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Cloudberry Alternatives and Competitors in 2024

Introduction to MSP360 (Cloudberry Backup)

Updated 20th January 2024, Rob Morrison

Information protection has always been equally important for both large enterprises and smaller companies. The consequences of an organization losing its data are always severe and sometimes catastrophic; in many cases, even resulting in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the data protection market continues to grow and develop new approaches to data protection, backups and disaster recovery.

There are quite a lot of different backup solutions currently available, each with their own strengths and advantages. One example is MSP360 Backup (formerly Cloudberry Backup), a service that is quite unique since, unlike most of its competitors, MSP360 doesn’t provide their own cloud storage for their clients. Instead it serves as a connection between a specific client and a specific cloud storage provider. MSP360 also provides more traditional backup options, like local backups and others – the same way a lot of MSP360 alternatives do. But the main feature of this product is the ability to work with multiple cloud providers – in this field MSP360’s flexibility is quite impressive.

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MSP360 packs a lot of features when it comes to working with cloud backups. Here are some of the more significant ones:

Interaction with 65 different cloud storage providers is available, with the most popular ones, like Microsoft Azure, Amazon S3 and a lot more.
No restriction to a specific cloud storage provider – or to a specific backup type, on that matter. It means you can backup to different clouds, backup from cloud to cloud, make a physical backup from your cloud to NAS, your network or external drive, or even your basic local storage. Bootable USB drive creation is also on that list.

If you’re worried about losing storage space – there are several possible retention policies in place, you can use them to specify the exact time that the previous versions of your backups are being kept before getting deleted. This makes versioning possible, as well.
Server-specific restoring abilities are also available, which eases the possible migration processes. Including restoring server images to VMware, Hyper-V or even cloud-based virtual devices based in Azure VM or Amazon EC2.

The capabilities of MSP360

Let’s talk about the price of MSP360. The product is distributed via a one-time fee with several different versions of the product, each of them offering a different list of features. One thing worth mentioning here is that one-time payment for MSP360 does not include the payment for the data you’ll be keeping at the cloud storage service of your choosing. There’s also a free version of MSP360 available, but it limits your possible data exchange amounts with the cloud storage service at 200 Gb and has almost no key features such as compression, encryption or community support.

One trait that MSP360 is known for is its complexity. On one hand, MSP360‘s limited flexibility allows you to interact with a lot of different parameters and makes it easier for you to orchestrate everything exactly as you would like. On the other hand, the complexity of the product itself might scare off some of the less knowledgeable users. MSP360 tries to simplify where possible, but it’s still not as user-friendly as some of its less complex competitors.

When it comes to both cloud-based backup speed and protection in general, it can often depend on the cloud storage provider being used. MSP360 itself is capable of working with up to AES 256-bit encryption, but it has to be supported by the cloud storage provider itself for that to work. The initial (and overall) backup speed might also differentiate a lot depending on a large number of factors, including physical distance between you and the server in question, your ISP (internet service provider) and the cloud service you chose.

Another element to take into account is the support service. There is no typical 24/7 available support, although there is a ticket system with a reasonably high response speed. The community forums are also available, together with the FAQ section of the product itself.

Alternatives and competitors to Cloudberry (MSP360)

MSP360 Backup as a whole is quite an interesting service. It’s not for everyone, and it misses quite a lot of features that more flexible services are able to provide, largely sacrificing user-friendliness for complexity. Some features that are present in the MSP360 alternatives are the following:

Storage space included in the basic service package, since paying per Gb might be a bit pricey for some clients.
Mobile app of the specific service, which helps a lot with always being able to work with your service in question.
Open-source structure of the service provider makes it easier for some users to interact with it.

Scalability – the ability to work with different sizes of businesses, from smaller companies to enterprises.
Implementation of hybrid environments for different kinds of operations and projects, like disaster recovery, changing data centers, data migration in varying amounts and so on.

Knowing that the backup market itself is constantly growing and changing, it’s safe to say that more and more alternatives to MSP360 are bound to appear sooner or later. The main stimulators of such rapid growth are the following:

More and better backup technologies being developed;
Optimization of resources that’s currently used in both backup and restore processes, like CPU speed, storage capacity, network bandwidth and so on;

Creation of hybrid solutions of sorts, capable of adapting to any task you possibly need, from daily backups to emergency recovery in case of a disaster.

There are plenty of alternatives to MSP360, since the market itself is large and highly competitive. However a big and competitive market, while beneficial to the end user, can also represent a challenge for many potential users. The biggest reason for that is the sheer amount of options to choose from, since researching dozens of different backup options can be a long and tiring process.

Several different methods exist to solve this particular problem. One such method is to use one or several review aggregator websites, such as Gartner or Peerspot. These kinds of websites would be a great help for us when it comes to looking for noteworthy Cloudberry alternatives. As such, here is our list of top 10 MSP360 competitors and alternatives, together with user scores, advantages, and shortcomings:

Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP)

Arcserve UDP attempts to solve a rather significant problem of this particular market – the overall complexity that is fairly standard for most enterprise-level backup solutions. Arcserve’s software is based on a heterogeneous image-based technology, offering a feature-rich backup solution that works with databases (Oracle, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL), applications (M365), VMs (VMware, Hyper-V), regular storage hardware, and more.

4.5/5 score based on 167 customer reviews

Advantages. Arcserve is fast and versatile, with a lot of emphasis on seamless scalability that works both ways. There’s also a lot of reviews praising the ability to boot servers directly from their backup copies, as well as the general ability to access backups directly without restoring them. Arcserve’s deduplication mechanisms are also noteworthy, making it a great option for many different use cases.

Shortcomings. Unfortunately, Arcserve’s software has issues and bugs that tend to disrupt the process on an irregular basis. There’s also the fact that Arcserve’s licensing/activation processes are needlessly complicated, and the overall user interface could be a lot more accessible and versatile.

Veeam Backup & Replication

Veeam managed to earn a lot of goodwill from its customers over the years, and is now regarded as one of the mainstream backup solutions on the enterprise backup market. It is a feature-rich and powerful backup platform capable of granular file recovery, instant NAS recovery, application-aware backups, DR replication, CDP, and many other features.

4.6/5 score based on 1,630 customer reviews

Advantages. Despite the fact that Veeam is mostly enterprise-oriented, most of its products are relatively affordable as far as enterprise backup software goes, and there are several free versions of the software as well – mostly suitable for individual clients or as a quick feature check for potential customers. One of the biggest advantages of Veeam remains its feature-rich nature, capable of working with an overwhelming number of different storage types and data formats.

Shortcomings. Virtual Machine protection is an interesting potential limitation when it comes to Veeam, since the number of different VM types supported by the solution is surprisingly small. Another missing feature of Veeam is the ability to save the results of granular backups for prolonged time periods (multiple years). There is also the fact that the price-related information above is only applicable for enterprise-level clients, and most SMBs would still not be able to afford Veeam’s services. In addition, there can be some security limitations with this product.

Dell Data Protection Suite

Dell Data Protection Suite is the result of multiple previous Dell products merging and pouring their efforts in a single solution – this includes Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, Dell NetWorker, and Dell Avamar. It is a versatile data protection solution that includes both data backup and data security elements, capable of working with multiple storage types and systems – be it physical storage, cloud storage, Virtual Machines, databases, etc.

4.8/5 score based on 916 customer reviews

Advantages. Dell Data Protection Suite excels at regulatory compliance and reporting – the latter is a very painful topic for many other backup solutions in this market. It’s a user-friendly software that works with the majority of operating systems on the market, from Windows to Mac and even some Linux distributions.

Shortcomings. Dell’s decryption-encryption process can be rather confusing and convoluted, and there are a lot of unhappy reviews when it comes to its customer support capabilities. This solution is also somewhat demanding when it comes to hardware requirements, which is somewhat surprising, since most enterprise-level solutions already have impressive hardware specification requirements – and Dell’s are somehow even more demanding than that.

Rubrik

Combining data backup capabilities with other features is something that plenty of software providers have been doing for a while now, and Rubrik is no exception – combining backup and recovery capabilities with plenty of useful data management features in a single centralized package. It is fast, scalable, can integrate with cloud storage providers, can protect end user’s data from all kinds of security threats, and supports all three different environment types – hybrid, physical, and virtual.

4.8/5 score based on 682 customer reviews

Advantages. Rubrik can create reports on a very frequent basis, while also being massively helpful with general data management tasks. There’s also a lot of praise to its Live Mount feature, as well as countless other advantages.

Shortcomings. User feedback suggests that Rubrik’s reports are not particularly effective when there’s a need to analyze past events or to inspect system logs, or the fact that there’s little to no access to the “backend” of the solution for the customer. Rubrik’s scalability is also somewhat uneven, and tends to get progressively more expensive the more it has to work with.

Cohesity DataProtect

Cohesity has a very particular approach to data security and data protection topics, offering a data protection platform that prioritizes cloud environments. It can be deployed either on-premise or as a service, and its scalability is one of the biggest advantages of the solution. Cohesity also provides an impressive policy-based data protection system and fast RPO/RTO times, as well as plenty of other features.

4.7/5 score based on 719 customer reviews

Advantages. Some of the biggest and most in-demand features of Cohesity are instant DR failover, impressive ransomware detection, forever incremental backup capabilities, and more. Cohesity’s speed is also nothing short of impressive, receiving a lot of praise from customers that value low RTOs/RPOs.

Shortcomings. Cohesity’s reporting capabilities are surprisingly basic for a solution of this scale, and the overall user experience earned a lot of neutral or negative reviews over the years. There is also the fact that some software updates can only be applied by utilizing a command line, which turns the backup process into something that is far less convenient than it should be.

Commvault Complete Data Protection (CDP)

Commvault CDP is a versatile platform with three feature categories – centralized data management, data security, and disaster recovery. It can operate with complex systems and environments, creating backups of many types, be it operating systems, databases, applications, and so on. Commvault can also work with physical, virtual, and hybrid environments, making it a solid contender for this list.

4.5/5 score based on 449 customer reviews

Advantages. Commvault proved itself as a stable and reliable solution over multiple years, earning its reputation and a massive number of enterprises as long-time clients. Commvault’s search function receives a lot of praise on a regular basis, and the same could be said for its general versatility and the overall feature set.

Shortcomings. While it is true that Commvault is a relatively old solution with a good reputation, it is not the most user-friendly solution in the world, even by industry’s standards. It is also rather complicated when it comes to initial deployment, with reports of an outdated user interface, and its price tag is significantly above average.

Druva Data Resiliency Cloud

Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is another solution that focuses most of its efforts on protecting and managing data located in the cloud, be it regular cloud storage or application data. Druva can offer data management centralization features, as well as improving data visibility, boosting data security, and more. It is a Software-as-a-Service offering that can perform backup and recovery tasks, in addition to archival, compliance, and other operations.

4.8/5 score based on 596 customer reviews

Advantages. Druva takes pride in its approach to customer data security, with features such as data encryption, data immutability, and many others. It can keep audit trails for as long as the customer wants, there’s a lot of praise towards the effectiveness of customer support, and the overall user experience is deemed praise-worthy by a lot of customers.

Shortcomings. Druva’s backup capabilities with less common data formats, such as SQL clusters or Azure data, are either very basic or straight-up missing altogether. Druva’s data recovery speed is also lower than what most of the competition can offer, and the first-time setup can take a while and cause issues for more casual users of this kind of software.

Veritas NetBackup

Veritas NetBackup is another well-known brand on this market, offering a wealth of features for different types of environments – physical servers, databases, workstations, virtual environments, and many others. Veritas supports public cloud storage providers, as well as tape as a storage type, and boasts plenty of advanced features such as data deduplication.

4.8/5 score based on 413 customer reviews

Advantages. Veritas NetBackup can cover hybrid environments, boost data security, automate various tasks, and so on. General versatility is one of the biggest advantages of Veritas, it puts a lot of emphasis on being able to work with all kinds of data sources and file formats.

Shortcomings. Veritas may work with different business types, but its price is above most of its competition, making it less than viable for the majority of small and middle-sized businesses. Its data restoration speed is slow, and the initial configuration takes quite a while to set up properly.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication

As a data security platform, NAKIVO claims to be able to work with practically any business size, from small companies to massive enterprises. It can offer application-aware incremental backups, instant recovery operations, and many other features. It is also rather versatile in terms of supported backup targets, ranging from workstations on Windows or Linux to databases, applications, Virtual Machines, and more.

4.8/5 score based on 415 customer reviews

Advantages. NAKIVO may not be particularly exceptional in any one specific area, but can still be a solid solution for many companies. It is relatively easy in terms of initial setup, it supports many different types of storage, and most of its capabilities are easy to configure from the get-go.

Shortcomings. NAKIVO’s pricing is not particularly impressive, but it is also not the highest price on this list – a lot of SMBs would perhaps not be able to use it within their budgets. Its reporting capabilities are very basic, and there are a few other features that could also be far more detailed and flexible.

Acronis Cyber Protect

As a data protection solution, the biggest advantage of Acronis is its attention to data security – with features such as blockchain-based authentication, enhanced backup validation, sophisticated ransomware protection, and more. All of that is included in a versatile and user-friendly data protection platform with fast RTOs and a variety of different storage types it can work with.

4.4/5 score based on 305 customer reviews

Advantages. Acronis Cyber Protect is a fast and secure data protection platform, and some of its highest-praised features are storage cloning, centralized data management, and many others.

Shortcomings. Acronis may be somewhat difficult to set up initially, its reporting is rather basic, and is reported to have limited compatibility with databases and hypervisors. The solution itself has somewhat limited scalability and an overhead which can be unacceptable for some users

Bacula Enterprise as an alternative to MSP360

As it stands, MSP360 is a relatively normal service with its pros and cons. It works well with both small and large businesses but favors users that have at least some knowledge in coding, since the service itself is quite complex. The main distribution policy is a one-time fee with additional payments for the amount of data stored – which might be useful for smaller companies that don’t have a lot of budget to spare and don’t need terabytes of free space to backup their work properly. There’s also a good number of useful features such as encryption, compression, community support and so on. It is worth noting that there are some difficulties with MSP360 as a whole, too, mainly due to its complexity and large amounts of frequent updates to work properly.

There are some similarities between Bacula Enterprise and MSP360 (formerly Cloudberry). However, one key difference lies in MSP360’s focus on working mainly with cloud backups, as opposed to Bacula which is more general and flexible in its storage destinations and natively integrates with a higher number of technologies (databases and hypervisors, for example). Bacula combines this high degree of compatibility and modularity with low operating costs. Bacula’s flexibility in this regard is almost unmatched, capable of adapting to almost any IT requirement. Bacula is a strong alternative as an enterprise backup solution, providing both high granularity control and user friendliness at the same time. It is also important to note that Bacula does not charge by data volume. The practical effect of this is that the more data a user needs to back up, the greater Bacula’s value becomes. Also important to note is that Bacula provides especially high levels of security compared to other vendors, including significantly higher levels of protection against ransomware and other malicious actors. IT is relied on by organizations such as NASA, NOAA and the largest military organizations in the West.

Conclusion

This particular market is large and incredibly competitive. Competition between different companies is usually considered as a positive event for the customer – but there are also some issues that often arise in this kind of situation. When it comes to the backup solution market specifically, it can be quite daunting to research dozens of different backup solutions to find the one that fits your specific company the most.

A smaller business looking for all-round protection of its data may look towards Acronis Cyber Backup, and a larger company that wants a broad solution may choose between NAKIVO, Veritas, and Commvault. However, a large-scale business that deals with a lot of different data types in high volume – and needs very high security – may well find Bacula Enterprise to be the best possible option from this list.

Ultimately, the subjective best solution for a specific company depends much on what specific needs the company in question has regarding its backup strategy and its IT profile. identifying your priorities and necessary features is a key first step towards finding a backup solution that fits a specific company the most.

About the author

Rob Morrison is the marketing director at Bacula Systems. He started his IT marketing career with Silicon Graphics in Switzerland, performing strongly in various marketing management roles for almost 10 years. In the next 10 years Rob also held various marketing management positions in JBoss, Red Hat and Pentaho ensuring market share growth for these well-known companies. He is a graduate of Plymouth University and holds an Honours Digital Media and Communications degree, and completed an Overseas Studies Program.