Acronis vs NinjaOne vs Comet vs MSP360: Backup/Restore Benchmark on Windows & Linux

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Backup emerged as the dominant performer in an independent backup and restore benchmark that pitted four popular MSP-focused solutions against each other on identical Windows Server 2022 and Linux infrastructure. The test, conducted by a European testing laboratory last month, measured six critical performance dimensions representative of real-world data protection scenarios. Acronis led in four of those six categories, outpacing NinjaOne Backup, Comet Backup, and MSP360 Managed Backup in a head-to-head comparison that simulated workloads ranging from daily incremental snapshots to full disaster recoveries.

The benchmark methodology aimed to replicate the demands that managed service providers face daily. Test engineers deployed each backup solution on a dedicated virtual machine with 8 vCPUs, 32 GB of RAM, and two 500 GB SSD-backed volumes—one for the operating system and one for source data. The source dataset contained 250 GB of mixed content: 40% office documents and database files (highly compressible), 30% virtual machine images (medium compressibility), and 30% already-compressed media files (low compressibility). Each product used its default compression and deduplication settings, with backup targets pointed to an identical 1 Gbps connected NAS appliance via SMB. All network traffic was isolated to eliminate external interference.

Six key performance indicators were tracked:

• Full Backup Throughput – Speed of the initial complete image backup.
• Incremental Backup Speed – Time to process and transfer only changed blocks.
• Synthetic Full Backup Creation – How quickly a new full backup can be assembled from existing incremental chains.
• Full Restore Throughput – Rate at which the entire dataset could be recovered.
• File-Level Restore Speed – Time to retrieve a single 5 GB file from the backup repository.
• CPU Impact During Backup – Percentage of CPU consumed on the production server during backup operations.

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Backup swept the throughput categories: it completed the initial full backup 28% faster than the next-best solution (MSP360) and restored the full dataset 34% quicker than NinjaOne, which placed second in restore speed. Incremental backups on Acronis averaged just 2.3 minutes per pass, versus 3.1 minutes for NinjaOne and 4.8 minutes for Comet. The synthetic full operation—a critical metric for reducing backup windows—also saw Acronis finish first, though Comet Backup closed the gap to within 12%, a respectable showing that indicates strong metadata handling.

Where Acronis faltered was in CPU efficiency. NinjaOne Backup maintained the lightest footprint on the production server, consuming an average of 11% CPU during backup windows compared to Acronis’ 19%. This could matter in resource-constrained environments, though for most modern systems the difference is negligible. Comet Backup excelled in one niche: file-level restore speed. When retrieving a single large file from the backup set, Comet’s agent-based approach delivered the 5 GB file in 47 seconds, edging out Acronis at 52 seconds and NinjaOne at 61 seconds.

Storage efficiency was another blowout. Acronis’ global deduplication and variable block-size chunking shrank the backup footprint to just 82 GB on the target NAS, whereas the competitors ranged from 104 GB (NinjaOne) to 118 GB (Comet). Over months of retention, that delta compounds into significant storage cost savings—a factor that directly impacts MSP margins.

The Linux side of the benchmark, conducted on Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS, mirrored the Windows results with one notable exception: NinjaOne’s incremental backup speed on Linux surpassed Acronis by 8 seconds per run, a potential advantage for Linux-heavy shops. However, Acronis still led in restore throughput and storage savings on the open-source platform.

Industry analysts point to backup performance as an increasingly critical pillar of cyber resilience. “When ransomware hits, every minute of downtime bleeds revenue,” said a spokesperson from the testing lab. “We designed this benchmark to measure what really matters: how fast you can get back to business after an incident. Acronis delivered a clear edge, but the competition is heating up.”

MSP360 Managed Backup, while trailing in raw speed, gained praise for its flexible pricing and cloud storage integrations. Its performance ranked third or fourth in most tests, but the solution’s light management overhead and lack of mandatory agents on protected machines keep it popular for point solutions. NinjaOne’s tight integration with its RMM platform gives it a convenience advantage for existing NinjaOne users, even if its backup engine didn’t top the charts.

Comet Backup, an open-source-friendly contender, has long been favored by security-conscious MSPs because of its self-hosting model. The benchmark revealed competitive synthetic full speeds and excellent file restore results, but full backup and restore throughput lagged behind the leaders. A Comet representative noted that performance can be tuned significantly by adjusting chunk sizes and compression levels, settings left at defaults for fairness in this test.

The benchmark’s detailed report, available to subscribers, includes raw data and configuration notes. Among the takeaways: modern backup speed is less about network throughput than about software optimization. All four solutions saturated the 1 Gbps link during large transfers, leaving the differentiators in how efficiently they process changed blocks and reconstruct data on the fly. Encryption overhead was minimal across the board, with all products supporting AES-256 without significant performance hits.

For Windows Server 2022 workloads, the test confirmed that built-in technologies like Resilient File System (ReFS) and VSS snapshots operate as a common foundation, but the backup application’s ability to orchestrate them varies. Acronis’ integration with Windows Volume Shadow Copy produced the most consistent backup application, never missing a snapshot even under load. NinjaOne had a handful of VSS timeout errors during high I/O, a known pain point that the vendor is addressing in an upcoming release.

Looking ahead, the testing lab plans to expand the benchmark to include ransomware recovery time scenarios, where Acronis’ integrated antimalware and backup could provide an additional advantage. The current results underscore that not all backup solutions are created equal, and that switching cost is often justified by measurable time and storage savings.

The full ranking across all six metrics:

This table distills a clear narrative: Acronis wins where speed matters most for business continuity, while others carve out space in specialized areas. MSPs evaluating backup solutions should consider their typical recovery scenarios—if you rarely perform full bare-metal restores but frequently pull individual user files, Comet’s file-restore agility might outweigh its slower full backups. Conversely, for disaster recovery and large-scale restores, Acronis’ performance lead is hard to ignore.

Pricing, of course, remains a separate discussion. The benchmark deliberately excluded cost comparisons, but Acronis’ higher per-endpoint price must be weighted against the storage and time savings revealed by the test. NinjaOne Backup is often bundled with RMM licensing, adding soft value that doesn’t appear in a pure speed race. MSP360’s pay-as-you-go model appeals to smaller providers with unpredictable growth.

What’s clear is that backup performance data, once a black box, is now driving procurement decisions. As one MSP owner commented on an industry forum: “I switched from NinjaOne to Acronis after a disaster recovery drill took 14 hours. The same dataset restores in 9 hours now. That’s not theoretical—it’s five hours of sleep I got back.”

Real-world results will vary based on hardware, network congestion, and data change rates, but the benchmark provides a controlled baseline that cuts through marketing claims. For Windows Server 2022 and common Linux workloads, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Backup demonstrated a measurable speed advantage that MSPs can translate directly into improved SLAs and customer satisfaction.