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Azure Backup vs IBM Spectrum Protect 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Spectrum Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.1%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost savings and efficiency with high-level restore capabilities
I use Azure Backup mainly for backing up virtual machines The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore. Additionally, it has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution. The area that I believe needs improvement in…
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's stable."
"The storage backup is very efficient."
"First of all, you can schedule a backup for the client. You can schedule it as you like. You can also control the bandwidth, so the backup will not utilize. The internet will depend on the bandwidth."
"The fact that Azure Backup is integrated is one of its biggest advantages."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its ease of use and good integration with other Azure services."
"The product is cost-effective compared to other vendors."
"The best aspect of the solution is its backup functionality."
"One of the most valuable features is security and connectivity to the data."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"A robust tool which allows us to backup pretty much any environment, virtual or physical."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."
"It integrates well with Spectrum Scale."
"It saves you a lot of storage."
"Everyone wants a full backup. It gives them safety and peace of mind, like an insurance policy for that rainy day when they may need to restore a system."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
 

Cons

"We have a concern with the backup when were are working with VMs that are running in Barracuda Firewall because it usually fails."
"In the next release, I would like to see the ability to back up to different cloud providers."
"Azure Backup needs improvements in allowing more specific backup options rather than just full VM snapshots."
"I would like to have the option to increase the frequency of the backups. Azure Backup does backups on an hourly basis, but I would prefer it to take backups more often."
"In Avamar, the file-based restores are very quick and fast, whereas, in Azure Backup, VM restore is super easy, but if I have to do a file or a folder restore, I have to mount the entire VM image. I have to wait for some time for it to be mounted, and then I have to go inside and then check the file and copy it somewhere. It's a bit of a manual process, whereas in Avamar, you can directly select a file and folder, and it'll recover with whatever permissions you want."
"The user interface is a little bit confusing and it could be better."
"Microsoft's technical support for Azure products could be improved."
"The support for Office365 backup is atrocious and is something that has to be improved."
"They should introduce more features for virtualization platforms and backing up IBMs. Backup speeds should also be improved."
"We cannot take VMware backups for our banking data center environment."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"Ease of use."
"Restoring massive files is a very time-consuming process."
"It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum."
"The solution must protect against ransomware attacks better."
"The main admin console from the UI cannot do anything in the product. It just allows us to maintain, maybe, 30% to 40%. For the rest, we have to use the command line."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is a three or four out of ten, where one is inexpensive, and ten is costly."
"Azure Backup is a moderately priced solution."
"Customers prefer Azure Backup because it has a pay-as-you-go model, and they won't have to pay an upfront amount at the initial level."
"We do not have any additional costs for Azure Backup."
"Pay as you go is the pricing model."
"Azure Backup is a product that is priced at a cheap rate, and it is a great tool."
"Comparing the pricing with other technologies, Azure Backup is more affordable for customers. It follows a pay-as-you-go model, where we pay according to our consumption."
"We are paying about $100,000 USD per year, just for a couple of servers."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."
"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"It is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.