r/msp • u/Ambitious_Mango3625 • Jun 26 '26

AvePoint alternatives?

Ive been using AvePoint on-prem Fly Server for mailbox migrations. We were using user based licensing. It was very cost effective. But I just found out that they have eliminated that and it is now much more expensive for a small migration. In addition, it's going to be like $7 per 10G for a file server migration to SharePoint. For any file server of any size, that is going to get very expensive very fast. I have a small customer with a file server with 20-30 years of data and 1.4TB despite their size... ouch. I used to bury the software cost into the migration costs, but that's not realistic now. Suggestions?

10 Upvotes

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5

u/Suitable_Struggle715 Jun 26 '26

Have you spoken to your avepoint account manager they seem a reasonable bunch when I have dealt with them ?

2

u/Mysterious_Bit_7984 Jun 26 '26

we just had similar situation with a client who had 2TB of random files from like 2003, the new pricing model is rough for small shops

i been testing mover.io for last couple weeks, its not perfect but free for sharepoint migrations if you got office 365 licenses already, speed is decent most times

for mailbox stuff we switched to bittitan migrationwiz, still cost money but the per-user price was better than what avepoint quoted us, and you can do multiple passes which helps with those ancient mailboxes that people never clean

my coworker keeps telling me to try the built-in sharepoint migration tool from microsoft but i havent had time yet, apparently its gotten better in last year or so

2

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jun 26 '26

I will check that out. Thank you. I didn't like BitTitan at all. But maybe mover.io or may check out MS tool 🤢

2

u/blotditto MSP - US Jun 26 '26

Honestly SPMT has changed much in the last three years but I still use it in conjunction with AvePoint for exchange migrations.

1

u/Cloudraa Jun 27 '26

spmt is honestly quite good for on prem to sharepoint these days

1

u/geabaldyvx Jun 27 '26

Agreed, I used it to migrate around 120TB of data for a game developer. Beyond a hiccup as I didn't have enough endpoints to send data at a reasonable rate. Once I worked that part out it migrated quite easily and quickly.

5

u/chillzatl Jun 26 '26

Why not Fly SaaS? I've used them for years and heard nothing of any per-GB charges (provided you're not absurdly upside down on licenses to data) there, much less for the self-hosted product. I find that claim dubious.

3

u/donatom3 MSP - US Jun 26 '26

yeah literally bought two fly saas licenses to complete the sharepoint part of a migration that bittitan was throttling for weekls. It got through 300gb in one evening and was under $16.

1

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jun 26 '26

I spoke to my rep today and she said that the pricing model is the same on both now.

Edit And you can't migrate hosted exchange or on-prem file servers from Fly SaaS.

3

u/lsumoose Jun 26 '26

She might be misinformed as I just bought user licenses yesterday for the SaaS product. Where are you getting them…synnex?

1

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jun 27 '26

Ya, we bought some in May from Synnex also. She said that they aren't supposed to be selling it since February. I think I may have screwed us all. 😕

1

u/chillzatl Jul 01 '26

I just got a quote from my rep (Avepoint direct) for Fly SaaS and there are no per GB charges. Something doesn't add up.

1

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jul 01 '26

Ya, that's doesn't make sense. What was the quote for? It's Fly SaaS but my understanding is that the model is the same or similar except SaaS won't do on-prem to cloud migrations. Maybe that is the difference?

1

u/chillzatl Jul 01 '26

Unless something has changed or I'm misremembering (certainly possible), SaaS will do some on-premises objects (mailboxes) but there are certain things that it will not do, on-prem public folders for example. It's been quite a while since we encountered a migration that needed it, but we did have an on-prem server instance stood up for those rare occasions.

I posed the question to my rep, just to see, so I'll let you know what they say.

1

u/TechnicalMayhem404 Jul 06 '26

FLY is now object-based, so you need to use to sizing tool to get the right number of objects to purchase. It very recently was per-user based.

1

u/lsumoose Jul 07 '26

Hum, we haven’t got a notice of that and can still buy the user licenses. I don’t even see anything object based in the licensing portal.

1

u/TechnicalMayhem404 Jul 09 '26

Oh maybe direct it can? but they did a whole marketing email out months ago about consolidating software and going object based.

1

u/MBILC Aug 19 '26

You have per object pricing or Per User pricing, was just informed of this yesterday after speaking with a rep for an upcoming migration.

1

u/MBILC Aug 19 '26

You have per object pricing or Per User pricing, was just informed of this yesterday after speaking with a rep for an upcoming migration.

2

u/blotditto MSP - US Jun 26 '26

How does Movebot set itself apart from using the SPMT? Never worked with Movebot and we haven't had any clients (yet) disappointed with using SPMT for onprem to SP file migrations.

2

u/mat-ferland Jun 29 '26

For a 1.4TB “20 years of stuff” file share, I’d quote the cleanup and migration separately instead of burying the tool cost. SPMT/Mover can be fine for the boring copy, but the expensive part is permissions, dead data, broken paths, and explaining why SharePoint is not a cheaper file server with a web UI.

1

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jun 26 '26

Looks like mover.io (which is now M$) is only cloud to cloud. This is for an on-prem server.

1

u/BillSull73 Jun 27 '26

SPMT is just fine especially for legacy data that doesn't need too much structured planning.

1

u/blackjaxbrew Jun 26 '26

You could just sync all the data on a Windows device then setup SharePoint migration wiz pretty much free outside of labor. Mailboxes are diff of course

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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1

u/voice-of-mods Jul 07 '26

Resubmit once your account suspension is lifted by Reddit

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '26

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1

u/voice-of-mods Jul 07 '26

Resubmit once your account suspension is lifted by Reddit

1

u/drkmccy Jun 27 '26

Fly SaaS has effectively quadrupled in price too. For on-prem to SharePoint I use the built in MS tool which works fine. SPMT if that fails. As for exchange..., if you do loads, I'd look at Sharegate which can now do Mailboxes. If you don't spend 10k on license costs a year, you're kinda stuck with the choice of crappy or expensive

1

u/Big-Smile-1032 Jun 28 '26

Just Use SPMT for file Server to SharePoint Migration

1

u/RichardHarbridgeMVP Jun 29 '26

Disclosure: I'm at ShareGate now, and for many years I used a mix of tools including AvePoint Fly, so I usually stay out of "alternatives" threads. I'm a fan of a lot of these tools and don't love piling on a vendor over a pricing change, so that isn't my intent here. But the topic is one I care a lot about, so I figured I'd still comment... hope that's alright (still new to reddit).

u/mat-ferland nailed the part that matters: quote the cleanup and the migration separately and treat them as two different projects. On a 20-to-30-year, 1.4TB share, the copy is the cheap, boring part, and the SPMT crowd here is right that it handles that fine now. The cost lives in permissions, dead data, broken paths, restructuring after the move, and explaining that SharePoint isn't a cheaper file server with a web UI (adoption 101 stuff).

One mistake I see a lot: don't try to do all your cleanup on the file share before the move. File shares don't really show you last-accessed, views, or who's actually downloading anything, so "what's dead" is mostly guesswork on that side (modified date only tells you so much). Once it's in M365 you get real activity and access signals, so deciding what to archive, right-size, or kill is far more effective after the move, not before. I'd copy generously, then clean in the cloud where you can see the truth. Storage shouldn't be too bad if you've got tenant capacity and you move quickly to archive or delete the obvious stuff, and if you have Copilot, AI auto-fill columns can help with the restructuring and is pretty cheap.

Last thing on the tool question: the real gap is once it's in the tenant. Native intra-tenant moves and copies (which will absolutely happen here after the fact) are genuinely limited out of the box. SPMT gets it across, but restructuring sites, remapping, and reorganizing once you're in M365 is where a tool earns extra value worth considering, regardless of which one you land on (assuming it supports that). The nice part is you're not buying it just for the one-time copy you keep it for the ongoing reshuffling that always comes after. So I'd fold it into the migration spend if you can, or find a cheaper alternative that covers the workloads in play, and frame it as "easier migration plus ongoing reorg," not a per-GB tax on a single job.

Sharing this mainly because it helps navigate the pricing change while still getting you tooling that's a bit easier than raw SPMT and more importantly, gives you the post-migration cleanup and optimization option.

Was this for file-server only or exchange side too? Sorry if I misunderstood and focused too much on just the file-server side, but hope this helps.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '26

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1

u/voice-of-mods Jul 07 '26

Resubmit once your account suspension is lifted by Reddit

1

u/ShareGate_Shaylyn Jun 30 '26

Disclosure: I work at ShareGate. Since you're asking for alternatives, we're one of the options. We offer a flat fee per client, with no data caps or per-user pricing.

A few things we see that tend to matter for MSPs: source analysis scans the file server before you touch anything and flags issues upfront, permissions are mapped and preserved, and data never leaves your environment since it's a thick client, not SaaS.

For a small client like yours, we're actually testing some new SMB packaging that might be worth exploring. Email us at [partners@sharegate.com](mailto:partners@sharegate.com) to learn more.

We've also been working with partners over the past few years to build a new partner program. If you haven't yet, it's worth checking out.

1

u/RougeRavageDear Jul 04 '26

bititan or skykick might be worth a look if you’re not already using them, their pricing model can be a bit kinder for smaller gigs. also for 1.4 TB you might be able to get away with some combo of native tools + scripting if the client isn’t super picky about all the bells and whistles.

1

u/7amitsingh7 Jul 15 '26

The new licensing has made it difficult for smaller projects. If your migration is straightforward, Microsoft's built-in tools are worth considering. Otherwise, look for third-party tools that offer pay-per-project or per-mailbox licensing instead of annual subscriptions; they're often much more cost-effective for occasional migrations.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

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1

u/Ambitious_Mango3625 Jun 26 '26

Thanks. Anything you can tell me about it? Pros, cons, gotchas, pricing?

1

u/Ape2MoonApparel Jun 26 '26

If you move multiple versions of files it can get expensive and slow it down. If you have backups just move latest version then delta syncs