Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure Backup vs Dell PowerProtect Data Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
2.8
Azure Backup offers cost-effective solutions with immediate security benefits and long-term savings, despite occasionally high licensing costs.
Sentiment score
3.5
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager improves ROI with automation, efficient recovery, and deduplication but lags behind Cohesity and Veeam.
Previously they had somewhere around 100 TB of capacity for the backup for a few VMs on one side. Now, the overall setup is hardly 80 TB, where they use almost 240 TB of production data into that 80 TB.
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would recommend Dell PowerProtect Data Manager to other organizations because it is cost-effective and delivers good performance compared to alternative solutions.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I do find that with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, the ROI is good when compared to other Dell products, but when compared to others in the current market, such as Cohesity or Veeam, it is not as good.
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Azure Backup's customer service is well-rated but faces criticism for response times and support quality variability.
Sentiment score
6.2
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager's customer service is adequate, with appreciated 24/7 support but inconsistent response times and regional presence.
The support from Microsoft is actually good; I have had positive experiences with it.
Project Manager at Capgemini
The technical support from Microsoft is good
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at MIC Global
I think the technical support by Microsoft is good overall.
Senior Analyst at ESRI INDIA
Dell provides reliable support for PowerProtect Data Manager, with 24/7 availability and a qualified support team.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
My experience with the technical support team of Dell is that they are actually great.
Ops Specialist: System Engineer Backup at BCX
When we had the compliances and any of the backups were getting failed or we identified that some of the backups were frequently failing, the system would alert us.
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Azure Backup is highly scalable, suitable for all business sizes, and appreciates for seamless expansion and adaptability in varying environments.
Sentiment score
6.1
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is scalable, easily customizable, well-supported, and aligns licensing with capacity needs, though cloud improvements are suggested.
Azure Backup is scalable since it is a global solution.
Ambassador at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The scalability of Azure Backup is quite easy and affordable to scale, with many improved features like data transfer.
Project Manager at Capgemini
Its capability to back up existing environments can be improved, particularly when it comes to disaster recovery in the cloud.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
As per the documentation, that is an easy process, whether you need to scale up or scale out.
Ops Specialist: System Engineer Backup at BCX
If you are okay to purchase the license, they have the feasibility to increase the capacity as well.
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Azure Backup maintains high stability with few issues, outperforming traditional systems, though minor challenges are efficiently resolved.
Sentiment score
8.1
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is stable, reliable, user-friendly, with minor upgrade issues; overall a dependable data management solution.
I would rate the stability of Azure Backup as nine out of ten; it shows high stability in my experience.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at MIC Global
Azure Backup is stable for Microsoft environments.
AI Solution Architect at Bitscape Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
It is extremely reliable and I have never experienced a crash.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Making sure the system is properly understood before deployment and handling upgrades efficiently would improve stability.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
I would assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager as quite stable; there are no issues with the workloads I am using.
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Azure Backup needs better VM/database support, pricing, performance, third-party integration, notifications, reporting, ransomware protection, and application-level options.
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager needs improved installation, support, cost-effectiveness, user interface, and additional features like desktop backup and SaaS protection.
It is not a perfect tool for restoring SQL databases since it requires replacing everything instead of restoring specific files.
Ambassador at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Azure Backup needs improvements for specific backup options beyond just full VM snapshots.
Project Manager at Capgemini
The reporting functionality of Azure Backup needs improvement.
AI Solution Architect at Bitscape Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
I would like to see improvements that include bare metal restore capabilities and enhanced data restore features in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard.
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Enhancements for microservices and container backups would be beneficial, enabling a more consolidated management platform for modern architectures.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Azure Backup pricing varies by usage and environment, offering integration with Microsoft, and requires management to avoid extra costs.
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers flexible pricing options, often viewed as affordable, with discounts available and additional feature costs.
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it.
Ambassador at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The pricing of Azure Backup is fine; it is a low-cost solution.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at MIC Global
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is cost-effective, as it is licensed per socket rather than by workload.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Overall, pricing does not significantly impact our decision.
Business Development Manager at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly.
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Azure Backup is valued for its security, integration, scalability, cost-efficiency, and user-friendly interface, offering enhanced data protection.
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager provides efficient management, high deduplication, and seamless integration, enhancing data protection and operational cost savings.
The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its simplicity.
AI Solution Architect at Bitscape Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
It has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer at MIC Global
The benefits I see from Azure Backup are that this solution is beneficial; we can access the data or files in Azure Backup anywhere, anytime.
Project Manager at Capgemini
It provides a seamless backup solution integrated with a dashboard full of capabilities, enhancing recovery point objectives and recovery time objectives.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
It satisfies my customers' scalability needs and provides interactive features, allowing efficient integration.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
Compared to other products such as Veritas, Dell offers more competitive pricing while other vendors charge significantly more.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 1.5%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.4%
Azure Backup1.5%
Other96.1%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Sanjay Sahu - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Capgemini
Has supported secure data storage with incremental backups and centralized monitoring
Azure Backup supports all the features that we need, so additional features are not an immediate need for me. The documentation for Azure Backup seems okay for me; it is good overall, but it should be more descriptive for each item. It should elaborate more on how backup and restore are fulfilled in different scenarios. One of the reviews indicates that Azure Backup needs improvements for specific backup options beyond just full VM snapshots. I believe it should be improved actually. Regarding specific backup options, I say there should be improvements compared to how they provided them in older days.
reviewer2767527 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized backups have simplified hybrid protection and improved ransomware recovery and compliance
The majorly needed improvement is that the product should easily simplify the upgrade and installation process. Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues. Sometimes it is not a P1 for Dell, but it is P1 for the customer, and the support needs to be very mature. That is a major drawback I see. Otherwise, the product is quite well. This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard. In that way, it makes their backup management easier and they can get detected anomalies as soon as possible. This is one of the solutions I would recommend. However, if it is a very small company, they really need to think about the cost, as it is very costlier for them. But as an enterprise solution and a mid-enterprise solution, this is the solution where companies think their data is very critical, in sectors such as financial, banking, and health. This kind of sector should go with that solution because it always gives the compliances of HIPAA, GDPR, and all those things that are really required for them. From management perspectives and consolidation solution perspective, the integration is quite easy. With respect to the backup administrator and everything, it is quite straightforward. There are some layers that need to be improved and should have the internal feature instead of creating the additional VMs for the NAS backup. It should be internal and directly have the agent base or something that can communicate easily with Dell storage. If it is third-party, I would understand, but it should be able to communicate. The benefit of it is that it is easily understood and you can do knowledge transfer with a lot of documents available. The drawback of it is that when it comes to the installation, Dell always takes a lot of time for all these things with third-party involvement in between Dell and the customer. Support is the major part of it. People need to understand that when a customer raises their ticket for P1, they should treat it as a P1. Instead of by their book being P3 or P2, sometimes they only treat it as such when the complete backup server is down. However, for the customer, if it is not happening with the critical system of backup, then it is a P1 for them. From Dell support, they do not treat it as a P1, or they treat it as a P3 or P2. That kind of understanding and some agreements need to be done between the customer and Dell. It is a costlier solution. Comparatively, other backup solutions make this one of the costlier solutions. However, someone who has their enterprise data or needs protection in a good way can go for it. I could say it is a mid-enterprise or enterprise level solution. Otherwise, people do have the same solution but with differentiated features. However, it is costlier compared to the other.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
The pricing of Azure Backup is fine; it is a low-cost solution.
What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Regarding the pricing aspect of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not very happy with that; compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly, and there are definitely areas for improvement.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
I apologize, but I'm not in a position to answer what areas of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager I would like to see improved or enhanced. There is still a lot of features that we haven't tried yet. I...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.