Arcserve ShadowProtect vs Minarca

Arcserve ShadowProtect is a paid backup and recovery product for Windows and Linux. It creates image backups for physical and virtual computers and servers, with support for workloads including Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, IIS, Hyper-V, Dynamics CRM, VMware vCenter, Oracle Database, and custom applications. Listed SaaS coverage includes Microsoft 365, Microsoft Entra ID, Azure DevOps, Dynamics 365, Power BI, Salesforce, Google Workspace, Zendesk, Jira Cloud, and Confluence Cloud. Backups can run multiple times daily, use incremental images, be encrypted, and go to cloud image destinations. Immutable backups and application-aware backup are supported. Recovery features include item-level restoration, bare-metal restore, and bootable recovery media. ShadowProtect also provides test failover, failover orchestration, failback orchestration, and audit logs in a hybrid deployment. Annual and two-year subscriptions include updates, upgrades, and standard technical support during the subscription period. A perpetual license covers one system in physical or virtual environments. There is no free plan; pricing is on request and a 30-day trial is listed.

Minarca is a free, open-source backup solution that places an agent on computers and uses a central server for management. It backs up Linux, Windows and macOS systems, with destinations including remote servers and external disks. Its web interface provides a dashboard, logs and statistics, while the server can keep separate repositories and disk quotas for multiple users. Minarca uses rdiff-backup for incremental backups; its maker says the reverse incremental differential method helps resist data corruption. Large restores can be handled with the local agent, while smaller datasets can be restored through the web interface. The software also creates a mirror of backed-up directories that can be accessed and restored from the filesystem, with or without the application. A central Minarca server is required to back up a desktop computer. Listed agents support Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), macOS Catalina 10.15 and later, and 64-bit Linux, Ubuntu and Debian. The plan costs nothing and is self-hosted, with configurable user storage quotas.