it is supposed to do. Again, it depends on how fast your network is, how many transporters you have, and where you are backing it up to. Although I do not do it myself, Nakivo has the capability to back up directly to Amazon S3 if you choose to do that. The flexibility for working in various environments is really valuable, and in my case it saves money.  

I think the scalability of the product is good. All you have to do is basically just install more transporters. If you only got one transporter installed and you are trying to back up 100 VMs at the same time, you are pushing everything through one little teeny pipe, but if you have more transporters, then it will actually use all of those and the backups and restores can happen faster.  

I have not really used technical support because I have not had any issues or problems with the product. It is very easy to set up and very straightforward to use. I can not vouch for that fact on Windows because I have never tried it on Windows. I choose not to do that. I run everything on Linux and I like that better.  

I have used other solutions and I wound up sticking with Nakivo because it is more versatile and it is able to work with systems other than Microsoft. You can get it running in many different ways. I am just running the previous build VM, but I also have a 12 terabytes Synology NAS unit here. I can actually install it directly on that and not even have to create a virtual machine. It runs great without any extra setup. So I am using Nakivo for versatility, mostly.  

The initial setup and installation are very straightforward. It depends on how many transporters you want to install. You can install more than one transporter. If you are doing lots of backups, multiple transporters will make it go faster. In my case, I do not need that. I have actually tried using multiple transporters at customer sites and it is a functional solution.  

I just use the free version — if you will — it is kind of free. You can buy a one-time perpetual license, or you can do subscription-based leasing, or you can do it based on how many VMs you want to back up. If you want to only buy it for 50 VMs, then you only buy it for 50 VMs. You have a lot of different options when it comes to pricing and the pricing models are pretty flexible and affordable.  

I have tried Veeam and I have tried a few others. I forget their names. Nakivo just seems simpler to me. It is simple to use. I like the fact that I do not have to have a Windows license to run it like I would with other products like Veeam. That is just another something that I have to pay for and maintain on top of what I already have. Nakivo is a work-around for that situation.  

I like the product because it is doing exactly what I need it to do, and that is reliably backing up my VM. I have actually had to restore some VMs. Sometimes the power just goes off here and something will get corrupted and it works well for that. It has been reliable in restoring exactly what I needed to restore.  

Based on my experience, the advice I would give to people considering it is to go for it. I think it is a great product. But there is a problem with customers — especially government customers — resisting adopting anything new. They get hung up on one thing and they like to stick with it. They buy a license and they just have it set in their minds that they do not want to try anything else, even though the solution they have might be costing them a fortune. Getting them to adopt a change can be difficult.  

It is like when someone is committed to Cisco. I tell government customers not to buy Cisco under any circumstances. I tell them just to never get involved with it. Then they will complain and say that Cisco is all that they know. Arista beats the hell out of Cisco and it uses the same interface. Guys who know how to use Cisco already will not have to go to school at all to learn how to use Arista, and it ends up being half the price. My complaint about Cisco is not that it does not work. It depends on what you are doing. But in my opinion, Cisco solutions just do not have the necessary throughput for certain situations.  

I have tried to get a lot of clients to buy this and show them the advantages. Some of them just say they already have a license for something else and they want to stick with it. People need to be open to the advantages of considering other products and how that can make a change in their efficiency and their bottom line.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate Nakivo as a nine-out-of-ten. I would never give anything a ten.