We performed a comparison between VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager) and Zerto based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Zerto wins out in this competition. Its consistent sub-second response for RTO and RPO makes it one of the most responsive and fastest in the marketplace today. Users are able to easily run tests and change scenarios without any effect on an organization's production.
"The stability of SRM has been excellent. It gets a nine-out-of-ten."
"VMware SRM is a very nice tool for disaster recovery for virtual environments."
"It's easy to use and the interface is quite simple."
"VMware's tech support gets a nine-out-of-ten. They are responsive and get you a useful reply."
"Incorporating non-disruptive testing capability in disaster recovery procedures has significantly benefited the overall recovery testing processes."
"The solution runs well in the background, just in case we need it."
"VMware is one of the best products in the industry when it comes to virtualization."
"SRM's best feature is automation."
"Some of the most valuable features are the synchronous replication and migration with RDMs. I really like the conversion of RDM VMs for migration."
"It's one of the easiest products out there, as far as managing and using it go. The UI is pretty dead simple."
"The orchestration and automation of the DR and how it replicates the VMs and then picks them up in the DR site have been most valuable."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is allowing a failover from our remote sites to our data center. Our remote sites have failed several times, and on each occasion, we were able to bring a plant back online within 30 minutes, even though the hardware repair took many days."
"We are doing continuous data protection. It works flawlessly. Our recovery points are measured in seconds. We have all these "baby snapshots" throughout the course of the day, so we can roll a VM back to any point in time, spin it up, and away we go. We're actively using that. It works great."
"The whole package is valuable. The most useful feature for the company is the rapid RTO, which offers a faster return to operations and brings us back online quicker. The last time we had an issue, we recovered within about 36 minutes, which was probably the most valuable thing for us because, previously, it took four to seven days."
"When we need to failover or move workloads, Zerto significantly decreases both the time it takes and the number of people involved. It only takes a single person to activate a failover and we can pretty much automate everything else."
"Zerto is an excellent solution for cloud-based environments, but for DIY clients who have another site to recover their systems it also works well."
"If you have a failover case, you need to work on it manually. It would be helpful if this could be automated. It would simplify things."
"The initial setup of VMware SRM isn't straightforward because many customizations are required since it helps in the recovery of your IT environment."
"In my view, if VMware comes up with an appliance-based solution like vCenter Server (which was also Windows-based), it will be much easier for deployment. I"
"We have had an issue when some customers have traditional designs and sites. For example, on one another site, they are using hyper-converged, using VMware, or Nutanix. We have a problem with the synchronization between the storage for site to site. This is the main issue. We are adding some other tools to support the synchronization to allow the movement of the workload from site to site easily."
"The configuration process could be improved."
"The primary site lacks adequate equipment, such as power backup and cooling, which can lead to downtime during issues like power outages or overheating."
"Technical support needs improvement, they are not very responsive."
"The administration guides can be complicated and difficult to use, so it would be helpful if it was made easier."
"The only complaint is that if I remove a host from a cluster, it does not like that. If I move and put the host in maintenance mode to fix it, and vRA is down, Zerto does not like it. Zerto should figure out that this host has an issue and it went down. Zerto should then let me upload that vRA information to another vRA."
"There should be an automatic installation in a cluster. When I add a virtual client or ESX source to the cluster, it should automatically install that. There should be automatic installation. Currently, I have to do that manually."
"The replication appliances tend to have issues when they recover from being powered off when a host is in maintenance mode. Sometimes you have to do a manual task where you go in and detach hard disks that are no longer in use, to get the replication appliances to power back on. There are some improvements to be made around the way those recover."
"We had some issues with replication, especially on Linux, but we have already resolved them."
"They could improve their online documentation."
"It would be nice to have the option to do automatic failover, but right now the only option is manual."
"We're an NSX-T shop, and if I could get an NSX-T integration where it could manage the networks a little tighter, that would be an improvement."
"It would be helpful if the reports can be generated periodically, on a schedule."
VMware SRM is ranked 6th in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software with 69 reviews while Zerto is ranked 2nd in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software with 234 reviews. VMware SRM is rated 8.0, while Zerto is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of VMware SRM writes "A scalable solution that integrates well with the VMware platform, but its platform agnostics do not support on-cloud usage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zerto writes "Gives us business continuity capabilities during hurricane season and in case of ransomware". VMware SRM is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, Azure Site Recovery, VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and Nutanix Disaster Recovery as a Service , whereas Zerto is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Rubrik, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, Commvault Cloud and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery. See our VMware SRM vs. Zerto report.
See our list of best Disaster Recovery (DR) Software vendors.
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