Online backup software, by storage needs and recovery speed
Backup software protects data by creating recoverable copies of files, databases, VMs, and cloud workloads on scheduled or continuous intervals. This page helps buyers compare tools on recovery speed, storage efficiency, ransomware resilience, and hybrid-cloud backup support.
Editorial policy: How we review software · How rankings work · Sponsored disclosure
Compare the tools belowHead-to-head comparisons
Backup software comparison at a glance
Every tool name links to its full write-up.
| Tool | Published price | Deployment | Free trial | Best for | Pricing detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Veeam | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| Backblaze | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| Acronis Cyber Protect | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| Druva | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| Carbonite | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| IDrive | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| Comet Backup | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
| MSP360 Backup | quote only | Not stated | No | Not stated | See pricing |
Showing 8 of 8. Published price is the figure the vendor states; “quote only” means it states none.
Scoring these vendors side by side takes a weighted sheet, not a notepad. The vendor evaluation scorecard weights price, support, lead time and reliability, then rates each shortlisted vendor 1 to 5 against the same criteria.
Online backup software explained
Online backup software automatically copies your data — files, folders, system images, databases, or entire servers — to a remote cloud location over the internet. The core promise: if your local storage fails, gets encrypted by ransomware, or physically destroyed by fire or flood, your data exists in a geographically separate location and can be restored. This is the 3-2-1 backup rule in practice: three copies of your data, on two different media types, with one copy offsite.
The category spans from consumer-grade services that back up a single laptop for $5/month to enterprise platforms that protect petabytes of server data with orchestrated disaster recovery. What they share is the fundamental premise that local backup alone — external hard drives, NAS devices, tape — is insufficient because it is vulnerable to the same physical and logical threats as your primary data. A ransomware attack that encrypts your network shares will encrypt your locally attached backup drives too.
For IT operations teams, online backup software provides three capabilities that local backup cannot: geographic redundancy (data stored in a data center hundreds or thousands of miles from your primary location), automated offsite scheduling (no manual tape rotation or drive swapping), and cloud-based restore flexibility (restore to original hardware, new hardware, or directly to a cloud VM). If your organization does not have automated offsite backup in 2026, you are one ransomware incident away from a business continuity crisis.
Curated list of best backup software
Full write-ups for each tool: pricing, deployment, strengths and limitations.
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Data protection and backup platform for virtual, physical, and cloud environments with instant VM recovery. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Veeam is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Veeam is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Veeam usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Veeam is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Veeam on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Unlimited cloud backup for PCs and Macs with continuous backup, versioning, and easy restore. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Backblaze is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Backblaze is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Backblaze usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Backblaze is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Backblaze on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Integrated backup and cybersecurity platform with anti-malware, vulnerability assessments, and disaster recovery. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Acronis Cyber Protect is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Acronis Cyber Protect is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Acronis Cyber Protect usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Acronis Cyber Protect is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Acronis Cyber Protect on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
SaaS data protection platform for endpoints, SaaS apps, and cloud workloads with centralized management. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Druva is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Druva is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Druva usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Druva is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Druva on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Cloud backup and recovery for small businesses with automatic backup and anytime-anywhere file access. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Carbonite is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Carbonite is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Carbonite usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Carbonite is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Carbonite on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Cloud backup and storage service for PCs, Macs, mobile devices, and servers with file versioning. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- IDrive is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with IDrive is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying IDrive usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- IDrive is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge IDrive on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
White-label backup platform for MSPs with flexible storage destinations, encryption, and fast incremental backups. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- Comet Backup is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with Comet Backup is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying Comet Backup usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- Comet Backup is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge Comet Backup on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
- Price
- Quote only
- Deployment
- Not specified
- Free trial
- No
Cross-platform backup solution for MSPs supporting AWS, Azure, GCP, Backblaze B2, and Wasabi storage. Compare it on subscription pricing. No free trial is listed, so expect a sales-led evaluation. If fit is the open question, compare it against the alternatives.
- Best for
- MSP360 Backup is best for teams that want subscription pricing. It fits best when you already know your deployment constraints and platform needs before sales conversations start.
- Main tradeoff
- The main tradeoff with MSP360 Backup is that there is no free trial, so hands-on testing depends on the vendor. That slows things down for teams that want to check fit themselves before demos and pricing calls multiply.
- Buying motion
- Buying MSP360 Backup usually means a fit check with the vendor, then a pricing discussion around its subscription packaging.
- Not ideal for
- MSP360 Backup is not ideal for teams that want to test the product themselves before talking to sales, since no free trial is listed.
“Teams usually judge MSP360 Backup on how quickly it is useful after rollout, how much tuning it needs, and how much admin work it adds.”
ITCommons Editorial
Reviewer
Strengths
- Subscription pricing fits scoped evaluations
- Strong fit for evaluation-stage research
- Useful for structured evaluation comparison work
Watch outs
- No clear self-serve trial path listed
- Platform coverage needs closer validation
- Rollout details need extra validation early
How to shortlist online backup software
Teams usually compare online backup software vendors on deployment fit, automation depth, reporting quality, and operational overhead. In this directory, buyers can narrow the field using pricing, deployment model, operating system coverage, and trial availability before moving into side-by-side comparisons. Read how we review software and our ranking methodology.
How we selected these tools
We included the tools that hold up best on implementation effort, pricing structure, trial access, platform coverage and published reviews. See our pricing transparency policy for how we verify vendor pricing claims.
When to evaluate online backup software
Online backup software matters most for IT teams responsible for data protection across servers, VMs, SaaS applications, and endpoints where data loss would cause operational or regulatory harm.
The category becomes more urgent when ransomware risk increases, compliance requires verifiable backup retention, or the organization's recovery-time expectations exceed what manual restore can deliver.
Common evaluation mistakes
Buyers often compare backup speed and storage cost without testing the restore process, which is the only metric that matters when data is actually lost.
Another common mistake is assuming that cloud sync is backup — sync propagates deletions and ransomware encryption to all copies, which is exactly what backup is supposed to prevent.
Building your shortlist
A vendor list survives procurement when the team can show how the platform meets recovery-time and recovery-point objectives, ransomware resilience requirements, and compliance retention mandates.
The strongest shortlist separates enterprise multi-workload platforms from simple cloud backup services early, since the scope and operational complexity are different buying decisions.
Types of online backup software tools
Enterprise backup and recovery platforms
Best for organizations managing backup across physical servers, VMs, databases, and SaaS applications with centralized policy and reporting.
Cloud-first backup services
Stronger fit for teams that want managed cloud backup with minimal infrastructure and pay-per-GB pricing.
Endpoint and workstation backup tools
More relevant for teams focused on protecting laptops, desktops, and remote-worker devices rather than server infrastructure.
Online backup software features that matter
- Automated backup scheduling with incremental, differential, and full-image options
- Cloud, local, and hybrid backup targets with off-site replication
- Granular file, folder, volume, and application-level recovery
- Ransomware protection with immutable backups and air-gapped copies
- Backup verification, integrity checks, and recovery testing automation
- Centralized management console for multi-server and multi-site environments
Online backup software pricing
Cloud backup services like Backblaze B2 or Wasabi price per GB stored per month, making costs predictable but potentially high at scale.
Enterprise platforms like Veeam and Commvault price per workload, per socket, or per capacity, with licensing complexity that requires careful sizing.
Teams should budget for egress fees, restore bandwidth, and the test-restore process that validates backups actually work when needed.
When this category is overkill
Enterprise backup software is overkill for a solo user or small team where a simple cloud sync tool like Backblaze Personal or iCloud already protects critical files.
It is also the wrong purchase when the real need is disaster recovery orchestration rather than backup — the two categories overlap but solve different problems.
Other options and adjacent paths
Cloud sync and file-sharing tools like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive for users who need file protection through continuous sync rather than scheduled backup.
Disaster recovery as a service for teams whose priority is failover and rapid recovery rather than long-term backup retention.
Database-native backup tools like pg_dump or mysqldump for developers who only need application-data protection without a full backup platform.
What to look for, and what to ignore
Must have
- Automated, scheduled backup with continuous or near-continuous options
- Backup that requires manual initiation does not happen consistently. The platform must run automatically on a schedule (hourly, daily) or continuously (backing up changes as they occur) without user intervention.
- End-to-end encryption (in transit and at rest)
- Your backup contains your most sensitive data. It must be encrypted using AES-256 or equivalent both during transfer and at rest in the cloud. Ideally, the provider should support customer-managed encryption keys so they cannot access your data.
- Versioning with configurable retention
- A backup that only keeps the latest version is useless against ransomware (the latest version is encrypted) and accidental deletion (the latest version has the file deleted). You need multiple point-in-time versions with retention policies you control.
- Immutable backup storage (ransomware protection)
- If ransomware can reach your backup and encrypt or delete it, the backup provides no protection. Immutable storage ensures backup data cannot be modified or deleted for a defined retention period, even by an administrator with full access.
- Granular restore (file-level, folder-level, and full system)
- You need to restore a single accidentally deleted file as easily as you restore an entire server after hardware failure. A platform that only supports full-system restore wastes hours when you need one file.
- Cross-platform support (Windows, macOS, Linux at minimum)
- Most organizations run multiple operating systems. A backup solution that only supports Windows forces you to find separate solutions for macOS laptops and Linux servers.
- Bandwidth throttling and scheduling
- The initial full backup and large daily incrementals can saturate your internet connection. Throttling and scheduling ensure backups do not impact business operations during working hours.
- Monitoring and alerting for backup failures
- A backup that silently fails is worse than no backup because it creates false confidence. The platform must alert you immediately when a backup job fails, a device misses its backup window, or storage thresholds are reached.
Worth having
- Application-aware backup for databases and VMs
- Backing up a database at the file level while it is running can produce a corrupt backup. Application-aware backup uses VSS snapshots (Windows) or database-native dump commands to ensure consistency. Essential for servers, less relevant for workstation backup.
- Bare-metal restore and instant VM recovery
- The ability to restore a complete system image to bare metal or spin up a backed-up server as a cloud VM dramatically reduces recovery time for server failures. Critical for organizations with strict RTOs, less important for file-only backup needs.
- SaaS backup (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce)
- Extending backup to SaaS applications addresses the shared responsibility gap. Useful for organizations that rely heavily on cloud productivity suites, but specialized SaaS backup tools often provide deeper coverage.
- Deduplication and compression
- Global deduplication across backup sets reduces storage consumption by 40-60%, directly lowering storage costs. Important for organizations backing up many similar systems; less impactful for unique data sets.
- Seed loading and large-scale restore via physical media
- For initial backups of multi-TB data sets, uploading over the internet can take weeks. Seed loading lets you ship a hard drive to the provider for the initial upload. Similarly, large restores can be shipped on physical media rather than downloaded.
Overrated
- Unlimited storage plans
- Several consumer and small business backup vendors advertise 'unlimited' storage. Read the fine print: most unlimited plans throttle upload speeds after a certain threshold, exclude external drives or NAS devices, limit the number of computers per account, or reserve the right to terminate accounts that use 'excessive' storage. Backblaze Personal is the most honest unlimited offering; most others use 'unlimited' as marketing that does not survive real-world usage.
- AI-powered backup optimization
- Some vendors market AI that 'intelligently' decides what to back up, when to back up, and how to optimize storage. In practice, this means basic deduplication and scheduling heuristics rebranded as AI. Your backup policy should be explicit and deterministic, not decided by a black box. You need to know exactly what is backed up and when.
- Blockchain-verified backup integrity
- A handful of vendors offer blockchain-based verification that backup data has not been tampered with. Standard cryptographic checksums (SHA-256) provide the same integrity verification without the complexity and overhead of blockchain. This is a marketing feature, not a practical improvement.
- Social media backup
- Some consumer backup platforms market the ability to back up your social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram posts). This is a niche feature that distracts from the core value of file and system backup. If you need social media archiving, use a dedicated social media management tool.
What Online Backup Software actually costs
Online backup pricing splits cleanly into three tiers: consumer/personal plans at $5–$15/month per computer, small business plans at $5–$20/month per server or workstation, and enterprise plans priced per TB or per server with volume discounts. The critical variable is storage consumption: plans that appear cheap on a per-device basis can become expensive as data volumes grow, and egress fees for large restores are the hidden cost that catches most buyers off guard.
| Pricing model | Typical range | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Per-computer, unlimited storage (consumer/personal) | $5–$15/month per computer | Backblaze Personal is $9/month or $99/year per computer with genuinely unlimited storage and no file-size limits. Carbonite Safe Basic starts at $6/month per computer but limits backup to internal drives only. iDrive Personal offers 5 TB for $80/year across unlimited devices. |
| Per-device or per-server, tiered storage (small business) | $5–$30/month per device plus storage costs | Backblaze Business Backup is $9/month per computer with unlimited storage. Acronis Cyber Protect starts at $85/year per workstation (50 GB cloud storage) or $120/year per server. MSP360 (formerly CloudBerry) starts at $30/month for the backup service with storage billed separately through your own cloud account. |
| Per-TB cloud storage (enterprise and MSP) | $0.005–$0.025 per GB/month for storage | Veeam Data Platform licenses per workload ($220–$350/year per VM or server) with cloud storage billed through your own AWS/Azure/GCP account or Veeam Cloud Connect partners. Druva charges per TB of protected data starting around $1.50/GB/year for endpoint backup and $3–$6/GB/year for server backup. Commvault cloud pricing is fully quote-based. |
| Per-user SaaS backup (Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace) | $2–$7/user/month | Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 starts at $2.50/user/month. Druva inSync for M365 starts at $4/user/month. Backupify (Datto SaaS Protection) is approximately $3/user/month. Storage is typically included in the per-user price for standard retention periods. |
Costs that are easy to miss
- Egress fees for large restores: cloud storage providers (AWS S3, Azure Blob) charge $0.05–$0.09/GB for data transfer out. Restoring 10 TB costs $500–$900 in egress alone, on top of the backup software license
- Storage overage charges when data growth exceeds the tier you purchased, often at inflated per-GB rates that are 2–3x the base price
- Retention policy costs: extending retention beyond the default (often 30-60 days) significantly increases storage consumption and cost
- Agent and add-on licensing for database backup, VM backup, SaaS backup, and other workload types that are priced separately from basic file backup
- Initial seed backup via physical media: some providers charge $100–$300 for seed loading services to avoid weeks of initial upload
- Professional services for enterprise deployments: policy design, integration configuration, and DR planning typically add $10,000–$50,000 for large environments
For personal backup of a single computer, Backblaze at $99/year is the benchmark: unlimited storage, no hidden costs, genuinely simple. For small businesses with 5–25 devices, budget $1,000–$5,000/year depending on server count and storage needs. For mid-market organizations with 10–100 servers, budget $15,000–$75,000/year including software licenses and cloud storage costs. For enterprise, budget $50,000–$500,000+/year depending on data volume and recovery requirements. The most important budget line to estimate correctly is storage growth: most organizations underestimate their annual data growth by 30–50%, which compounds into significant cost overruns by year two.
How to compare them
- Actual restore speed and reliability
Backup software is purchased for the restore, not the backup. A platform that backs up reliably but takes 12 hours to restore a critical database is not fit for purpose if your RTO is 4 hours.
Ask: What is the average time to restore 1 TB of data? Can I test a restore without impacting production? Do you offer instant VM recovery or bare-metal restore? What is your restore success rate across all customers?
- Storage cost trajectory at your actual data volume
Backup costs compound as data grows. A platform that costs $5,000/year for 10 TB may cost $25,000/year for 50 TB with a different vendor but $50,000/year with another due to different per-GB rates.
Ask: What is the per-GB storage cost at my current data volume? How does pricing change as data grows? Are there volume discounts? What does egress (restore) cost?
- Immutable storage and ransomware protection
Ransomware is the primary threat that drives backup purchases in 2026. If the backup itself can be encrypted or deleted by an attacker, it provides no protection.
Ask: Is immutable storage included or an add-on? How long is the immutability period? Can an administrator override immutability? Is there an air-gapped copy option?
- Workload coverage breadth
Your backup needs likely span workstations, servers, VMs, databases, and SaaS applications. A platform that covers files but not databases, or servers but not SaaS, forces you to buy multiple tools.
Ask: Which workload types are supported: file backup, image backup, VM backup, database-aware backup, SaaS backup? Which require separate licenses or agents?
- Monitoring and reporting depth
Silent backup failures are the most dangerous outcome. You need dashboards that show backup status at a glance, alerts for failures, and compliance reports that demonstrate your backup program meets regulatory requirements.
Ask: Show me the monitoring dashboard. How are backup failures alerted? Can I generate compliance reports for SOC 2 / HIPAA / PCI-DSS auditors?
- Total cost of ownership including storage and egress
License cost is often less than half the total cost when storage and egress are factored in. A platform with a cheap license but expensive storage can cost more than a premium-priced platform with included storage.
Ask: What is my projected total cost for year one, two, and three, including licenses, storage at my projected data growth rate, and one large restore scenario?
Common mistakes
- Comparing on price per device without factoring in storage costs
Vendors advertise per-device pricing because the number looks low. But per-device pricing often excludes cloud storage, which is where the real cost lives for data-heavy environments.
Instead: Always calculate total annual cost including storage at your actual data volume. Request a three-year cost projection that accounts for your estimated data growth rate.
- Never testing a restore until disaster strikes
Testing restores is time-consuming and disruptive if done against production systems. It is easy to assume that if the backup completes successfully, the restore will work.
Instead: Schedule quarterly restore tests. Use the platform's automated recovery testing if available. Test at least one full bare-metal or VM restore per quarter, and test granular file restores monthly.
- Choosing 'unlimited' storage without reading the terms
Unlimited sounds like a solved problem. But most unlimited plans have restrictions: external drives excluded, NAS excluded, one computer per license, throttled upload speeds after a threshold, or fair-use policies that allow the vendor to terminate heavy users.
Instead: Read the terms of service for the unlimited plan. Test the actual upload speed with your data volume. Confirm that your specific storage devices and data types are covered.
- Ignoring egress costs for restore scenarios
Egress fees are buried in cloud storage pricing pages and only matter when you actually need to restore large volumes of data — which is exactly when you care about cost the least.
Instead: Calculate the egress cost for your worst-case restore scenario (full server estate, all data). Some backup vendors include free egress or offer egress-free restore via physical media shipment.
- Backing up to a single cloud region
Single-region backup is the default configuration for most platforms. It is cheaper and simpler. But a single-region backup is vulnerable to cloud provider outages and regional disasters.
Instead: For critical data, configure cross-region replication or choose a backup provider that stores data in multiple geographic locations by default.
Before you buy
- 1Calculate your total data volume across all backup targets: workstations, servers, databases, VMs, and SaaS applications. This determines your storage tier and cost.
- 2Define your Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) for critical systems. These determine whether you need basic file backup or advanced features like instant VM recovery.
- 3Estimate your annual data growth rate. Most organizations grow 20–40% annually. Calculate your projected storage costs for years two and three, not just year one.
- 4Determine whether you need immutable storage. If ransomware resilience is a requirement (it should be), confirm that the platform offers immutable backup that cannot be encrypted or deleted by an attacker.
- 5Inventory your workload types: file-only, system images, VMs, databases, SaaS applications. Confirm that your chosen platform supports all workload types, and check whether each requires a separate license.
- 6Test your internet upload speed and calculate the time for your initial full backup. If it exceeds two weeks, ask about seed loading options.
- 7Check egress costs for your cloud storage provider. Calculate the cost of a worst-case restore scenario (full environment recovery).
- 8Evaluate the monitoring and alerting capabilities. You need to know immediately when a backup fails, not discover it during a restore attempt.
- 9Request a proof of concept that includes at least one full restore test. Do not evaluate backup software by how well it backs up; evaluate it by how well it restores.
- 10Verify encryption: in-transit, at-rest, and ideally with customer-managed keys. Your backup contains your most sensitive data.
- 11Confirm the vendor's data center locations and certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001). For regulated industries, verify that storage locations meet your data residency requirements.
- 12Negotiate pricing flexibility: avoid long-term commitments at fixed storage tiers. Your data volume will change, and backup pricing is increasingly competitive.
People also ask about backup software
What is the difference between online backup and cloud sync (Dropbox, OneDrive)?
Cloud sync services replicate the current state of your files across devices for collaboration and access. If a file is deleted or corrupted, that change syncs everywhere. Sync services offer limited version history (30–180 days depending on the plan) but do not provide system-level backup, database backup, immutable storage, or protection against ransomware that encrypts all synced devices simultaneously. Online backup is designed specifically for data protection and recovery: it maintains multiple point-in-time versions, supports bare-metal restore, and can offer immutable storage that ransomware cannot touch.
Is 'unlimited' online backup really unlimited?
It depends on the vendor. Backblaze Personal is genuinely unlimited for a single computer's internal drive with no throttling or fair-use limits. Most other unlimited plans have restrictions: Carbonite Basic excludes external drives and has file-size limits, iDrive's unlimited plans cap the number of computers, and some vendors reserve the right to throttle or terminate accounts using 'excessive' storage. Always read the terms of service, test actual upload speeds with your data volume, and confirm that your specific storage devices and file types are covered.
How long does the initial backup take?
The initial full backup depends on your data volume and upload speed. At 100 Mbps upload: 500 GB takes about 12 hours, 2 TB takes about 48 hours, 10 TB takes about 10 days. At 20 Mbps (typical for many business connections): those numbers multiply by 5x. After the initial full backup, daily incremental backups are typically 1–5% of total data and complete much faster. Most platforms support bandwidth throttling so backups do not impact your daytime internet usage.
Do I need to back up my Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data?
Yes. Microsoft and Google protect their infrastructure (data centers, servers, storage) but not your data from user error, malicious deletion, account compromise, or policy-based deletions. Microsoft's standard retention for deleted items is 93 days for OneDrive/SharePoint; after that, deleted data is permanently gone. Google Workspace admins can restore deleted data within 25 days; after that, it is unrecoverable. SaaS backup tools (Veeam, Druva, Backupify) provide long-term retention, point-in-time recovery, and protection against scenarios your SaaS vendor does not cover.
What is immutable backup and why does it matter?
Immutable backup is backup data stored in a write-once, read-many (WORM) format that cannot be modified, encrypted, or deleted for a defined retention period — not even by an administrator. It matters because modern ransomware specifically targets backup systems: if an attacker gains admin access to your backup platform and can delete or encrypt your backups, you have no recovery option. Immutable storage removes that attack vector. Most enterprise backup platforms (Veeam, Rubrik, Commvault) now offer immutable storage, and it should be a baseline requirement for any business backup.
How much does online backup software cost for a small business?
For a small business with 5–25 computers and 1–2 servers: expect $1,000–$5,000 per year. Backblaze Business at $9/computer/month runs $1,080–$2,700/year for 10–25 computers. Acronis Cyber Protect starts at $85/year per workstation plus $120/year per server. For businesses with larger data volumes that need server imaging and database backup, budget $3,000–$10,000/year including cloud storage costs. The most important number is not the license cost but the total including storage at your actual data volume.
What is the 3-2-1 backup rule?
The 3-2-1 rule is the foundational backup strategy: maintain three copies of your data (one primary and two backups), on two different media types (for example, local disk and cloud storage), with one copy offsite (geographically separate from your primary location). Modern extensions include 3-2-1-1 (adding one immutable copy) and 3-2-1-1-0 (adding zero errors, meaning verified backup integrity through automated restore testing). Online backup directly addresses the offsite requirement of the 3-2-1 rule.
Can I use object storage like Backblaze B2 or Wasabi as my backup target?
Yes, but you need backup software to manage it. Object storage (Backblaze B2 at $6/TB/month, Wasabi at $7/TB/month, AWS S3) provides the storage backend, but it does not handle scheduling, versioning, encryption, monitoring, or restore workflows. Backup platforms like Veeam, MSP360, and Duplicati can target object storage directly, giving you the cost benefits of wholesale cloud storage with the management features of dedicated backup software. This is the lowest-cost approach for storage-heavy environments.
How often should I test my backups with a restore?
At minimum, quarterly for full system restores and monthly for granular file restores. Ideally, use automated recovery testing (available in Veeam, Rubrik, and Commvault) that verifies backup integrity by spinning up a backup image in an isolated environment daily or weekly without affecting production. The goal is to discover backup failures before you need to restore in an emergency. An untested backup is a hope, not a plan.
Is open-source backup software viable for production use?
For technically strong teams, yes. Duplicati is the most capable open-source backup tool: it supports encrypted backup to any cloud storage provider (S3, B2, Azure), offers incremental backup and deduplication, and has a web-based management interface. BorgBackup (with Borgmatic) is excellent for Linux server backup with strong deduplication. Restic offers cross-platform backup with encryption. The tradeoff is operational: you must manage the backup infrastructure, monitor for failures, and handle restores yourself. There is no vendor to call at 2 AM when a restore fails. For most businesses, the labor cost of managing open-source backup exceeds a commercial license.
Related categories
These categories cover adjacent workflows that often factor into the same buying decision.
- Data Integration Tools
Compare data integration tools for connecting and syncing data across systems.
- Digital Twin Software
Compare digital twin platforms for simulating physical assets and processes.
- Desktop Database Software
Compare desktop database software for local data management.
- Cloud Migration Solutions
Compare cloud migration solutions for moving workloads to cloud infrastructure.
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