Best Windows Server Backup Software

Website: https://www.veeam.com

Best for: Teams that want a free start with 10 workloads

Starting price: quote only

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Backup and replication for VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox and Windows servers from one console; Granular recovery with instant recovery and immutable backup options

Cons: No published list price, so a buyer must get a quote through a reseller; Community Edition is limited to 10 workloads with no commercial support

Veeam Backup and Replication is the best-known name in server backup, and it covers VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox, Windows and Linux servers, laptops, NAS and cloud workloads from one console. Recovery is the strong point: granular recovery with Veeam Explorers, instant recovery of a failed machine, and immutable backup options that stop ransomware from encrypting the backup itself. The free Community Edition covers up to 10 workloads with no time limit, which is enough for a small business to protect its first servers without spending anything.

The catch is pricing. Veeam publishes no list price for Backup and Replication, so a buyer must get a quote through a reseller, and the full feature set needs a 30-day evaluation licence to test. Community Edition is hard-limited to 10 workloads and carries no commercial support entitlement, so a growing team will need to move to a subscription licence and should budget for that step before it hits the limit.

Website: https://www.acronis.com

Best for: Small businesses that want backup and security in one agent

Starting price: $85 per year (per device)

Free plan: Free trial (30 days)

Pros: Integrated backup with anti-malware, ransomware and cryptojacking protection in one agent; Image-based backup with bare-metal recovery and Universal Restore to dissimilar hardware

Cons: No free plan, only a 30-day trial; Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup need Backup Advanced and are sold in packs of five seats

Acronis Cyber Protect is the only tool here that puts backup and security in the same agent. Standard starts from $85 per device per year, with Backup Advanced from $109 per year and Advanced from $129 per year, and the same page shows a monthly view from $8.33 per month on a 12-month contract. The agent adds anti-malware, ransomware and cryptojacking protection, patch management and vulnerability assessment, so one install covers two jobs. Image-based backup with bare-metal recovery and Universal Restore to dissimilar hardware makes a failed server recoverable on different equipment.

There is no free plan, only a 30-day trial with full functionality and no credit card required. A licence is required for every machine or physical host, and Acronis Cloud Storage is billed separately, so the headline $85 is not the whole bill. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backup sit only in Backup Advanced and above, and are sold in packs of five seats, so a team that wants to protect its mailboxes should check the full cost first.

Website: https://www.nakivo.com

Best for: Virtualised servers on a tight budget

Starting price: $2.45 per workload/month

Free plan: Free trial (15 days)

Pros: Backup and replication in one product with Site Recovery and one-click failover; App-aware backup for Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory and Oracle

Cons: No free plan, only a 15-day trial; Essentials editions are limited to 50 workloads or 6 sockets, and the top edition is quote only

Nakivo Backup and Replication is the cheapest subscription entry in this comparison. Subscription starts at $2.45 per workload per month, and a perpetual licence starts at $229 per socket, with a physical server licence from $58 and a workstation licence from $19 on other vendor product pages. Backup and replication sit in one product, with Site Recovery, one-click failover and real-time replication for VMware with a recovery point objective as low as 1 second. App-aware backup covers Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory and Oracle, and backups can go to Amazon S3, Wasabi or Azure Blob, with up to 4,000 recovery points.

There is no free plan, only a 15-day full-featured trial with no capacity or functionality restriction. Essentials editions are limited to 50 workloads or 6 sockets per organisation, and Enterprise Plus is quote only, with role-based access control, the HTTP API and Federated Repository only in that top edition. A team that needs those features should ask for the Enterprise Plus quote before it commits to the lower tiers.

Website: https://www.hornetsecurity.com/us/services/vm-backup/

Best for: Hyper-V and VMware shops that want a free edition

Starting price: quote only

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Augmented Inline Deduplication across all jobs with Continuous Data Protection; Immutable cloud storage and cross-platform restore between VMware and Hyper-V

Cons: No published dollar price, so costs come from the vendor calculator or a quote; cloud backup to Azure, S3 and Wasabi needs Unlimited Plus

Hornetsecurity VM Backup, formerly Altaro VM Backup, protects Hyper-V, VMware and Proxmox from one console. Its strong points are Augmented Inline Deduplication across all jobs, Continuous Data Protection and WAN-optimised replication, plus immutable cloud storage, Grandfather-Father-Son archiving and cross-platform restore from VMware to Hyper-V and back. The free edition covers 2 VMs per host forever, with a 30-day trial of the full product, so a small shop can start without a licence.

The vendor product page publishes no dollar price. Subscription is per backed-up VM on Unlimited Plus only, and perpetual licences are per host in Standard, Unlimited and Unlimited Plus, with prices from the online calculator or a quote. Cloud backup to Azure, Amazon S3 and Wasabi is only in Unlimited Plus, and perpetual licences need a separate Service Maintenance Agreement for support, updates and upgrades. Physical-server backup is a separate freeware product with no official technical support.

Website: https://www.easeus.com

Best for: Single servers that need simple imaging

Starting price: $199 per year (Server, 1 server)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: System, disk, partition and file backup with cloning in one tool; Server edition supports Windows Server with bare-metal recovery

Cons: Free edition is for personal use only and does not cover servers; cloud storage is an extra-cost add-on, and each licence covers one server

EaseUS Todo Backup is the simplest tool in this set, and that is its appeal. The Server edition costs $199 per year for one server, with a 2-year option at $299 and a lifetime-upgrades option at $359, while the Home edition costs $39.95 per year for one computer. System, disk, partition and file backup sit alongside cloning and file sync, and the Server edition supports Windows Server with bare-metal recovery. A free edition exists for personal use on one computer, so the interface can be tested before any money changes hands.

The limits are clear. The free edition is for personal use only and does not cover servers, so a business must buy the Server licence for each machine it protects. Cloud storage is an extra-cost add-on rather than part of the base price, and each licence covers one server only, so a team with five servers pays $995 per year on the 1-year plan. The tool is a good fit for one or two servers, and a weaker fit for a fleet.

Website: https://www.aomeitech.com

Best for: Small servers that need cloning and sync

Starting price: $149 per year (Server, 1 server)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: System, disk, partition and file backup plus cloning and file sync; Server edition supports Windows Server 2012 through 2025 with PXE boot

Cons: Free Standard edition lacks system clone, differential backup and encryption; the Server licence covers 1 server only, and cloud storage costs extra

AOMEI Backupper is the cheapest server licence in this comparison after Nakivo. The Server edition costs $149 per year for one server, while Professional costs $39.95 per year for one PC and a lifetime Professional licence costs $69.95 one-time. System, disk, partition and file backup sit alongside cloning and file sync, with a PXE boot tool and support for Windows Server 2012 through 2025 in the Server edition. The free Standard edition is free for personal, non-commercial use, and the 30-day trial covers the subscription editions.

The free edition is deliberately limited: it lacks system clone, differential backup, backup encryption and real-time sync, so a business that needs those features must buy the Server edition. The Server licence covers one server only, and 1 TB of AOMEI Cloud storage is an extra-cost add-on, not part of the base price. For a single small server the price is hard to beat, but the cost scales with every extra machine.

Website: https://www.msp360.com

Best for: Teams that want to choose their own cloud storage

Starting price: $109.99 per computer/year

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Bring-your-own-storage model with Amazon S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob and Google Cloud; File-level and image-based backup with bare-metal restore

Cons: Storage is not included, so cloud storage is billed separately; the free edition excludes domain-joined machines and server operating systems

MSP360 Backup uses a bring-your-own-storage model, which suits teams that already have a cloud account. Windows Server costs $109.99 per computer per year, with Windows Desktop at $29.99, Ultimate at $179.99, VM Edition at $379.99 and MS SQL Server at $124.99 per year, all excluding VAT. Backups can go to Amazon S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob, Google Cloud or local and NAS targets, with client-side AES encryption. File-level and image-based backup with bare-metal restore are included, plus SQL Server and Exchange backup in the higher editions.

Storage is not included in the licence, so cloud storage is billed separately to the provider, and that cost must be added to the licence price when comparing with the other tools here. The free edition is for personal use on standalone, non-domain Windows, macOS and Linux machines, so it excludes domain-joined machines and server operating systems, and it is limited to 5 TB of local or cloud storage with community support only. VM backup needs the separate VM Edition, and the Server and SQL editions cap cloud storage at 1 TB, with Ultimate unlimited.

All figures are list prices from the vendor pages in Sources, before tax. Veeam and Hornetsecurity publish no list price, so their rows show quote only. MSP360 storage is billed separately by the cloud provider, and Acronis Cloud Storage is billed separately too, so the totals above exclude storage for those two tools.