In short: Altaro was acquired by Hornetsecurity in January 2021 and the products were renamed: Altaro VM Backup became VM Backup, and Altaro Office 365 Backup became 365 Total Backup. Both are actively developed, with releases through 2026. Nothing about your data or your backups changed at the rebrand; what moved was the branding, the portal and the support path. VM Backup now covers Hyper-V, VMware and Proxmox, which is the detail most worth knowing if you have moved hypervisor since you bought it.

Who this is for
  • You bought Altaro and are trying to find out what happened to it
  • You are searching for Altaro support or downloads and cannot find them
  • Your renewal is due and the invoice now says Hornetsecurity
  • You have moved to Proxmox and are wondering whether your existing backup covers it
What it costs to leave it

Rebrands quietly break the things nobody documented. The renewal arrives from a company you do not recognise and gets queried or ignored, the support portal that is bookmarked no longer exists, and the person who knew where the licence lived has left. None of that damages the backups until the day you need support and cannot get to it.

What happened, in one paragraph

Hornetsecurity acquired Altaro in January 2021. Altaro was a Malta-based backup vendor with a strong position in the Hyper-V and SMB market; Hornetsecurity was a cloud email security business. The acquisition gave Hornetsecurity a backup portfolio and gave Altaro's products a larger platform.

The products were renamed rather than replaced. Altaro VM Backup is now VM Backup. Altaro Office 365 Backup is now 365 Total Backup. Both continue to be developed, with releases through 2026.

For an existing customer, the rebrand changed the name on the invoice, the portal you log into and the support path. It did not change your backups, your retention or your restore points.

VM Backup, and the Proxmox question

VM Backup covers Hyper-V, VMware and Proxmox. The last of those is the detail worth checking against your own estate, because a meaningful number of businesses have moved or are considering moving to Proxmox since VMware's licensing changes, and generally assume their existing backup product will not follow them.

If that describes you, check before you buy something else. The product you already own may cover the hypervisor you are moving to.

The wider positioning has not really changed since the Altaro days: it is straightforward, priced for small and mid-sized estates, and deliberately does less than the enterprise products. That is a virtue when it fits and a constraint when it does not, which is what the comparison guide below is for.

365 Total Backup

The Microsoft 365 side, covering Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams data, held outside the Microsoft 365 service boundary.

That last point is the whole reason to consider it now that Microsoft sells first-party backup of its own. Microsoft 365 Backup is genuinely good and genuinely fast, and by design its copies stay inside Microsoft's data trust boundary. A third-party product like 365 Total Backup is a separate copy in a separate place, which is a different thing and the reason regulated firms and anyone asked for an independent copy still buy one.

Which of the three layers you actually need is set out in full on our page on whether Microsoft 365 backs up your data.

What to do if you are on an old Altaro licence

Three things, in order.

Find out what you are actually licensed for and on what version. Estates that were bought years ago and renewed on autopilot frequently carry licence counts that no longer match the number of hosts or mailboxes in use, in both directions.

Check the version you are running is still current. This is where a rebrand does real damage: the update path is fine, but nobody is watching for updates because the vendor emails come from a name that gets filtered.

Then check the coverage still matches the estate. Hypervisor migrations, new servers and Microsoft 365 workloads added since purchase are the three things that most often sit outside a backup nobody has revisited.

What we do with Hornetsecurity

  • Work out what your old Altaro licence has become and what it now covers
  • Bring the estate onto a current version, including hosts nobody added
  • Manage VM Backup and 365 Total Backup ongoing, including restore testing
  • Cover the Proxmox, Hyper-V and VMware mix rather than assuming one hypervisor
  • Tell you honestly when a different product fits your estate better

Related

Frequently asked

What happened to Altaro?

Hornetsecurity acquired Altaro in January 2021 and renamed the products. Altaro VM Backup is now VM Backup, and Altaro Office 365 Backup is now 365 Total Backup. Both are actively developed, with releases through 2026. If you were an Altaro customer you still own the same product; the branding, the portal and the support path changed, and your backups, retention and restore points did not.

Is Altaro VM Backup still supported?

Yes, under the name VM Backup. The product line was continued rather than retired, and it now covers Hyper-V, VMware and Proxmox. What tends to break after a rebrand is not the product but the human process around it: vendor emails arrive from a name nobody recognises and get filtered, so updates stop being applied and renewals get queried. If you have not looked at yours since it was called Altaro, check the version you are on.

Does VM Backup support Proxmox?

Yes, alongside Hyper-V and VMware. This is worth checking against your own plans, because a number of businesses have moved or are considering moving to Proxmox following VMware's licensing changes, and most assume their existing backup product will not come with them. If you are in that position, check what you already own before buying something else; it may already cover where you are going.

Do I still need 365 Total Backup now Microsoft sells its own backup?

It depends on whether you need a copy held outside Microsoft. Microsoft 365 Backup is a real product and it is fast, precisely because its copies stay inside the Microsoft 365 data trust boundary. A third-party product like 365 Total Backup holds a separate copy in a separate place under separate control. If your concern is accidental or malicious deletion, first-party covers it well. If it is tenant-level compromise, a retention obligation beyond a year, or an auditor or insurer asking specifically for an independent copy, it does not.

Our renewal came from Hornetsecurity and we did not recognise it. Is it genuine?

Very likely yes, and it is a common enough question to be worth stating plainly: if you bought Altaro at any point, your renewal will now come from Hornetsecurity. That said, do not take that as a reason to pay an invoice you cannot place. The correct response to an unexpected invoice is always to verify it through a channel you already trust rather than one printed on the invoice itself, and we are happy to confirm whether a Hornetsecurity renewal matches what you actually hold.

Other vendors we support

Not sure where you stand with Hornetsecurity?

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