Amanda vs NAKIVO Backup & Replication

Amanda is a free backup system that lets an administrator protect multiple networked hosts from one master server. It can write backups to disk, tape drives or changers, and cloud storage; bundled drivers cover DVD-RW, RAIT, and Amazon S3. Amanda schedules full and incremental backups and distributes work over the backup cycle. Its catalog tracks files and media locations, helping identify tapes needed for a restore and manage them to avoid overwriting the wrong one. Archives can be compressed before or after network transfer. Security options include OpenSSH for server-client communication, GPG or another encryption program for archives, and Kerberos 5. The Application API supports custom backups for applications such as relational databases and special file systems. Amanda has a native Windows client, and lists Linux, Mac OS X, and Unix client platforms. It is available for Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosting. The community edition is free, open source, and provided as-is; the project says it continues to receive critical security updates.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides backup, replication, failover, backup copies, granular restore, and disaster recovery orchestration for virtual, physical, cloud, and SaaS environments. It supports image-based, application-aware, incremental backups and replication, with retention of up to 1,000 recovery points using GFS rotation. Supported workloads include VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE, Amazon EC2, Microsoft 365, Oracle Database, Windows and Linux machines, and NFS/SMB file shares. Site Recovery workflows can automate disaster recovery actions across VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and Amazon EC2. Deployment is available as a virtual appliance or by installing it on a supported machine or NAS device. NAKIVO says physical machine backups use AES 256-bit encryption. Linux repositories can be password-encrypted, and repository self-healing can check data integrity and repair errors where possible. Active Directory integration and an HTTP API support monitoring, automation, and orchestration integrations. It runs on web, Windows, Linux, self-hosted environments, and via API. Subscription starts at $2.50 a month per workload; Perpetual starts at $229, paid once per CPU socket. A 15-day trial enables all features, but there is no free plan.