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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Macrium Reflect

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AMacrium Reflect is an endpoint and server backup and cloning solution from Macrium Software (aka Paramount Software UK), available in personal and professional editions.N/A

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Both Products
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Data Center Backup
    Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Macrium Reflect and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    Macrium Reflect
    8.6
    1 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Recovery verification10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Incremental backup identification8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Deduplication and file compression9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Flexible deployment9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform support8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Retention options8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Encryption8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Enterprise Backup
    Comparison of Enterprise Backup features of Macrium Reflect and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    Macrium Reflect
    8.8
    1 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Continuous data protection7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Replication10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-location capabilities10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ransomware Recovery8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Macrium Reflect and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    Macrium Reflect
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Small Businesses
    Acronis Cyber Protect
    Score8.7 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Carbonite by OpenText
    Score7.1 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Druva Security Cloud
    Score9.4 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Macrium ReflectMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    The free version of Macrium Reflect is licensed for both commercial and personal use. It works well on MS Windows computers, but cannot back up servers, where a paid version is required. The free version does full and differential backups, but not incremental as do the paid versions. If a large volume of files are added every day, a paid version would be more suitable as it supports incremental backups. The Macrium Reflect server version is very suitable for backing up physical servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    • Virtualize images to restore services
    • Mount backup images to restore files
    • Takes incremental backups pretty quick compared to other software
    • Creates synthetic full images well
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    • The program could reduce a bit the space it takes for its backups.
    • It should be more affordable.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    This application is very simple to use and works great for its intended purposes. It's my go-to when I need to create or manage a singular disk or volume image.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    We have not been opening tickets for support from Macrium at the moment, only for licencing issues, but good attention and fast response by the support team. They respond pretty fast to our emails and fixed our issues giving us a good explanation of our case without any complications. Due to the good functionality of the software we have not opened a ticket for support in years.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    Veeam offers Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, a product we also install and use. It compares favorably with Macrium Reflect; however, for small firms and individual wanting an added cloud backup of their full hard drive, Macrium wins out in requiring less cloud storage space by a significant margin. ShadowProtect is a rock solid competitor with a higher price and no free version. It is highly dependable, but more complicated to install and set up. The number of technical issues and quality of technical support have ruled out Acronis products. MSP360 Backup has impressive technology, but we encountered issues with restore times and full drive image restores.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Macrium Software (Paramount Software)
    • Impossible to specify.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots