Restow vs AvePoint Cloud Backup
AvePoint Cloud Backup is part of the AvePoint Confidence Platform, sold as a subscription priced by user count or by data volume depending on the product, with backups stored on AvePoint's own cloud.
The short answer
AvePoint fits organizations that need detailed Microsoft 365 restores, including permissions and settings, and want backup inside a wider governance platform.
Restow fits if you want a published one-time price, backups on your own storage, and a weekly check that each backup can really be restored.
At a glance
| Aspect | Restow | AvePoint |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | Community free. Business €595, Service Provider €1,950, one-time, net (pre-sale until release: €476 and €1,560). No per-user fee. | Subscription, by users or by data depending on the product. No list price published for Cloud Backup. |
| Where it runs | Self-hosted: one Docker Compose stack on a Linux server or VM you control. | SaaS on AvePoint's cloud. |
| Where backups are stored | Your choice: local disk, S3-compatible object storage, NFS or SMB, in the region you pick. | AvePoint's cloud backend. No own-storage option found. |
| Microsoft 365 coverage | Exchange Online mail, calendar, contacts; OneDrive; IMAP mailboxes; Linux and macOS servers and clients (file-level agent); imported mail files. No SharePoint or Teams in version 1. | Microsoft 365 workloads including permissions and settings. |
| Restore testing | Weekly sampled restore: data is read back through the restore path and compared byte for byte. | Configuration checks and job monitoring; no end-to-end restore verification found. |
| Source code and exit | AGPL-3.0 core, source-available Business and Service Provider modules, open documented storage format with a standalone restore tool. | Proprietary. |
Where AvePoint is strong
- Granular restore of single files, versions, permissions or settings.
- Security roll-back to undo unintended permission changes.
- Part of a broader governance and migration platform.
Where Restow is different
- A published price: Business €595, Service Provider €1,950, once.
- Backups on storage you choose, not a vendor cloud.
- A weekly restore test that reads data back and compares it, not only a job report.
- Open source core and an open storage format.
What Restow does not do (yet)
- Restow does not back up SharePoint or Teams in version 1.
- The audit log, SSO and roles are in development for Business.
- Licenses include no support; setup is available on quote.
- The server and endpoint agent runs on Linux and macOS, file-level; Windows is planned.
- Restow 0.1.0 is a beta: do not use it as your only backup.
AvePoint: the facts, with sources
Each line is taken from AvePoint's own documentation unless the rating says otherwise. "Checked: not found" means we looked in the named sources and did not find it, which is not proof that it does not exist.
| Fact | Source | How solid |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription-based licensing across the AvePoint Confidence Platform, described by the vendor as flexing "to your unique business needs." | AvePoint Pricing | Official source |
| Pricing basis varies by product: some are priced by user count, others by the amount of data protected or migrated. No standard price point is published for Cloud Backup on the official pricing page. | AvePoint Pricing | Official source |
| One third-party reseller listing showed a rate of £0.85 per user per month. This is not an AvePoint-published figure and is flagged as reseller-sourced, not treated as the official price. | Third-party reseller page (not avepoint.com) | Low |
| Restore options include original-location or alternate-location restore, and granular restore of an individual file, version, permission or setting; a "security roll-back" feature can undo unintended permission changes. | About AvePoint Cloud Backup | Official source |
| A "Quick check" feature reviews backup/scan-profile configuration and service-account health; a "Job Monitor" tracks restore-job progress and produces a report. No dedicated, separately named automated end-to-end restore-verification feature was found beyond this configuration and job monitoring. | AvePoint Learn documentation | Moderate |
| Not open source. | Absence checked across the pages above | Checked: not found |
| Storage is AvePoint's own cloud backend; no customer-storage or BYO-S3 option was found in the pages checked. | Same pages, absence checked directly | Checked: not found |
Frequently asked
How much does AvePoint Cloud Backup cost?
AvePoint publishes no standard price for Cloud Backup. A reseller listing showed £0.85 per user and month, but that is not an AvePoint figure.