AvePoint Cloud Backup alternative and comparison 2026
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.
By Lucas Flores, IT Systeme Flores UG. Last updated
AvePoint website checked on 2026-09-24.
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). Pre-sale licenses include every 1.x update; from version 1.0, a license includes 12 months of updates, then an optional update year (Business €295, Service Provider €595 net per year). 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 or NFS, in the region you pick. Immutable backups (S3 Object Lock) can be switched on per repository. | AvePoint's cloud backend. No own-storage option found. |
| Microsoft 365 coverage | Exchange Online mail, calendar, contacts; OneDrive; SharePoint Online sites (document libraries and lists, new in 0.4.0); Microsoft 365 groups (calendar and conversations, opt-in, since 0.4.5); IMAP mailboxes; Linux and macOS servers and clients (file-level agent); SMB and NFS file shares without an agent; imported mail files. No Teams chats. | Microsoft 365 workloads including permissions and settings. |
| Restore testing | Weekly sampled check: data is read back through the restore path and verified against the recorded hashes. File shares are checked after every new restore point, Proxmox VE (preview) guests within minutes of every new restore point, and Proxmox VE can also boot-test restore points. | Configuration checks and job monitoring; no end-to-end restore verification found. |
| Source code and exit | Apache 2.0 core, Business and Service Provider modules under the Restow license terms, 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; update years are optional (Business €295, Service Provider €595 net per year).
- 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 Teams chats. It backs up SharePoint Online sites since 0.4.0, without attachments of list items, site design, navigation and workflows; permissions are kept as information and never restored.
- Immutable backups (new in 0.4.0) are off until an administrator turns them on per repository. S3 Object Lock was tested against a simulated S3 service only, directories and NFS get only a deletion delay, which is not immutability, and the installation's default repository cannot be made immutable.
- In Business, the audit log viewer ships since 0.1.0 and the audit log export since 0.3.1; since 0.3.1 every edition has several administrators with roles. Sign-in with Microsoft and single sign-on (SSO) are planned, and so are four-eyes approval and a signed restore proof.
- The archive is filled by mail import with archiving and, from Business, by capture from the mailboxes (Microsoft Graph, IMAP sync), Exchange Online journal receipt and forwarded copies. Capture from the mailbox is near-time and not complete, and was tested against simulated services only.
- The automated Microsoft 365 backup and restore check against a real tenant is not active yet: check 4 of the release pipeline was skipped in every release so far; Microsoft 365 is covered by tests against a simulated Graph API.
- Licenses include no support, setup, operation or SLA.
- The server and endpoint agent runs on Linux and macOS, file-level; a Windows agent and image backup are planned.
- Restow 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.