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Rubrik Competitors in 2024

Updated 25th January 2024, Rob Morrison

Introduction to Rubrik

Rubrik is a platform that works with data in the cloud, and it is used across many different verticals, from delivery to healthcare and government organizations. Rubrik’s solution is also used for backup and recovery purposes in data centers, allowing for easier scaling of the user’s cloud-based services with a high level of security and easy access to business data when needed. It is a relatively young company, too – having been founded in 2014.

Rubrik’s base is a platform that includes data backup, recovery, search, archive and a good number of other operations with data. Rubrik users can easily retrieve lost files, restore their applications and data in case of a failure or a disaster – and with little downtime. Its all-in-one platform also means that users can access their applications and data (databases, VMs, singular files etc.) both through the cloud and from on-premise locations.

Rubrik is also known for its customizable dashboards and visual reports to provide for useful insights across a user’s cloud environment. There’s also an extensive policy engine to consider, which allows users to create or automate multiple policies, be it for backups, replication or archival, which saves a lot of time and resources.

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Rubrik Benefits

Highly customizable policy engine
Predictive global search functionality with access to data from both on-site and off-site
Instant data recovery with no data rehydration
Data deduplication
Low RTOs
Extensive customizable visual reports to allow for more conclusive insights

Scalability, suitable for all kinds of business, from smaller companies to large enterprises
Low deployment time
User-friendly UI for all types of workloads – be it cloud, physical or virtual
Ransomware detection and recovery using Polaris Radar
Continuous data protection for VMware, and more

Polaris Radar is one of the most unusual services provided by Rubrik. It is used to both monitor for potential ransomware and to also make a faster recovery after an incident occured by analyzing which files were targeted and what’s the damage extent. The whole process can be summarized in three steps:

Anomaly detection – Polaris is using machine learning experience on the application metadata to look for unusual and suspicious activity – ransomware. The nature of machine learning implies that the detection mechanism is getting better and better all the time;
Threat analysis – Polaris monitors changes in data over time to know in advance which parts of your database were corrupted and need to be replaced;
Restoration – Polaris’s user-friendly UI allows users to restore the corrupted files to their previous versions in just a few simple clicks.

There are a lot of benefits when choosing Rubrik as your backup and recovery platform. However, there is room for improvement. For example, some features that Rubrik competitors provide and Rubrik itself doesn’t are the following:

Granular recovery for Active Directory;
Granular management for VM backups;
Native support for more applications, like MySQL
Easier troubleshooting and log writing/deciphering in case of a failure
Data caching for rapid data recovery from the Cloud
Backup and Recovery of Kubernetes clusters
Backup and Recovery of Container persistent data

Rubrik Competitors

As it stands, Rubrik is a strong data protection and data management solution that works primarily within hybrid IT environments. The platform itself has a lot of useful features, like Rubrik Cloud Data Management (RCDM), Office 365 backup support, Oracle database live mount capability, SAP HANA backup capability, Polaris Radar for both ransomware detection and ransomware recovery, and so on. One of the most useful features is reported to be the Live Mount capability, which allows for easy and fast recovery of SQL Server databases – databases that are launched directly from within the backups stored in the Rubrik cluster.

The backup solution market itself is rapidly growing on a yearly basis. While Rubrik is considered one of the better solutions available – other competitors are rating higher in some peer review sites. While it is true that Rubrik is a fairly new face on the market, it has already earned its place as one of the bigger solutions in the field with plenty of competition.

Resources such as Peerspot and Gartner have contributed to our information when it comes to providing alternatives for Rubrik. Here is our list of the top 10 Rubrik competitors as of 2024:

Druva Data Resiliency Cloud has one of the highest overall ratings on this list, with 4.8 out of 5 points based on 588 total user reviews. It is a fairly balanced SaaS solution with a lot of emphasis on scalability and versatility. It is also relatively difficult to figure out initially in terms of the user interface, some users have reported licensing issues when there is a need for license scaling, and the overall support capabilities could use more polish in general.
Acronis Cyber Protect has a 4.4 out of 5 rating with 305 user reviews, it is a versatile backup and disaster recovery solution that excels in both of these departments with ease. There are plenty of features to work with, and the user interface is relatively easy to navigate. Unfortunately, it also lacks the ability to work with third-party cloud storage providers, it has quite a lot of additional purchases to be fully operational (extra online storage, for example), and some of the more unconventional features are not as easy to work with as the other ones.
Veeam Backup & Replication is one of the most popular backup solutions on this list, with a rating of 4.6 out of 5 points based on 1,421 user reviews. It is relatively simple to set up, surprisingly affordable by industry standards, and even has a completely free version of most of its products for small businesses. However, it will likely have to work on some features to remain an industry leader, including its reporting capabilities, its licensing model, and even its integration with third-party hardware – all would benefit from improvement in one way or another.
Veritas NetBackup is also one of the more highly-rated solutions on the list, with 4.8 out of 5 points with 413 user reviews. It is a reliable data security solution with plenty of features, from data deduplication for backups to ransomware resiliency and application data backup capabilities. However, it is also not perfect – the technical support can use some work, the overall pricing of the solution is seen as relatively high by many customers, and the complexity of managing Veritas can get in the way of trouble-free use.
Zerto Platform has 204 user reviews on Gartner, with an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 points. Zerto’s disaster recovery capabilities are praised by almost everyone, and it also offers Continuous Data Protection capabilities, testing failover capabilities, and the overall performance of the solution. Its dashboard can be a tad overwhelming for inexperienced users, and there are a few long-term retention features that may be less than ideal in their capabilities. It could also use more compatibility with some operating systems.
Cohesity DataProtect boasts a 4.7 out of 5 rating with 719 user reviews, offering a wide range of data protection features, including regular backups, instant recovery capabilities, ransomware protection, backup immutability, different backup storage locations, and more. At the same time, its technical support is less than ideal, it lacks detailed reporting capabilities, and relatively small bugs in every new software version release are fairly common.
Dell Data Protection Suite is one of several data protection offerings by a famous technological giant, with a 4.7 out of 5 points rating with 763 user reviews in total. It is a rather powerful data security solution with plenty of features, it is relatively easy to work with, its customer service capabilities are highly regarded, and there are plenty of uncommon backup features, as well, such as data deduplication, Changed Block Tracking, DPA reporting, instant restore, and more. At the same time, some of the more advanced features are rather restricted by the limits of Dell’s GUI, the overall customer support experience lacks consistency, and there are complaints about lackluster documentation when it comes to more comprehensive features.
Commvault Complete Data Protection has a relatively low rating of 4.5 out of 5 points with 415 total user reviews – although that does not mean that Commvault is a bad solution. It can perform backup and recovery operations at the same time, it has vast automatization capabilities, it has ransomware protection features, and most of its features can be managed with a user-friendly interface. Some of its more complex features are somewhat difficult to manage with the solution’s interface, the overall pricing is fairly rigid and could use more flexibility, and the initial solution could also be more user-friendly in many different areas.
SEP sesam is one of the least known backup solutions in our list, with a 4.6 out of 5 points rating with just 178 user reviews. It is a versatile hybrid backup and replication solution that has been around for quite a while. It works with both Linux and Windows operating systems, has an impressive data recovery speed, and has fast technical support response times. It is also not particularly friendly when it comes to the initial setup, the user interface could use more work towards user-friendliness, and some users have reported performance issues here and there.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication is a fairly popular backup solution with a 4.8 out of 5 points rating based on 406 total user reviews. It is a fast and versatile solution that is easy to set up, easy to use, capable of integrating into existing environments, and has a reliable technical support team. It does lack some features, such as the ability to perform granular restore when it comes to SharePoint Online data, and Multi-Factor Authentication, which is only available exclusively to the highest subscription tier of NAKIVO.

Bacula Enterprise as a Rubrik alternative

Rubrik can also be compared to a solution like Bacula Enterprise – although Bacula distinguishes itself by providing extremely high levels of protection from malware and ransomware to medium and large organizations, there are some similarities between them in advanced tools and user-friendly interfaces. There are also differences. For example, unlike Rubrik, Bacula has a much more rapid, easy to access – and free – trial.

Another Bacula advantage is its highly granular control of the data throughout the system, which Rubrik lacks in some areas. For example, Bacula offers single file recovery in many of the applications it supports, such as AD, Sharepoint and Exchange. And in that regard, the breadth of technologies that Bacula integrates with and protects is vast. Bacula offers higher compatibility with more hypervisors, natively integrated for more rapid deployment and data recovery.

Bacula also distinguishes itself by offering global management of multiple systems, as well as reporting across multiple installed units. Another great difference is that Bacula offers Bare Metal Recovery of physical servers, along with a number of other advanced features useful for Disaster Recovery strategies.

Conclusion

There are plenty of different data protection solutions to choose from when it comes to Rubrik alternatives. Some users may be looking for a SaaS solution such as Druva, and there are also both popular and relatively unknown solutions on our list, with NAKIVO and Veeam being examples of the former, and SEP sesam/Zerto Platform being examples of the latter.

Bacula Enterprise can also be an attractive solution if you’re looking for a Rubrik alternative. It is especially highly secure against ransomware, and is fast, versatile, more flexible and scalable: plenty of advantages for users looking for a Rubrik alternative.

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.