Contrasting Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) and Rapid7 (NASDAQ:RPD)

Rapid7 (NASDAQ:RPD) and Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, earnings and profitability.

Risk and Volatility

Rapid7 has a beta of 1.03, suggesting that its share price is 3% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Backblaze has a beta of 1.72, suggesting that its share price is 72% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Rapid7 and Backblaze’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Rapid7	2.61%	34.35%	2.78%
Backblaze	-14.97%	-20.54%	-8.90%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Rapid7 and Backblaze”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Rapid7	$859.79 million	0.69	$23.38 million	$0.35	25.26
Backblaze	$145.84 million	6.74	-$25.61 million	($0.39)	-41.93

Rapid7 has higher revenue and earnings than Backblaze. Backblaze is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Rapid7, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.7% of Rapid7 shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.0% of Backblaze shares are owned by institutional investors. 2.4% of Rapid7 shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Backblaze shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Rapid7 and Backblaze, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Rapid7	3	18	1	0	1.91
Backblaze	1	1	8	0	2.70

Rapid7 presently has a consensus target price of $8.71, suggesting a potential downside of 1.46%. Backblaze has a consensus target price of $12.93, suggesting a potential downside of 20.93%. Given Rapid7’s higher probable upside, research analysts clearly believe Rapid7 is more favorable than Backblaze.

Summary

Rapid7 beats Backblaze on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Rapid7

Rapid7, Inc. provides cybersecurity solutions under the Rapid7, Nexpose, and Metasploit brand names. The company offers endpoint to cloud data collection and sharing applications, such as Rapid7 Insight Agent, a software-based agent that is used on assets across on-premises and cloud environments to centralize and monitor data on company's platform; Rapid7 Insight Network Sensor that analyzes raw end-to-end network traffic to increase visibility into user activity, pinpoint real threats, and investigations; Rapid7 Cloud Event Data Harvesting that offers visibility into changes made to cloud resources; and third-party integrations and ecosystem, as well as orchestration and automation solutions. It also offers various platforms, including Rapid7 managed threat complete consisting of managed detection response that delivers end-to-end threat detection and response, as well as offloads day-to-day vulnerability management operations. In addition, it provides Rapid7 threat complete consisting of InsightIDR, a security information and event management, and extended detection and response solution; and InsightVM, a vulnerability management solution that provides visibility across on-premise and remote endpoints for security teams to evaluate the business risks, and configurations, and share with their IT counterparts for remediation. Further, the company offers Rapid7 cloud risk complete, which includes InsightCloudSec, a cloud risk and compliance management solution; and InsightAppSec, a dynamic application security testing tool. It also provides professional services. It serves a range of industries, including business services, pharmaceuticals, technology, energy, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, media and entertainment, retail, education, real estate, travel and transportation, government, online services, telecommunications, and professional services. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Backblaze

Backblaze, Inc., a storage cloud platform, provides businesses and consumers cloud services to store, use, and protect data in the United States and internationally. The company offers cloud services through a web-scale software infrastructure built on commodity hardware. It also provides Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage, which enables customers to store data, developers to build applications, and partners to expand their use cases. This service is offered as a consumption-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and serves use cases, such as public, hybrid, and multi-cloud data storage; application development and DevOps; content delivery and edge computing; security and ransomware protection; media management; backup, archive, and tape replacement; repository for analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning; and Internet of Things. In addition, the company offers Backblaze Computer Backup that automatically backs up data from laptops and desktops for businesses and individuals, which provides a subscription-based Software-as-a-Service and serves use cases, including computer backup, ransomware protection, theft and loss protection, and remote access. It serves the public cloud IaaS storage and Data-Protection-as-a-Service markets. The company was incorporated in 2007 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.