Veeam Alternative
Table of contents
While Veeam is a dominant force in the backup and recovery market, there are several reasons why an administrator or business owner might choose Storware Backup and Recovery as an alternative. Storware often appeals to organizations with specific technical environments, budget considerations, or a preference for certain licensing models.
6 Reasons to Choose Storware over Veeam:
- Agentless Approach: Storware’s agentless backup offers significant advantages over agent-based solutions primarily due to its simplified deployment, reduced overhead, and enhanced security. Without the need to install and manage agents on individual virtual machines or servers, agentless systems minimize resource consumption on production machines, eliminate the complexities of agent compatibility issues and upgrades, and reduce potential attack vectors. This streamlined approach leads to faster deployment, easier scalability, and a lower total cost of ownership, making it a more efficient and less intrusive method for protecting diverse IT environments. However it’s worth to mention that Storware also offers agent for file-level backup for Linux, Windows and MacOS.
- Strong Support for Open-Source and Diverse Hypervisors: Storware has a strong focus on supporting a wide range of open-source and less common hypervisors, including Red Hat Virtualization (oVirt/RHV), Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), Proxmox VE, OpenStack, and Citrix XenServer, in addition to VMware and Hyper-V. If an organization heavily relies on these platforms, Storware might offer more comprehensive and integrated protection compared to Veeam, which traditionally has had a stronger focus on VMware and Hyper-V.
- Flexible and Potentially More Cost-Effective Licensing: Storware offers various licensing models, including per VM, per Terabyte, per Host, and in both variants: perpetual or subscription. This flexibility can be particularly attractive to businesses that need to tailor their licensing based on their specific infrastructure and growth patterns. While Veeam also offers different editions and licensing options, some organizations might find Storware’s models more cost-effective, especially in environments with a mix of platforms or specific scaling needs.
- Focus on Specific Niches and Workloads: Storware has developed expertise in protecting specific workloads and environments, such as certain databases, cloud platforms (OpenStack, AWS EC2, Google Cloud Platform, Azure Cloud, Microsoft 365), containers (Kubernetes, OpenShift), virtual machines (oVirt, Nutanix, VergeIO, XCP-ng). For businesses with a significant focus on these particular areas, Storware’s specialized features and integrations might provide a more optimized backup and recovery solution.
- Potential for Simplicity in Certain Environments: While Veeam is known for its feature richness, its extensive capabilities can sometimes lead to complexity in deployment and management, particularly for smaller IT teams. Depending on the specific infrastructure and the required feature set, some administrators might find Storware’s interface and architecture more straightforward and easier to manage and automate.
- Vendor Lock-in Avoidance: For organizations committed to open-source technologies and avoiding vendor lock-in, Storware, with its strong support for open platforms, aligns better with this strategy.
It’s important to note that the best choice between Storware and Veeam depends heavily on an organization’s specific requirements, existing infrastructure, budget, technical expertise, and long-term data protection strategy. Veeam remains a leading solution with a broad feature set, strong market presence. However, Storware presents a compelling alternative, particularly for businesses with diverse hypervisor environments, specific workload protection needs, or a preference for flexible licensing and open-source compatibility.
Veeam vs Storware: Comparision Table
| Feature / Functionality | Storware Backup and Recovery | Veeam Data Platform | Notes for Admins and Business Owners |
| Supported Platforms (Hypervisors) | Strong support for a wide range including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Red Hat Virtualization (RHV/oVirt), Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), Proxmox VE, OpenStack, XCP-ng, Virtuozzo, Zadara, VergeOS, and more. | Broad support including VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Red Hat Virtualization, Oracle Linux VM, and Proxmox. | Storware often has a deeper or earlier support for a wider array of open-source and less common hypervisors, which is key for organizations using these platforms. Veeam has comprehensive support for the major players. |
| Supported Platforms (Cloud) | Supports backup of instances in OpenStack, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform, Azure Cloud, object storages, and Microsoft 365. | Extensive support for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform VMs, databases (RDS, SQL Database, Cloud SQL), object storage, and Microsoft 365/Salesforce data protection. | Both offer cloud backup capabilities. |
| Supported Platforms (Physical) | Supports Windows, MacOS and Linux physical servers and endpoints (laptops/desktops). | Supports Windows, Linux, macOS, Unix physical servers, and NAS devices. | Both cover essential physical server backups. Veeam’s support for Unix, as well as comprehensive NAS backup, might be a differentiator for some environments. |
| Supported Platforms (Applications) | Offers application-consistent backups with scripting options and potentially more direct support for certain open-source databases or applications depending on integrations (Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and more). | Provides application-aware processing for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, SQL Server, Oracle, SAP HANA, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, ensuring transactional consistency. | Both vendors have an extensive list of supported business-critical applications with dedicated recovery options. Storware’s approach might be more flexible for less common applications via scripting. |
| Backup Types | Supports Full, Incremental, Synthetic Full, and Incremental Forever backups. | Supports Full, Incremental, Reverse Incremental, and Synthetic Full backups, along with backup copy jobs. | Both offer standard backup types. The choice often depends on the preferred backup strategy and storage targets. |
| Recovery Options | Offers Full VM restore, File-Level Restore (via mounting backups), Instant Restore (for supported hypervisors), Individual Disk Recovery, and Recovery Plans for automated DR. | Provides Instant VM Recovery, Granular file-level recovery, Application item recovery (Exchange, SharePoint, AD, SQL), Full system restore, Bare Metal Recovery, and Orchestrated Recovery Plans. | Both provide essential recovery options. |
| Deduplication and Compression | Provides built-in data deduplication (often using technologies like VDO) and compression to reduce storage consumption. Can also leverage deduplication features of backup destinations (e.g., Dell EMC Data Domain). | Offers built-in data deduplication and compression. Has strong integration with leading deduplicating storage appliances for enhanced data reduction ratios. | Both solutions offer data reduction techniques. The effectiveness can depend on the data type and the integration with specific storage hardware. |
| Immutability / Ransomware Protection | Offers immutable backups to protect against ransomware by making backup data unchangeable, often leveraging WORM (Write Once, Read Many) storage and integrates with secure cloud storage options. What’s more: Air-gap backup, MFA, RBAC. | Provides multiple options for immutable backups, including leveraging object storage immutability features and dedicated immutable backup repositories, as a key part of their cyber resilience strategy. | Both vendors recognize the importance of immutability for ransomware protection and offer ways to achieve this, often using cloud or specific storage features. |
| Centralized Management | Provides a web-based central management portal (HTML5) for managing backups across supported environments. Offers a CLI and Open API for automation and integration. | Offers a web-based management console (Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager) for centralized management of multiple Veeam Backup & Replication installations, especially for distributed environments. | Both offer centralized management interfaces. The best fit depends on the scale and complexity of the environment and the need for multi-site management. |
| Cloud Integration (Backup Target) | Supports storing backups directly to various object storage providers compatible with S3, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, OpenStack Swift and many more! | Supports using cloud object storage (AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage) as backup repositories. | Both allow using cloud object storage as a backup target, which is a common and cost-effective approach for offsite copies and archiving. |
| Ease of Use | Often described as having an intuitive interface, particularly for managing the platforms it specializes in. | Generally considered easy to deploy and use, with a user-friendly interface, although its extensive features can introduce complexity in larger deployments. | Perceived ease of use can be subjective and depend on the administrator’s familiarity with the specific platforms being protected. Storware might be simpler in its niche areas. |
Summary
Before making a decision, administrators and business owners should carefully evaluate their needs, compare the features and capabilities of both solutions in the context of their environment, consider the total cost of ownership (including licensing, support, and management), and ideally, test both solutions to determine which one best fits their requirements.
