NAKIVO vs Altaro VM Backup (Hornetsecurity) (2026)

Hornetsecurity acquired Altaro in 2021. Hornetsecurity's primary business is email security (spam filtering, advanced threat protection, email continuity), and Altaro is now one product in a multi-product portfolio that leads with email.

Acquisitions rarely leave products unchanged. Altaro's release cadence since the acquisition has continued, but the product direction has shifted toward integration with the Hornetsecurity portfolio (joint licensing, joint MSP programme, joint branding) rather than pure backup innovation. For partners who bought into Altaro because it was a focused SMB backup product, this is a meaningful change in trajectory.

NAKIVO is the counter-story. Independent, still privately held, still entirely focused on backup and replication. Their release cadence is among the fastest in the category, they shipped Proxmox VE support ahead of most competitors, and their MSP Edition is built around the needs of partners who sell backup as a primary service rather than a bundle add-on.

Altaro's coverage is VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V. For environments that are exclusively on one of those two hypervisors, this is fine. The reality for Australian MSPs in 2026 is that environments are increasingly mixed, and partners are actively migrating customers between hypervisors (especially off VMware post-Broadcom).

NAKIVO covers VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Proxmox VE, KVM, physical servers (Windows + Linux), NAS devices, Microsoft 365, and AWS EC2 from the same product. For a partner whose customer base spans multiple hypervisors, or who expects to migrate customers to Proxmox over the next 24 months, the single-product coverage is a material operational simplification.

Altaro requires separate products for M365 backup (Altaro Office 365 Backup) and physical server backup (Altaro Physical Server Backup). NAKIVO includes both in the main product. The product-unification matters for MSPs running multiple SKUs across a customer base.

Ease of use is genuinely where Altaro excels. The interface is one of the cleanest in the category, the setup flow is minimal, and the day-two operations are as simple as backup gets. For SMB deployments where the IT admin is a one-person team and the backup tool needs to be invisible, Altaro has earned loyalty over the years.

NAKIVO has improved significantly on UX in the last two years but still has more surface area to its UI because the product covers more platforms and more workload types. For a single-hypervisor SMB, Altaro's simplicity can still win on the user-experience axis.

The direct Hornetsecurity support experience is also good. Acknowledged.

Both products have MSP-friendly licensing. The details and operating models differ.

NAKIVO MSP Edition bills monthly per protected workload, includes multi-tenancy and white-label branding in the core product, and integrates with the PSA ecosystem (ConnectWise, HaloPSA, etc.). Floor price for hypervisor VMs is under AUD 2/workload/month.

Altaro / Hornetsecurity MSP bills per host (VMware) or per VM (Hyper-V) on a monthly or annual basis. Pricing is competitive in the SMB segment. Multi-tenancy is via the Hornetsecurity MSP portal, which is acceptable but not as deep as NAKIVO's per-tenant configuration.

For MSPs whose entire backup practice runs on one platform across many customers, NAKIVO's multi-tenancy depth and PSA integration typically win. For MSPs who use backup as one element of a broader Hornetsecurity email-first bundle, Altaro fits the bundle conversation.

Choose Altaro (Hornetsecurity) when:

• Your customers are exclusively on VMware or Hyper-V (no Proxmox, no Nutanix, no KVM).
• Simplicity of the UI is a primary selling point to your customer base.
• You're already running Hornetsecurity email security and want the bundle.
• The deployment is small (a handful of hosts) and feature depth is less important than ease.

Choose NAKIVO when:

• Your customer base is mixed across hypervisors or you expect to migrate to Proxmox.
• MSP multi-tenancy and PSA integration are central to your operations.
• You need one product that covers VMs + physical + M365 + NAS without separate SKUs.
• Active, backup-focused roadmap velocity matters to you.