Nakivo Reviews

I use it for my VM (Virtual Machine) backups. I logged into it, created myself an account, and then I created my backup jobs. Then I can run the jobs to do the backups when I want. I can schedule it to run when it is convenient — say at 10 o'clock at night — or I can say run it right now, or whatever. It is pretty intuitive in that sense. Pretty easy to set up and use.  

What I like most about it is their solution runs either on Windows or Linux or even on something like Synology. Nakivo is versatile and able to work with other systems.  

The lack of that capability is one of the big reasons that I do not like Veeam. Veeam is strictly a Windows solution. That is a big negative in my opinion. Plus Veeam is good — it is not that it is not good, it works great — but it is also expensive.  

I do not know that I see a lot that needs to be improved with Nakivo. It seems maybe that the interface could be a little bit better, but it is what it is. You can always improve on the interface on anything.  

For me, I just work with the product in a simple way. For instance, I have not even looked into whether you can hook it up with Active Directory which may be helpful if you are going to add different users and give them the capability to back up or do certain other tasks. You might be able to do that already now. I just have not had the need or opportunity to look into it. If it is not there it is the type of thing that might be added.  

I have been using Nakivo for a couple of years on-and-off.  

The stability and performance can depend on how many VMs you have and the volume of what you are backing up. I think I set it up for one customer in their lab and they had 50 or 60 VMs running and set it up to kickoff at say at 10 o'clock at night and do the backup. Nakivo just does its thing on schedule. Here when I back it up, when I back up my Atlassian tools, I will back up three of those VMs at one time. 

So it is pretty stable when it comes to carrying out what it is supposed to do. Again, it depends on how fast your network is, how many transporters you have, and where you are backing it up to. Although I do not do it myself, Nakivo has the capability to back up directly to Amazon S3 if you choose to do that. The flexibility for working in various environments is really valuable, and in my case it saves money.  

I think the scalability of the product is good. All you have to do is basically just install more transporters. If you only got one transporter installed and you are trying to back up 100 VMs at the same time, you are pushing everything through one little teeny pipe, but if you have more transporters, then it will actually use all of those and the backups and restores can happen faster.  

I have not really used technical support because I have not had any issues or problems with the product. It is very easy to set up and very straightforward to use. I can not vouch for that fact on Windows because I have never tried it on Windows. I choose not to do that. I run everything on Linux and I like that better.  

I have used other solutions and I wound up sticking with Nakivo because it is more versatile and it is able to work with systems other than Microsoft. You can get it running in many different ways. I am just running the previous build VM, but I also have a 12 terabytes Synology NAS unit here. I can actually install it directly on that and not even have to create a virtual machine. It runs great without any extra setup. So I am using Nakivo for versatility, mostly.  

The initial setup and installation are very straightforward. It depends on how many transporters you want to install. You can install more than one transporter. If you are doing lots of backups, multiple transporters will make it go faster. In my case, I do not need that. I have actually tried using multiple transporters at customer sites and it is a functional solution.  

I just use the free version — if you will — it is kind of free. You can buy a one-time perpetual license, or you can do subscription-based leasing, or you can do it based on how many VMs you want to back up. If you want to only buy it for 50 VMs, then you only buy it for 50 VMs. You have a lot of different options when it comes to pricing and the pricing models are pretty flexible and affordable.  

I have tried Veeam and I have tried a few others. I forget their names. Nakivo just seems simpler to me. It is simple to use. I like the fact that I do not have to have a Windows license to run it like I would with other products like Veeam. That is just another something that I have to pay for and maintain on top of what I already have. Nakivo is a work-around for that situation.  

I like the product because it is doing exactly what I need it to do, and that is reliably backing up my VM. I have actually had to restore some VMs. Sometimes the power just goes off here and something will get corrupted and it works well for that. It has been reliable in restoring exactly what I needed to restore.  

Based on my experience, the advice I would give to people considering it is to go for it. I think it is a great product. But there is a problem with customers — especially government customers — resisting adopting anything new. They get hung up on one thing and they like to stick with it. They buy a license and they just have it set in their minds that they do not want to try anything else, even though the solution they have might be costing them a fortune. Getting them to adopt a change can be difficult.  

It is like when someone is committed to Cisco. I tell government customers not to buy Cisco under any circumstances. I tell them just to never get involved with it. Then they will complain and say that Cisco is all that they know. Arista beats the hell out of Cisco and it uses the same interface. Guys who know how to use Cisco already will not have to go to school at all to learn how to use Arista, and it ends up being half the price. My complaint about Cisco is not that it does not work. It depends on what you are doing. But in my opinion, Cisco solutions just do not have the necessary throughput for certain situations.  

I have tried to get a lot of clients to buy this and show them the advantages. Some of them just say they already have a license for something else and they want to stick with it. People need to be open to the advantages of considering other products and how that can make a change in their efficiency and their bottom line.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate Nakivo as a nine-out-of-ten. I would never give anything a ten.  

We use Nakivo as a great addition to our Disaster Recovery and Backup of our VMware environment. We have multiple datacenters and wanted a quick, easy, and scalable solution that would perform at a high level.

This product was going to be a temporary solution at the start of our journey but ended up becoming a mainstay in our portfolio of products that we can't live without.

We have had several instances where Nakivo has really shined and helped up recover from potential issues very quickly. Nakivo hasn't only met those expectations, it's surpassed them!

We utilize multilayered approaches with our Security and Disaster Recovery. Nakivo has fit the bill for what we were trying to accomplish and has given us peace of mind knowing that our data is safe and secure.

We have had several instances where Nakivo has helped us with potential disaster recovery issues and each time, the product has performed better than we had expected.

Our organization is now safer, more secure, and more reliable because of our implementation of Nakivo. The product has also gained more ability since we first implemented it, as feature requests are added all the time!

Cloud integration is valuable because the ability to not only backup locally, but to the cloud, has been a great addition to the already fantastic product.

It's a much cheaper solution and a better performing product than many of its peers.

This product is fast and the speed of backups is a valuable feature. This product works faster than its peers, and its reporting features are fantastic.

Updates are well tested before put into general use. We have never had any issues with moving from old versions to new versions.

I would love to see BackBlaze B2 implementation in the future, as that would be our preferred cloud destination, but Amazon and Wasabi are both very great choices in the meantime. Other cloud initiatives would give this product a distinct advantage over other products. 

Other than that, I don't see any other areas that I can see for improvement. The product has several different tiers, all of which are easy to understand. The product works just as well as advertised, and is easy to implement into an organization.

I implemented Nakivo into our organization about four years ago.

The product is super stable and works like clockwork once it's setup and configured. I have never had any crashes or major issues with this product. Product updates add functionality and better performance and are well tested before going into production, as I have never had any issues with the product after updating. 

This is a highly scalable solution. We are always adding on to ours. 

They have great customer support and I can't brag about it enough. We don't need it much because the product works so well, but when we have the need for their services, they always help us quickly.

Our previous solution had less viability, fewer options, and was very expensive to utilize cloud offloading with it.

The initial setup is very easy to follow. Support even offered help after we went through a general demo. It wasn't needed because the product is so easy to set up and work with.

All in-house implementation. 

The product is very cost effective and has already helped us with potentially major issues that would have more than quadrupled the initial setup costs. We are very happy with our ROI.

This would all depend on how the product was implemented, as I'm sure each organization has different needs. The pricing, setup costs, and licensing are easy to understand, no matter how you want to implement it.

We evaluated Druva, Zerto, Unitrends, and Veeam. Nakivo fit right in with what we wanted and has outperformed our expectations.

Choose Nakivo. You won't regret it. As a primary, secondary, or other option in your disaster recovery portfolio, you will not regret the decision.

I use NAKIVO backup and replication for several of my clients. I have replaced the product called Veeam Backup and Replication. We are a small IT service and repair center and we have many large clients running VMware 6, 6.5, and 7.  We use vCenter for all of our VMs. I have three different clients using this product. One client has four servers running two CPUs each and ESXi 6.7.  This client is running NAKIVO 10.2 as an appliance server and replicating the other three server's VMs.

The general cost of doing backups has been reduced. Also, the screenshot verification feature is priceless. I know right when I have an issue. At first, NAKIVO was a bit of a learning curve. It took several failures to figure of that some error messages were just canned messages and I had to dig deeper into the issue. As it turns out, the version of ESXi or vCenter with the proper version of the VM tool is very important for NAKIVO to get a good replication. The cost has been a huge issue using Veeam in the past and if you have ever tried to buy a license for Veeam, you already know it is almost impossible.

The test reboot of replicated VM and screenshot verification is great. NAKIVO is easy to use and pretty easy to set up. I use the appliance for all of my VM backups and replications. It runs as its own VM and you connect via a web browser. I have found Edge works best. The ease of purchasing a license from Nakivo has been one of the many features I have appreciated. I could not dislike purchasing a Veeam license more than anyone else in the IT industry. Having to jump through the hoops at Veeam and then after 10 plus emails, you might get an order from Techdata. It's just a joke.

Updating VM Tools on a replicated VM could be better. I think one of the most important things NAKIVO can do is stop releasing a new version several times a year. It's important to "get it right" on a version release - too many updates will cause an issue. Also, any version update should include the ESXi Host as well as the vCenter. Not taking into consideration the vCenter version is a huge mistake and no updates should be released unless they also support the current vCenter version. That came up and I had several issues before I figured out it was a vCneter update compatibility issue.

I have been using the solution for one year.

It can be a little touchy. When the IP cannot be reached there is not much you can do. You have to figure out why the IP of the appliance cannot be reached.

The solution can scale. I have it backing up and replicating 4 servers with almost no issues.

It has not been the best. I ran into some issues right away and support got on and tried to help me. I ended up working on the issue for a week and ended up figuring it out myself.  I have tried to stay away from support altogether since then.

I used Veeam previously. I switched mainly because of the problems I always encountered while trying to order Veeam. This company is the absolute worst in the business - not to mention the price of a license.

Yes, I did not have any issue installing the solution.

I handled the setup myself.

The yearly maintenance fees are okay but they could be better.

The cost is important but I think using the appliance is probably the best as it's easy to install.

I did not evaluate other options.

I do not have any additional comments.

We are using Nakivo Backup & Replication to back up ten virtual machines from our Nutanix cluster with some 80 virtual machines. Our goal is to replace the existing backup solution completely with Nakivo Backup and Replication and to have an offsite backup of all important servers to one of our branch offices with a Synology NAS with Nakivo Transporter installed. Offices are connected with a 500 MB VPN; the Nakivo appliance is running on our Nutanix cluster. Currently, we are using an Enterprise Essentials license.

Veeam Backup and Replication is the main backup solution at our customer's site, but it stopped working while backing up our now 5TB file server - and after some weeks of investigating the whole issue with Veeam support, I had to decide to search for an alternative solution. Nakivo offered a free trial which was very easy to set up and immediately worked. To be totally honest, it has an affordable price. 

The bandwidth-optimized deduplicated offsite backup to a Synology NAS was another must-have, which would have been possible with Veeam, too, but we would have had to build a Windows-based server for that.

The first really good thing about Nakivo Backup and Replication was the fact that I could install and configure the trial version in maybe half an hour and had a successful backup of our file server on the same night. I used different repositories to test - a Synology NAS with Nakivo Transporter and a CIFS share on a Windows bases server. Both worked without any problems. Then there was another point, that was really important to me: having an offsite backup to a Synology NAS at an office branch. I had to take a look at some options to optimize data flow, but the backup copy job works like a charm.

At the moment, there are actually not many features I am missing. It would be good if I could have a remote upgrade of our Synology Transporters, but the manual upgrade is easy and no problem at all. 

Some SNMP features to configure our monitor software would be great since emails sent to me sometimes could be lost in all those other mails. 

Some customers from Germany might have a problem when contacting English speaking sales and support team, but that has never been a problem to me, although my English hasn't been used much in the last couple of years.

I've been using Nakivo Backup & Replication for Nutanix since 2020.

There have been no crashes and no unfixable errors (there is a good knowledge base, and self-explaining error messages).

Since I'm using Nakivo to backup only ten virtual machines at the moment, I will have to wait until I backup my whole Nutanix cluster to find out about the scalability.

The sales representatives are nice; we didn't need technical support.

I'm still using Veeam Backup and Replication, but since this solution had huge problems backing up our file server (5 TB), I switched to Nakivo for some servers and will be completely replacing replacing Veeam by the end of its maintenance.

Yes, if you just follow the steps outlined in the setup assistant, you get it going in less than half an hour.

I implemented the solution by myself.

After weeks of working with Veeam support without any success, I can say it was worth every Euro spent since I have a working solution and can sleep better.

Nakivo has way lower licensing costs than Veeam - at least in our environment, with Nutanix as the protected cluster. Talk to your sales representative; they sold me the right license.

I am using Veeam and tested only Nakivo as a possible replacement.

I do not have any other comments at this time. 

This is a standout backup, replication, and rapid recovery solution for any small to medium-sized business which has a virtualized server environment - particularly for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V.

Probably the best recommendation is the fact that we choose to use this ourselves. As a value added reseller/consultant, we have access to many products. We recommend it to smaller vSphere sites where it provides an excellent alternative to the likes of Veeam and the expensive HA options from VMware.

The architecture is excellent and real-life practical, not only for backups to local backup repositories but also for remote backup repositories and/or cloud storage. The virtual machine replication with multiple snapshots between physical hosts provides a cost-effective alternative to those who cannot afford/can't justify a full high availability solution.

It has massively simplified the backup process and management of backups when compared to the previous solution. Backup times are much quicker.

The pre-configured virtual machine means installation onto a vSphere host takes minutes, requiring little more than the allocating of an IP address for the web console and a few credentials. We quite literally install the virtual machine, create a backup repository, link Nakivo to our vSphere environment, and have the first backup running in under twenty minutes.

Email notifications make the ongoing monitoring of the system simplicity itself.

Many of these have been mention already.

The direct support from Nakivo has been excellent when we have had issues. The built-in link in the web console to request support and automatically include a support bundle with all the relevant configuration data for your system makes requesting support easy - not that we have had to do it very often.

They also seem to be listening to the customer base. It is one of the few products where you feel you are getting value for the ongoing support costs. There is a continuous stream of useful updates and new features.

The speed of the backups and replications is fantastic and, for the most part, the simplicity of use has been wonderful.

The interface can be a little clunky at times. I guess this is partly the nature of the beast, being as it is a browser-based console. The benefits of the browser-based console, for the most part, far outweigh the occasional clunkiness of the interface.

Support for the backup and replication of virtual machines is excellent, but improved support for physical machine backups would be very welcome (I believe this is already on the way). 

With the current pricing model, the per workstation costs can soon rack up, so as to make it prohibitive to have a blanket backup policy for all workstations.

I've been using this solution for 5 years.

In the time we have used it and recommended it, it has been incredibly stable. We have managed to corrupt a backup repository by physically pulling the plug mid-job, but that is about it.

It will scale easily to match the recourses available.

Support via the web console has been very straightforward and the response has been prompt and knowledgeable.

We have not had any phone support.

I did previously use Acronis.

Nakivo, overall, provided a more complete, simpler, and cost-effective solution - particularly in the virtual environment.

The solution is very simple to deploy, as already mentioned.

In a smaller environment (less than three physical hosts) the Enterprise Plus is an excellent solution, particularly with the perpetual pricing available. 

I'd advise new users to take note of the ongoing support costs which currently are well worth having. 

Nakivo seems to be focused on developing and improving the product.

I did evaluate many options before choosing this.

I use the product for backing up my VMware VSphere and Microsoft HyperV Server. 

The first time I chose Nakivo was because we were facing a problem with a system that we used which was very expensive to renew. 

We found Nakivo from a website - one for VMware experts - and we tried to download the trial version.

The first time, we installed it on a physical machine that was running on a Windows Server - a 2012 Standard Edition.

At that time, we had 7 servers, including VMware ESXI and 1 VMware VCenter. Our VM at that time was around 50 VMs. After the trial, we were very interested in this product. After we tried to back up our Hyper-V VM in another system that we had, we found that all the systems were running well. That made us happy because we finally found a good product for backup that had a reasonable price.  

Basically, we were very interested in Nakivo because it was easy to install and support was able to install on devices like Synology, Windows Server, or even a client virtual or physical server. Using the web interface made it easy to configure and manage. 

It was easy to deploy a transporter to make process backup and replication faster and more reliable. Nakivo ensured our organization had good backup and replication software. 

We like the capability of Nakivo in terms of being able to restore files, folders, Active Directory objects, and so on. 

One feature that we like most is network acceleration. It also makes process backups between sites that we have more reliable. 

We like the site recovery system that Nakivo offers because it helps us with orchestration site recovery on our VM from one site to another site without having to deal with any manual processes. 

The transporter is one thing that we often use when we have installed a new server for our system. 

The chat functionality with Nakivo Support in the web interface is very unique and we love it.

In my opinion, Nakivo should consider having native abilities to be able to backup and replicate several applications. For example, an application based on a microservice such as a container app or orchestration using Kubernetes would be better if Nakivo had the ability to backup or replicate without depending on a hypervisor. 

Right now we know that Nakivo has the ability to back up as an incremental process and restore backups across several criteria. However, it would be good if we had the ability to backup a system like PostgreSQL.

I have been using Nakivo for around 5 years.

In my experience with Nakivo, we like that every backup process is successful and when we restore it, it is as is like the source material. Until now, it has been very stable and we have not had any problems.

We can add more storage as a respository very easily because it supports several systems such as NFS and CIFS.

We only have contacted customer service and support once. They were very responsive and helped us solve our problem.

We have changed from a previous system because that product was too expensive to renew and we needed a Windows license to install the backup system.

The setup is very straightforward and very easy to install, deploy, and configure.

No, we deployed the product ourselves.

Nakivo is a solution with reasonable TCO. 

After we calculated the fact that it was easy to install, easy to manage, etc., Nakivo still was the best option with a reasonable license price and renewal price year over year. 

Yes, we have tried several products such as Acronis, Commvault, and many more.

Our primary use case of Nakivo is to backup a three-way vSphere cluster hosting approximately 50 virtual machines.

We changed backup solutions because our previous one became so top-heavy and cumbersome to use.

We are a large site and use Nakivo to back up to disc between buildings in a limited time window. It then moves backup sets to the cloud as required.

We also use the replication feature to snapshot some of our most critical VMs to a backup server, which could be used if we lost our main datacenter. 

It has enabled us to backup (and replicate) our virtual machines much more frequently than was previously possible. We can now backup our entire vSphere cluster to disc on-site and then move backups to the cloud later. This enables us to do quick granular file recovery as and when required but also to do whole-site relocation in the case of a total loss scenario.

The small footprint of the main software ("Director" ) and transporters is excellent, too. I've often wondered why some of the agents we have had to install for other backup solutions need so many resources. You don't need an agent for Nakivo either, just a "transporter" that can handle loads of VMs and jobs.

Also, the ability to use a variety of cloud providers rather than being tied into one is a huge bonus. 

Creating new jobs is quick and easy, with only a few clicks and you're done.  

The backup copy option is handy if you start running out of space. You can just move backup sets to alternate locations.

The ability to fire up replicated VMs and grab a screenshot of the running OS as proof the replication has worked is great for peace of mind!

The web-based GUI on Nakivo is rapid and the ongoing development of the product is steady and sensible. Not just a case of adding every option under the sun as some manufacturers try, and fail to do.

The simplicity of Nakivo is its best feature. It does exactly what it should, which is to create restorable backups!

My first thought was maybe the GUI could be improved, although it works.

We have been using Nakivo for the past four years.

It's not gone wrong in four years, so I'd say it's stable.

Nakivo is very scalable. You add more licenses for sockets if you need to; otherwise, deploy more transporters to cope with more simultaneous workloads.

We have only needed to use technical support twice. Once was a user error on our part and the other was a licensing issue. Both times, customer support was very good.

Our previous solution became too bloated and cumbersome to use. We got sick of waiting five seconds for screens to load.

The initial setup is very easy, with simple instructions to follow.

We deployed in-house.

The ROI is unmeasurable.

My advice is that you get the trial, as there is nothing to lose!

The licensing model is crystal clear on the website.

We looked at several others but it's that long ago, I can't remember which products.

I have serious reservations suggesting features for something which is spot on as it is. Over my many years working in IT I have seen good products ruined by overzealous "improvements". The software can quickly become bloated and go on to lose its long-term customers and then end up in a constant battle to be the most feature-rich product.

I use Nakivo Backup & Restore with a basic license for one physical host, and I run it on a Raspberry Pi 4. The physical host runs a VMware ESXi Hypervisor 7.0, the free edition.

Primarily, I use it to back up the virtual machines from the physical server to a backup repository that is run on a NAS. My environment consists of six or seven virtual machines that range from Unix/Linux machines to Windows Server.

Nakivo, the physical host, and the NAS repository are all on the same network. The NAS is a Qnap solution with HDDs.

With Nakivo, I have the peace of mind that all of my production environment is safely backed up and can be restored safely, easily, and quickly with a few clicks.

When I changed the host server, the restoring of virtual machines was completed in a fully automated process, in a few hours, with just a few clicks. This is in contrast to it an effort of days of work restoring everything manually.

The backup process is also fully automated, with powerful scheduling, so that I do not need to worry about a loss of service for any of our services.

The most valuable features are the possibility to include a free ESXi Hypervisor into the backup, because of budget constraints, and it is lightweight. I do not need a very powerful machine to run Nakivo and can use my ESXi host for the VMs.

Deduplication saves around 50% of drive space, which is handy.

Migrating to a new environment is also done quickly because you can store the configuration and restore it in another environment. The license is also migrated.

The self-backup feature is also handy, ensuring that the solution itself is backed up regularly.

Automatic updates do not work, and every update has to be done manually. I've upgraded twice, from 10.0 to 10.0.1 and then to 10.1.1.

A mobile app for administration would be appreciated.

The user interface could use a bit of refreshing; however, on the other hand, it runs very smoothly, so if that would change I can live with the user interface looking a bit dated.

I would like to see some more detailed data regarding backups. For example, a pie chart representing the various virtual machines or other backups and how much space they need would be helpful to have.

I have been using Nakivo Backup and Restore for six months.

The solution is very stable, with no breakdowns so far. Backups are performed regularly, no errors regarding the creation of backups or with restoring from backups. The connection to repositories and inventories is stable and without outages or disconnects. We are especially impressed, because it is running on a Raspberry Pi.

You can deploy multiple transporters which can scale your solution without much additional cost.

Support is top-notch. They are very diligent and helpful.

It is my first solution of this type.

The setup is really simple and straightforward and it can be run on a Raspberry Pi.

The initial setup is extremely straightforward, the Knowledge Base and User Guide are very concise and to the point. We had no issues with the process.

Our in-house team is responsible for deployment and maintenance.

Our projected ROI is 12 months.

Regarding the licensing, I would advise speaking to the Nakivo representatives and you can get the best option for your environment.

I did not evaluate other options.