Endpoint Backup Buyers’ Guide 2025

State of the market: Endpoint backup solutions automatically create backups of data stored on endpoint devices, such as PCs, laptops, tablets, and cell phones. They then store those backups in a secure location, providing business continuity and quick recovery in the event of ransomware, hardware failure, device theft, or accidental deletion. 

• The endpoint backup software market was valued at USD 3.5 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% between 2026 and 2033 to reach a value of USD 8.7 billion.
• Growth is being driven primarily by the proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace as organizations continue to embrace hybrid and remote work, as well as by compliance frameworks that require organizations to safeguard sensitive data—sometimes for specific time periods, such as HIPAA.
• As the market continues to grow, we’re seeing an increase in demand for cloud-based backup solutions, which offer improved scalability, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility when compared with their on-premises counterparts. 
• We’re also seeing higher demand for affordable, user-friendly solutions for SMBs, as increasingly more SMBs are recognizing the importance of safeguarding their data.
  • To make backup more accessible to SMBs with lower budgets and a likely lack of expertise, we expect more vendors to develop solutions that cater specifically to the needs of smaller organizations, offering well-rounded but perhaps less technically complex data protection at a lower cost. 
  • “A lot of times, SMBs may only have one or two people in their IT department managing all of their backups. So, it’s really important that the product is usable […] It also needs to be flexible so that, as your business grows, you can backup that data.” – Kirsten Stoner, Veeam

Why trust us: We’ve researched, demoed, and tested several leading endpoint backup solutions, spoken to organizations of all sizes about their backup and recovery challenges and the features that are most useful to them, and interviewed executives from leading providers in the backup space.

You can find our product reviews, interviews, and Top 10 shortlists to the best endpoint backup products on the market in our Backup and Recovery Hub.

Our recommendations: Before we jump into the details, here are our top tips on how to get the most out of your endpoint backup implementation:

• For highly regulated organizations: Make sure you’re aware of the data protection requirements that your organization has to comply with, and choose a solution that will enable you to achieve and prove compliance (e.g., by allowing you to set multiple retention periods that erase different types of data after specified periods of time).
• For overburdened teams: Automate, automate, automate! Most modern endpoint backup tools offer a wide range of automations, from scheduling backups, to classifying data, to notifying you of backup issues, to detecting anomalies within your backup server—use these features!
• For an optimized backup strategy: Identify on which endpoints your most critical data is stored, and make sure that you’re consistently backing them up. You should also make use of your solution’s data labelling or classification tools, to help restore critical data as a priority in the event of company-wide data loss.
• For seamless recovery: Set clear Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) that define the maximum acceptable period in which data can be lost after an incident, and the time within which services must be restored after a failure. Then, choose a tool that allows you to meet those objectives. You should also regularly test your backups to make sure you can recover critical systems quickly and effectively if an incident does occur.

How endpoint backup solutions work: Endpoint backup solutions are typically deployed by installing an agent on each endpoint that needs protection.

Once installed, you can set the solution to carry out scans (either on-demand or according to a defined schedule) that record all the data stored on the endpoint. The solution then creates copies of that data and writes those copies out to a secondary storage facility—usually a cloud-based server or a physical data center. There are pros and cons to each storage type, so the one you choose will depend on your budget and the setup of the rest of your environment. However, to help you make that decision, we recommend:

1. Checking with any compliance frameworks relevant to your organization whether they require you to store your backups in a certain format or location, e.g., for data residency controls.
2. Following the “3-2-1” rule: create at least three copies of your data, in at least two different formats, and store one of those copies offsite. 

Once your backups have been securely stored, you can use them to recover data in the event it’s lost, corrupted, or stolen. Usually, this means logging into an administrative console and utilizing the solution’s search functionality to locate the data you want to recover, then simply clicking a “restore” button. While most modern endpoint backup solutions will enable you to recover anything from individual files to whole systems, the search functionality and flexibility of recovery options will vary between solutions—more on that in the “Features checklist” below!

Benefits of endpoint backup: There are three main benefits to implementing an endpoint backup solution:

1. Safeguard your data against loss, theft, and corruption.  
   • Data stored on your users’ endpoints is susceptible to loss in multiple ways. Their device could be stolen, damaged, lost, or even infected with malware or ransomware. An endpoint backup solution won’t stop these things from happening, but it will keep your data safe in the event they do. 
   • Not only that, but the best endpoint backup tools make sure you can recover data in its original form, to the location of your choice. So, if a user has lost their device, you can restore their data to a new one.
2. Ensure compliance with data protection frameworks.
   • An endpoint backup solution can help you meet strict federal or industry-specific data protection regulations, such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SEC, and FINRA. 
   • As well as helping you prove that you’re taking steps to secure sensitive data, the best backup solutions enable you to set multiple retention periods to ensure that different types of data are stored securely for as long as mandated by the compliance body. 
3. Ensure business continuity.
   • Endpoint backup solutions make it much quicker and easier for your business to get back on its feet in the event of a business-wide disruption or data loss incident, such as a ransomware attack. This means you can minimize downtime and loss of productivity. 
   • Plus, end users can use an endpoint backup to access their data should their network access go down.
     • “I often use the analogy of house insurance. You don’t need house insurance. But most people have it, not because they want their house to burn down, but because, if it does, they want to be able to recover quickly from that incident.” – Mark Mulcahy, Waterford Technologies
4. Save money. 
   • Last, but certainly not least, an endpoint backup tool can save your organization money. Sure, you have to spend money on an endpoint backup solution—but the cost of a backup tool is far less than the cost of a breach.
   • The average cost of a data breach is USD $4.88 million. That’s enough to put many organizations—particularly SMBs—out of business.
   • Plus, if you’re found to have been non-compliant with data protection regulations, you could end up paying a hefty fine; in 2024, there was a 22% increase in the number of breached organizations that had to pay a noncompliance fine of over USD $50,000. 

Common endpoint backup challenges: There are a few common challenges that you might come across when implementing an endpoint backup solution. Here’s what they are and how to overcome them:

1. Because endpoint backup solutions create copies of all the data on each of your users’ endpoints, their storage requirements can become very high. This means storage can also be costly—particularly if you’re using cloud storage. We recommend finding a solution that compresses your data to reduce its storage size, and allows you to carry out incremental or differential backups. This means that, rather than capturing all your data during each scan, it will only capture any new data that hasn’t already been backed up.
   • “Unpredictable pricing in public cloud environments often causes financial challenges. Prioritize solutions offering predictable, all-in pricing that aligns with budgetary goals. These solutions combine storage, compute, and networking costs while eliminating data egress fees and unforeseen overages, providing cost stability and efficiency.” – Rob Emsley, Dell Technologies
2. If you experience a company-wide data loss incident and need to recover several TB of data to your environment, it could take a few days, limiting your users’ productivity. If this happens, we recommend prioritizing the restoration of your most critical information. Using a tagging/labelling system to categorize your backups can help you do this.
3. It can be challenging to install an agent to every device in your organization, particularly if they’re running on different operating systems. We recommend finding a provider that covers all the device types within your business, and utilizing their management console to make sure you have full visibility over which endpoints are protected.
4. Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting backup servers; 93% of ransomware attacksexplicitly target backups, and malware authors are attempting to embed malware into backup servers so that the business restores malware following a data loss incident. If your backups were compromised, that would leave you with no way to restore your data should your production environment also be compromised. To mitigate this, we recommend choosing a provider that offers immutable, air-gapped, and offline storage options, as well as to use multi-factor authentication and the principle of least privilege to ensure only legitimate, authorized users can access your backup servers.
   • “The days when backup and cybersecurity could function as separate entities are over. Look for a solution that natively integrates backup with advanced cybersecurity capabilities. An integrated approach reduces vulnerabilities by ensuring that data protection and threat detection operate seamlessly together.” – Andy Kerr, Acronis

Best endpoint backup providers: Our team of software analysts and researchers have put together a shortlist of the best providers of endpoint backup solutions, as well as adjacent lists covering similar topics:

• The Top 7 Endpoint Backup Solutions
• The Top 10 Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery Solutions
• The Top 10 Backup As-A-Service Solutions
• The Top 10 Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) Solutions
• The Top 10 Server Backup Software
• The Top 11 SaaS Backup Solutions

Features checklist: When comparing endpoint backup solutions, Expert Insights recommends looking for the following features:

1. Automated backups: The solution should support scheduled and continuous backups to consistently protect your data with minimal manual intervention.
2. Incremental backups: To save storage space and costs, the solution should only capture the changes since the last backup.
3. Fast and reliable recovery: You should be able to quickly restore individual files, folders, or entire systems with minimal downtime. The best solutions allow you to choose the format you’d like to restore files in, as well as the location (e.g., to the original location or to a new device).
4. Self-service recovery: End users should be able to restore their own files without IT assistance, reducing helpdesk workload and boosting productivity.
5. Centralized management: You should be able to manage backup policies, monitor backup status, and restore data across all endpoints from a single interface.
6. Resource optimization: The solution should minimize network impact by controlling how much bandwidth backups can use, especially during peak hours. It should also offer deduplication and compression to optimize storage space.
7. In-built security features: The solution should encrypt data both in transit and at rest, support integration with MFA services and offer role-based access to both the admin console and backup repository, and detect malware or ransomware within the backup server to ensure the integrity of your backups.
8. Cloud and on-prem storage options: You should be able to store backups in the cloud, on local servers, or in hybrid environments based on your business’ needs.
9. Cross-platform support: The solution must support all the various operating systems and devices in use across your organization. 
10. Compliance and reporting: You should be able to generate audit-ready reports to demonstrate compliance with data protection regulations.

Future Trends: As the endpoint backup market continues to grow, we expect to see it evolve in a few key ways.

First, we expect more organizations to switch to a cloud backup model. In the past, on-premises solutions were the most popular backup method but, looking to the future, as cloud costs reduce, cloud backups will likely become the dominant method. As a result of this, we can expect backup providers to offer cross-cloud solutions, enabling organizations to integrate their tools seamlessly into their existing security stack without worrying about vendor lock-in. 

Second, as the concept of zero trust continues to proliferate, we can expect more endpoint backup providers to integrate these principles as standard. In practice, this will involve continuously verifying all user logins and data access requests. 

Finally, as GenAI continues to lower the barrier of entry for malware and ransomware attacks, we expect backup and recovery providers to focus on delivering tighter integrations with other third-party security tools, ensuring immutability, and embedding AI-driven ransomware detection and remediation capabilities into their solutions. This will give admins confidence in the integrity of their backups. 

Further Reading: You can find all our articles on endpoint backup in our Backup and Recovery Hub.

No time to browse? Here are a few articles we think you’ll enjoy: 

• Shortlist: The Top 7 Endpoint Backup Solutions
• Interview: Kirsten Stoner On Improving Resilience Against Attacks On Backup Servers
• Blog: How To Recover From A Ransomware Attack
• Blog: What Is BCDR, Why Is It Important, And How Do You Build A BCDR Plan?