2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Report Now Available

DCIG is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the 2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Report. This DCIG TOP 5 report provides midmarket enterprises with guidance on the best VMware backup solutions for deployment in today’s virtualized server environments.

Today’s VMware Backup Dilemma

The individuals responsible for the ongoing protection and recovery of their VMware infrastructure currently face a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand, little has changed regarding the technicalities of backing up VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi virtual machines.

The mature VMware vSphere Storage APIs—Data Protection (VADP) work well with all enterprise data protection solutions supporting them. Further, many midmarket enterprises have established processes for managing their VMware backups with multiple, robust recovery options available to them. These factors contribute to midmarket enterprises (1,000 – 5,000 employees or those with up to thousands of VMs) wanting to minimize any changes to their current VMware backup environment.

Broadcom’s VMware Software Licensing Changes

On the other hand, from a business and threat perspective, everything has changed significantly. Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in late 2023 and subsequent licensing changes sent a shockwave through many midmarket enterprises.

Broadcom’s VMware software licensing changes highlights how much midmarket enterprises took VMWare’s prior software licensing model for granted. VMware’s predictable percentage year-over-year (YoY) increase doubled, tripled, or jumped by 10x for some.

Aggravating the situation, many midmarket enterprises neither explored nor identified viable VMware alternatives. This has forced many, for now, to remain with VMware while seeking a potential viable VMware alternative. Part of selecting an alternative VMware hypervisor often includes identifying one that a third-party backup software supports for backup.

Ransomware

Midmarket enterprises remain on high alert concerning ransomware—and for good reasons. While midmarket enterprises worry about its impact on their IT environment and reputation, they remain equally concerned about its unpredictable costs.

Hackers may research a midmarket enterprise before initiating a ransomware attack against it. If the attack “successfully” compromises it, hackers may seek a ransom of up to 5% of the midmarket enterprise’s annual revenue. This has resulted in ransomware victims paying out $1 billion in 2023, with projections indicating that 2024 may match or exceed this amount.

Adding further insults to injury, a midmarket enterprise receives no guarantees that it will get the desired result(s) after paying the ransom. The hackers’ provided decryption key may not work successfully, or the hacker may still release or sell its data. In either case, the ransomware event incurs substantial, unexpected out-of-pocket costs without guaranteeing a successful resolution.

These two new factors, among others, highlight that robust VADP support alone no longer sets one VMware backup solution apart from another. VADP has become a table stake feature. Instead, midmarket enterprises may choose a VMware backup solution based on factors such as whether it protects other hypervisors or detects ransomware.

The State of Midmarket VMware Backup Solutions 

To meet these and other challenges, most providers have introduced multiple new features into their midmarket VMware backup solutions. These new features show up in the following five ways.

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now readily available. In today’s world, the use of AI in most enterprise software is almost a given. Midmarket VMware backup solutions have similarly embraced AI with them using it to identify backup anomalies, providing proactive technical support, or in both ways.
2. Anomaly detection is displacing ransomware detection. The unreliability of using in-house or third-party ransomware detection has led backup providers to introduce anomaly detection into their backup offerings. Rather than looking for ransomware signatures in backups, VMware backup solutions look for anomalies in the backups or backup jobs instead.
3. Increased focus on cross hypervisor platform backup and restore. In the past, the need for this functionality fell more into the categorization of a “nice-to-have” than a “must-have.” However, the importance of this feature has already begun to increase. Midmarket enterprises evaluating the adoption of alternative VMware hypervisors must consider how they will migrate existing VMware VMs to VMware alternatives. This has put a new focus on cross hypervisor platform backup and restore capabilities.
4. Cloud-based management consoles are becoming prevalent. Providers may already have connectivity into midmarket enterprise IT environments to accommodate their use of AI. As such, introducing a cloud-based console to manage their solution in the midmarket enterprise’s environment becomes more practical. Further, a cloud-based management console may give midmarket enterprises more visibility into all their various backup deployments. However, cloud-based management consoles may not permit all the management functions that midmarket enterprises can perform locally.
5. Expanded cybersecurity functionality. Midmarket VMware backup solutions have expanded their cybersecurity capabilities to help combat ransomware attacks. In addition to using AI to detect anomalies, these solutions support data immutability, encryption, and multi-factor authentication capabilities.

2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 MIDMARKET VMWARE BACKUP SOLUTIONS

In preparing this report, DCIG formally evaluated over 30 different VMware backup solutions of which 17 met DCIG’s criteria for a midmarket VMware backup solution. The general categories under which the features of these VMware backup solutions fell included:

• Backup administration.
• Configuration, licensing, and pricing.
• General data protection capabilities.
• Recovery and restore.
• Service and support.
• VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi VM backup.

Based on these criteria, DCIG awarded the following midmarket VMware backup solutions a DCIG TOP 5 ranking (in alphabetical order):

• Acronis Cyber Protect
• Ahsay Backup
• Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP)
• AWS Backup for VMware
• Bacula Systtems VMware Backup

REPORT AVAILABILITY

The full 2025-26 DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Solutions Report is available for download immediately on DCIG’s site with registration by following this link. The full report contains additional details such as:

• A list of the 17 midmarket VMware backup solutions evaluated.
• A deeper examination of the state of midmarket VMware backup solutions.
• Four nuanced differences between enterprise and midmarket backup solutions.
• Common features across all midmarket VMWare backup solutions.
• Distinguishing features of the DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Solutions.
• Differences between the DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Solutions.
• A profile of each DCIG TOP 5 Midmarket VMware Backup Solutions that lists at least three (3) ways each one distinguishes itself from the other solutions.

KEEP UP TO DATE WITH DCIG

DCIG will release more DCIG TOP 5 reports in the weeks and months to come. Please sign up for the weekly DCIG Newsletter to receive notice of their availability.

To learn about DCIG’s forthcoming research and publications, see the DCIG Publication Calendar.

Technology providers interested in licensing DCIG TOP 5 reports or having DCIG produce custom reports, please contact DCIG for more information.