IT AI Index
Index Cloud and infrastructure Backup and DR › Small business September 2026 Edition

Backup and disaster recovery for small business buyers

Asked as “backup and disaster recovery solution”, and as “data backup and recovery service”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Contested
37% of first choices, contested.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Acronis Cyber Protect37%0%40endorsed leader
02IDrive Business22%0%35accepted challenger
03Backblaze7%6%17accepted challenger
04Veeam4%10%20accepted challenger
05Cove Data Protection4%0%12accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08Datto0%23%13accepted challenger
07Veeam Data Platform0%18%11accepted challenger
06Axcient x360Recover0%7%14accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Acronis Cyber Protect37%
02IDrive Business22%
03Backblaze7%
04Veeam4%
05Cove Data Protection4%
06Axcient x360Recover0%
07Veeam Data Platform0%
08Datto0%

02What they warned about

Five of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. GPT-5.4 mini, Mistral Small, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2 and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Microsoft OneDrive
100%
8 of 8 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Services like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and similar sync platforms mirror deletions and ransomware encryption, so they do not provide independent recovery copies.” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Dropbox
100%
8 of 8 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 7 hard negative
“Services like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and similar sync platforms mirror deletions and ransomware encryption, so they do not provide independent recovery copies.” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Google Drive
100%
7 of 7 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 6 hard negative
“Services like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and similar sync platforms mirror deletions and ransomware encryption, so they do not provide independent recovery copies.” Perplexity Sonar, negative prompt
Google Workspace
100%
4 of 4 labels negative · 4 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Native SaaS Platform "Backups" (The Shared Responsibility Trap)... Why to avoid it” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

57 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 717 links across 221 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

36 answers · 38 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Axcient28 answers · 32 citations · 10 models
24 answers · 24 citations · 8 models
23 answers · 29 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Veeam22 answers · 29 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Expert Insights17 answers · 24 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Consilien16 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
14 answers · 19 citations · 6 models
11 answers · 11 citations · 8 models
11 answers · 11 citations · 7 models
11 answers · 11 citations · 6 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best backup and disaster recovery solution for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which data backup and recovery service would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top backup and disaster recovery solutions for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best backup and disaster recovery solution for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a backup and disaster recovery solution. What should we look at?”Negative“Which backup and disaster recovery solutions should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceno first choiceHeldNAKIVO Backup & Replication
Three alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect Backup, Arcserve UDP, Unitrends
against: Veeam Backup & Replication
Acronis, Backblazeagainst: Bacula, Proxmox Backup Serverno first choiceagainst: Bacula, Carbonite Safe
GPT-5.4 minino first choiceVeeamChanged
Two alternativesDatto BCDR, Dropbox Backup
Acronis Cyber Protect / Cyber Protect Cloud, Backblaze, Veeam Backup & Replication
One alternativeMSP360 Backup
against: Datto
Backblaze, IDrive Businessagainst: Dropbox, Microsoft OneDriveno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashAcronis Cyber Protect
Five alternativesAxcient x360, Datto SIRIS, Druva Data Resiliency Cloud, HYCU, Synology Active Backup for Business
against: Veeam Data Platform
Acronis Cyber ProtectHeld
Two alternativesBackblaze Business Backup, Veeam Data Platform
no first choice
Nine alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backblaze B2, Carbonite Cloud-to-Cloud, Datto ALTO / SIRIS, Dropsuite, MSP360, Synology Active Backup for Business, Veeam Backup Essentials, Veeam Data Platform
Synology NAS + Active Backup
Six alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backblaze B2, Backblaze Business Backup, IDrive Business, Veeam Community Edition, Wasabi
Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesCove Data Protection, Datto, Druva
against: Veeam
against: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft OneDrive, Salesforce
Perplexity SonarAcronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesCove Data Protection, IDrive Business, Veeam
against: Datto / DRaaS tools
Acronis Cyber ProtectHeld
Four alternativesBackblaze Business Backup, Cove Data Protection, IDrive Business, Veeam Backup Essentials
Acronis Cyber Protect, Axcient x360Recover, IDrive Business
Two alternativesDatto, Veeam
IDrive Business
Three alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backblaze, Veeam
no first choiceagainst: Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft OneDrive
Grok 4.1 FastAcronis Cyber Protect
Four alternativesAxcient x360Recover, Backblaze, IDrive Business, Veeam Backup Essentials
Acronis Cyber ProtectHeld
Two alternativesBackblaze, IDrive Business
against: Veeam
Backblaze Business Backup, IDrive Business
Three alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Cove Data Protection, Veeam Data Platform
IDrive Business
Five alternativesBackblaze, Backblaze B2, BorgBackup, Duplicati, Veeam Agent
against: Bacula
Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesDatto, IDrive Business, Veeam
against: Azure Site Recovery, Backup Exec, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Unitrends
Mistral SmallAcronis Cyber Protect, Cove Data Protectionno first choiceChangedAcronis Cyber Protect
Five alternativesArcserve UDP, Axcient x360Recover, Datto, IDrive Business, Veeam
IDrive Business
Three alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, BackupAssist, Synology NAS
no first choiceagainst: Google Drive, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft OneDrive
DeepSeek V4 FlashAcronis Cyber Protect
Six alternativesAxcient x360Recover, Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud, Cove Data Protection, Datto SIRIS, IDrive Business, Veeam Data Platform
IDrive BusinessChanged
Five alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backblaze, Cove, Datto SIRIS, Veeam Data Platform
Backblaze, IDrive Business
Four alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Axcient x360Recover, Datto SIRIS, Veeam Backup Essentials
Backblaze, IDrive Business
Two alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, CrashPlan
against: Veeam Data Platform
no first choiceagainst: Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Shadow Copy, Time Machine
Llama 4 Maverickno first choiceVeeamChanged
Three alternativesAWS, NovaBACKUP, Pexo
Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesAxcient x360Recover, IDrive Business, Simple Backups
BackupAssist
Two alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, IDrive Business
Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesAxcient x360Recover, IDrive Business, Simple Backups
nothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashAcronis Cyber Protect
Four alternativesDatto, NinjaOne, SpinOne, Veeam Backup & Replication
Backblaze Business BackupChanged
Five alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Druva InSync / Phoenix, IDrive Business, NinjaOne, Veeam Availability Suite
Acronis Cyber Protect
Five alternativesBackblaze, Cove Data Protection, Datto BCDR, IDrive Business, Veeam Data Platform
IDrive Business, Synology + Active Backup Suite
Six alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backblaze B2, Kopia, Restic, Veeam Community Edition, Wasabi
against: Commvault, Dropbox
Acronis, Nakivo
One alternativeVeeam
against: Datto
against: Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive
Kimi K2Datto SIRIS
Four alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Cove Data Protection, IDrive Business, Veeam Backup & Replication
IDrive BusinessChanged
Four alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Backupify, Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup, Veeam
Acronis Cyber Protect
Five alternativesBackblaze, Carbonite Safe, Datto SIRIS, IDrive Business, Veeam Backup Essentials
IDrive Business
Four alternativesBackblaze B2, BackupAssist, Synology NAS, UrBackup
Acronis Cyber Protect
Four alternativesAxcient x360Recover, Datto SIRIS, IDrive Business, Veeam
against: Backblaze Personal, Commvault, Rubrik, iDrive consumer
against: Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Microsoft OneDrive
GLM 4.7 FlashXAcronis Cyber Protect
Five alternativesAxcient x360Recover, Backupify / Datto SaaS Protection, Infrascale, Keepit, Veeam Data Platform
Acronis Cyber ProtectHeld
Two alternativesBackblaze Business Backup, Veeam Backup Essentials
Acronis Cyber Protect, IDrive Business
Six alternativesAxcient x360Recover, Backblaze Business Backup, Cove Data Protection, CrashPlan, MSP360 Backup, Veeam Data Platform
Veeam Backup & Replication Community Edition
Seven alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Aomei Backupper Free, Backblaze B2, IDrive Business, Macrium Reflect Free, QNAP, Synology DS923+
against: Axcient x360Recover, Datto
no first choiceagainst: Backblaze Personal, Cohesity, Commvault, Rubrik, iDrive Personal
MiniMax M2.5Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesBackblaze, IDrive Business, Veritas Backup Exec
Carbonite, DruvaChanged
Two alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, Veeam
Acronis Cyber Protect
Three alternativesAxcient x360Recover, IDrive Business, Simple Backups
against: Arcserve UDP, Backblaze
Backblaze B2, IDrive Business
Two alternativesAcronis Cyber Protect, BackupAssist
Acronis Cyber Protect, Cove Data Protection
Three alternativesAxcient x360Recover, IDrive Business, Veeam Data Platform
nothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:49no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:36no06 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:19yes2322 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:15yes207 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:19yes1714 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:54yes55 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:57yes1221 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:44yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:48no034 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:09yes1933 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:55yes23109 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:15yes523 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:23no05 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:11yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:36yes1019 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 12:45yes2010 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:58yes2913 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 10:06no01 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 09:56yes1915 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:14yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:57yes519 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 14:12yes1035 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:34yes1052 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:08no09 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:53yes189 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:11yes613 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:29yes2032 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 09:23yes209 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:00yes4322 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:16yes59 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:29yes1120 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:22yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 13:37yes1453 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:36yes1535 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:21yes1049 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:36yes519 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:48no06 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:58no03 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:17yes1023 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:39yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:55yes4419 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:21yes56 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:21yes813 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:23yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:35no039 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:23yes1022 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:01yes25168 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:27yes517 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:45no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:19no08 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:00no013 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:47yes208 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 09:49yes1511 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 10:52no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:18yes1015 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:50yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:39no040 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:14yes1022 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:52yes15213 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:53yes526 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 10:02yes1712 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:05no05 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:50yes1822 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:18yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:27yes3815 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:55yes57 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:29yes1020 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:23yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:49yes1035 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:25yes2055 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:17yes1673 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:37yes1463 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
None. Every name in this category resolved on its own.
Unresolved, counted raw
Acronis Cyber Protect / Cyber Protect Cloud
Acronis Cyber Protect Backup
Amazon S3 Glacier
Aomei Backupper Free
AvePoint
Axcient x360
Backblaze Personal Backup
Backup Exec
Backup360
Backupify / Datto SaaS Protection
Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud
Carbonite Cloud-to-Cloud
CloudBerry
Cove
Datto / DRaaS tools
Datto ALTO / SIRIS
Dropbox Backup
Druva InSync / Phoenix
InvenioIT
Mozy
Pexo
Proxmox Backup Server
Salesforce Backup & Recover
Shadow Copy
SkyKick
Spanning Backup
StorageCraft
Synology + Active Backup Suite
Synology DS220j
Synology DS923+
Synology NAS + Active Backup
Time Machine
UrBackup
Veeam Agent
Veeam Availability Suite
Veeam Backup Community Edition
Veeam Data Cloud for SaaS
iDrive Personal
iDrive consumer
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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