Acronis Cyber Protect review

Acronis is a software company with its corporate headquarters in Switzerland and global headquarters in Singapore. It was founded in 2001 as a business unit within SWsoft, a company that developed software for running data centers. 

Acronis develops on-premises and cloud-based software for data backup, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, and endpoint management. It maintains 18 offices and over three dozen data centers worldwide manned by 1,900 employees. 

Acronis Cyber Protect is made up of three Acronis products – backup and recovery, security, and endpoint protection management – sold in one bundle. 

Acronis Cyber Protect: Plans and pricing

There are four pricing plans of Acronis Cyber Protect – Essentials, Standard, Advanced, and Backup Advanced – differentiated by features and the amount of allocated cloud storage for backup. For each plan, you can also add specific extra features at checkout for a fee.   

Essential costs $59 per user license annually and includes 5GB of cloud storage. Standard costs $79 per license annually, Backup Advanced costs $99, and Advanced costs $119 for the same period, all with 50GB of cloud storage. Note that these are the prices for individual workstations. 

If you’re installing Cyber Protect on a physical or virtual server, the Essential license costs $319 annually, Standard costs $539, Advanced costs $839, and Backup Advanced costs $709. You need a license for each machine or physical host, so the cost can add up to large amounts for enterprises protecting and backing up many devices.

Acronis Cyber Protect: Features

As we’ve mentioned before, Cyber Protect offers three main features;  backup and recovery, security, and endpoint protection management. 

Data loss can be costly, both in terms of revenue and manpower, to any organization. Hence, there’s a dire need to maintain frequent data backups, and Cyber Protect helps you do that. You can upload individual files or all the files on a particular device to servers operated by Acronis and retrieve them at any time. You just need to make sure that the size doesn’t exceed what’s allocated to your account. Even at that, you can always purchase extra cloud storage from Acronis.

Acronis Cloud isn’t the only storage option you’re allowed to use. You can also back up data to public cloud services like Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud. Likewise, you can back up data to physical storage such as tapes, disks, NAS (Network Attached Storage), and SAN (storage area network).

If you want to back up your data automatically, you can use the continuous data protection feature. The platform lets you define a list of critical apps that you frequently use. Afterward, Acronis' agent monitors these apps for every change you make and continuously backs it up. Hence, you'd not lose any data from these apps permanently.

When it’s time to recover data, Acronis lets you do it quickly and seamlessly. It stores data in a unified backup format, so you can recover it on any platform, regardless of the source system. To prevent restoring infected files,  Acronis scans all files for malware before backing them up and alerts you if it detects any.

Data loss can be caused by errors or malicious actors, but mostly due to the latter. Hence, protection from malware and antivirus is paramount, especially for businesses, which hackers tend to target more often. 

Acronis provides a tool to monitor your workstation or server in real-time and alert you to anyone it detects. At any time, you can scan your machine for vulnerabilities to ensure all applications are up-to-date and can hardly be exploited by cybercriminals. 

Endpoint protection is the practice of securing endpoints of devices such as desktops, laptops, and mobile phones within a single network from cyber threats. It involves many activities, many of which Cyber Protect lets you do.

This platform lets you manage software updates on the Windows operating system to prevent vulnerabilities. You can schedule or manually deploy updates to any app on your device and make sure they’re always up to date. It also employs fail-safe patching, that is, performing an automatic backup before deploying an update. Hence, if the update is causing issues, you can always restore the previous version.

You can also manage devices remotely with Cyber Protect. For example, you can wipe data remotely to prevent disgruntled employees or rogue users from stealing them. Likewise, if employees are working from home, you can provide assistance remotely and conveniently.

Acronis Cyber Protect: Interface and use

Acronis Cyber Protect provides an interface that’s pretty easy to understand, with features laid out clearly across the dashboard. As an individual, you can easily monitor your PC for any vulnerabilities, or as an enterprise administrator, monitor multiple devices within a network. However, we think that the interface could use some improvements to give it a more modern feel.  

Acronis Cyber Protect: Support

There are many support resources available for Acronis Cyber Protect users. You can access detailed documentation about the platform and a Knowledge Base on the official website containing user guides and tutorials. There’s also an official forum where you can interact with other users and discuss the platform.

If you're not satisfied with these resources, you can always contact Acronis' support team directly through email or telephone.         

Acronis Cyber Protect: The competition

There are many alternative products that give you similar features to Cyber Protect. For example, you can get backup/restore through Veeam and endpoint protection through Malwarebytes. However, we think Cyber Protect has the upper hand, as it packs multiple features into one bundle.      

Acronis Cyber Protect: Final Verdict

If you want to protect your workstations or servers from threats and data loss, Acronis Cyber Protect will serve you effectively. However, the main downside is that it’s quite expensive, as you must pay for a license for each machine. We also think the UI could use some more improvements to serve users better.   

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