Osiris vs. Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365
Veeam is the market's most recognized name in Microsoft 365 backup, with two distinct products: the self-hosted Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (VBM365), and the vendor-hosted SaaSVeeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365. They have different architectures and are priced differently; both use a recurring, per-user model rather than a one-time purchase.
| Fact | Source | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| VBM365's self-hosted server component requires 64-bit Windows Server (2016–2025) or Windows 10/11; backup proxies run on Windows, or on Linux only for object-storage repositories; a local, remote or Azure-hosted PostgreSQL 15.9+/16.4+ database is required. | Veeam system requirements | Confirmed, official |
| Licensed per protected user, sold as a subscription or, for service providers, a monthly rental. No perpetual licence is documented in official sources. | Licensing and License Types, Rental License | Confirmed, official |
| A free Community Edition exists, unlimited in time: up to 10 user accounts, 1 TB of SharePoint data, 10 Teams; restoring does not need a licence at all. | Licensing and License Types | Confirmed, official |
| After a licence lapses: a one-month grace period for subscriptions, two months for rental licences; after that, backup jobs stop but restoring already-backed-up data stays possible. | Subscription License | Confirmed, official |
| Veeam Data Cloud (the SaaS product) is billed per user (covering their mailbox, OneDrive and personal site) on annual, multi-year or monthly terms. If a protected object has no restore point for 31 days, its individual licence is released and stops counting toward the total licensed count (freeing it up, rather than a penalty). | Veeam Data Cloud licensing | Confirmed, official |
| Veeam Data Cloud stores data in dedicated, Veeam-operated Azure storage accounts in a region you pick, including Germany West Central and the EU Data Boundary; the Express plan instead uses Microsoft 365 Backup Storage. No option to use your own storage was found. | Region availability | Confirmed, official |
| Encryption keys for Veeam Data Cloud are bring-your-own via the customer's own Azure Key Vault. Veeam does not hold the key material itself. | BYOK encryption | Confirmed, official |
| No automated, SureBackup-style test-restore feature for Microsoft 365 backups was found in the 8.6 release documentation; a Veeam product manager stated on the community forum (26 September 2023) that no such feature existed at that time. | Veeam community forum | Moderate: forum post, not an official doc page |
| PST export is available through Veeam Explorer, but requires a local Microsoft Outlook installation to run. | One-click export | Confirmed, official |
| No open-source edition or AGPL/GPL licensing was found for either product; both are proprietary commercial software. | Absence checked across the licensing pages above | Confirmed (negative finding) |
How Osiris differs
Both Veeam products meter by user, continuously, for as long as you keep backing up: VBM365 as a subscription or rental with no documented perpetual option, Veeam Data Cloud on the same recurring basis. Osiris is a one-time purchase per edition with no mailbox limit at all (see pricing): what you pay does not change whether you protect 10 mailboxes or 10,000. On storage, the two Veeam products differ from each other: VBM365 runs on a Windows server you operate, and from there can write to local disks, SMB shares or object storage (Amazon S3, Azure Blob, IBM Cloud Object Storage, Wasabi, or other S3-compatible repositories), a real choice, just one that also requires running and patching that Windows server yourself. Veeam Data Cloud, being SaaS, stores backups only in Veeam-operated Azure storage in a region you pick; there is no option to point it at storage you operate. Osiris runs as one Docker Compose stack on any server you choose and writes to local disk, S3-compatible storage, NFS or SMB per organization, with no Windows dependency. Veeam Data Cloud's BYOK encryption is a genuinely strong point on their side worth naming plainly. SeeYour data is your data for how Osiris's own per-organization key model compares. Osiris is in closed beta and not for sale yet; prices on this page are planned launch terms.
All facts above from Veeam's own official documentation, checked 2026-09-23 and spot-re-checked 2026-09-24. Prices, editions and documented behaviour change. Verify current terms directly with Veeam before deciding. This page is not an endorsement of, or argument against, Veeam; it states what its own documentation says.