Cohesity DataProtect vs Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) comparison

Cohesity DataProtect vs. Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

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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

Cohesity DataProtect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

8th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (8th)

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

21st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity DataProtect is 3.3%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is 0.6%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli.

Hybrid IT Architect at Quanture Spa

Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support

The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup. Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance. We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site. Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.

Read full review

SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Ensures data safety and effective cloud integration with AI-powered protection

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) offers a backup, recovery, and management tool that is very easy to use. It provides a flexible protection suite that accommodates scalability and performance needs. Integration with VMware and multi-cloud protection is effective. AI integration enhances backup operations by analyzing data and ensuring malware protection. Customers also benefit from hybrid cloud options and tiers of backup.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Instant volume mount and the SpanFS filesystem itself, which has great dedupe and compression across all of our backups."

"Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the solution handles instant recovery and file-level recovery from a VMware image backup seamlessly."

"The most valuable features are the rapid VM restores and the ability to quickly find files and download them directly to my desktop so that I can put them where I need them to be."

"Its flexibility is the most valuable. Being a cloud version, it has more flexibility, and it allows me to incorporate different workloads and consolidate all the data in one place. It has good high availability, and it is also easy to maintain."

"No longer does it take several hours to backup a VM or troubleshoot a backup issue."

"I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser."

"I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud."

"The solution's SQL cloning is great, and its Instant Mount restoration of virtual machines is brilliant."

More Cohesity DataProtect pros

"Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) offers a backup, recovery, and management tool that is very easy to use."

"We use it for complete backup and recovery. We have multiple clients and have created multiple large virtual capabilities and zoning backlogs."

"The solution's most valuable features are networker and continuous data protection."

"What I find valuable about Dell PowerProtect IDPA is its stability and strong performance."

"The product is easy to troubleshoot and store data."

"Dell PowerProtect is stable and scalable."

"We don't need to manage different devices."

"The solution is strong."

More Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) pros

Cons

"What areas have room for improvement? Is there anything that could be simplified to make it better?"

"At times, you may click the wrong server or click too fast and accidentally restore a cluster of servers. It would be very helpful to have a cancel option under restores."

"I think Cohesity could add more platform support. For example, they could improve integration with DB2 or make the integration S3 object storage a little tighter. Some of that stuff could use some work, but overall, it's a relatively comprehensive platform."

"The support team sometimes takes a long time to resolve issues, although, in our experience, these have been specific things like SQL blobs."

"Add the ability to delete View Boxes and External Targets in the GUI."

"The one area where we would like to see additional improvements is with reporting. There are very granular reports from each grid. There are also some built-in reports within Helios (SAS Management Console) that offers basic reporting. However, for complex, large-enterprise environments, a more robust reporting engine that supports detailed audit reporting and enhanced ad hoc reports would be welcome."

"I would like to see the management of multiple nodes inside a tenant. If you want to manage a Cohesity environment, you either go on a per-node base, and you can hop from one node to the other, or you need to implement their SaaS capability but it always needs an internet connection. We would really like to have some kind of local management entity so that we can see all the Cohesity nodes in a customer environment and manage those nodes centrally. That's something that we would really like, and they are really working on it."

"I would like to see Microsoft Exchange DAG supported as soon as possible."

More Cohesity DataProtect cons

"The solution should be easier to use."

"The solution's implementation was very complicated and could be improved."

"The only thing that could be improved would be the complexity of the initial setup."

"Managing the product is a little bit complicated."

"I would like to see integration with Dell EMC's Cloud Tier."

"The price could be lowered slightly, to make it more competitive."

"There is room for improvement in terms of network connectivity."

"We cannot add IDPA to DPC, and each IP has a DP Central, which cannot monitor other IDPAs."

More Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."

"If SQL is in heavy use at your location, I would highly recommend narrowing your PoC testing to Cohesity and Rubrik. They will be competitive on pricing with each other, so really put them through the paces."

"I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years."

"The tool's pricing is average."

"The ROI is huge. Not really measurable at this point, but the price of the unit was a fraction of what a couple hours of downtime could result in."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik."

More Cohesity DataProtect pricing and cost advice

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"I would rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The licensing is billed on a monthly basis. Dell is bundled so that when you order IDPA, you get everything together with the license."

"Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) has a yearly subscription fee."

"We have a perpetual license. It is a capacity-based license."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

20%

University

15%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity DataProtect?

Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with m...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity DataProtect?

I find Cohesity DataProtect to be expensive.

What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?

What areas have room for improvement? Is there anything that could be simplified to make it better?

What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?

What I find valuable about Dell PowerProtect IDPA is its stability and strong performance.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?

Pricing is competitive with other software vendors. The product's features, network, and VMware integration contribute to its value. There are different licensing options available, such as applian...

What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) requires more updates and innovations in AI-powered cyber resilience. While technical support is generally not poor, there are challenges with expertise in Linux-based c...

Rubrik vs Cohesity DataProtect

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Veritas NetBackup vs Cohesity DataProtect

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Compared 38% of the time

Dell Avamar vs Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

Compared 19% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

Compared 18% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Cohesity DataProtect

Download Cohesity DataProtect product report

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)

Download Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) product report

Also Known As

Cohesity

Dell EMC IDPA, Dell IDPA, EMC IDPA

Overview

What is Cohesity DataProtect?

Cohesity DataProtect is a top-level, sophisticated, software-defined backup and recovery solution created for cloud environments. Cohesity DataProtect is made to hyperscale and is one the most thorough policy-based protection solutions available on the market today.

Cohesity DataProtect melds multiple-point products into a single software that is able to be deployed as on-premise or consumed as a service.

Top Features:

Hyperscale made easy: Cohesity DataProtect improves data protection by doing away with the need for backup silos and administers backup and recovery with a single user-friendly, easy-to-understand interface. Cohesity DataProtect provides extensive 24/7 enterprise-class protection for a large, varying set of sources, including virtual and physical servers, NAS and SaaS workloads, relational and distributed databases, and traditional and containerized applications.

Super fast recovery: Cohesity DataProtect offers near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) and near-instant recovery time objectives (RTOs) to satisfy your business service-level agreements (SLAs). Using Cohesity Helios’ unified data plane and control plane you can immediately search and recover data on any Cohesity cluster, located anywhere. DataProtect distinctively minimizes downtime by immediately mass restoring any amount of virtual machines (VMs) to any point in time, and lowers data protection costs by as much as 70% or more.

Backup as a Service: Feel free to take advantage of the elasticity of the public cloud and the cost-effective value of Cohesity DataProtect when delivered as a service. When you choose an OPEX option, you can eliminate the need for on-premises hardware. There is a SaaS option that will allow you to very simply configure your backup workloads and immediately begin protecting your vital all-important data and applications.

It’s as easy as: sign-up, connect, and protect!

Ransomware protection: Cohesity DataProtect offers stellar recovery at scale. The solution is so intuitive, it has machine learning-based anomaly detection to stop incidents before they happen. Cohesity DataProtection can provide immutable backups, Datalock write once, read many (WORM), encryption, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Cohesity DataProtect integrates well with many of today’s top solutions, including, but not limited to:

Hypervisors: VMware vSphere (5.5 and later), Microsoft Hyper-V (2019, 2016, 2012 R2), Nutanix AHV and RHeV

Kubernetes-based data and application state

Cloud: AWS EC2, Amazon RDS, Azure VM, and Google Compute

Physical: Windows, Linux(RHEL, CentOS, OEL, Debian, Ubuntu), AIX (7.x), and Solaris

Databases: Oracle (11g R2, 12c), Oracle RAC and SQL (2008 or later)

Distributed Databases (NoSQL and Hadoop): MongoDB, CouchbaseDB, Apache, Cassandra, Cloudera, and Hortonworks.

Bare Machine Recovery: Windows and Linux

Applications: MS Exchange (2010 SP3 or later), MSFT Active Directory, Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, Groups), SalesForce (SFDC), and SAP HANA

Primary storage: Pure FlashArray, HPE Nimble, and Cisco Hyperflex

NAS: Pure FlashBlade, NetApp, Isilon, IBM GPFS, Google EFS, Elastifile, and generic solutions*

Reviews from Real Users

One reviewer, who is head of IT infrastructure at Kampmann says, “Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software,” and goes on to indicate that Cohesity “works flawlessly with easy replication of backups and numerous supported backup sources.”

Another user, who is a senior network engineer at a legal firm, relates that "Cohesity is a robust and feature-rich solution"

Cohesity

The PowerProtect DP series appliances is the integrated appliance solution from the Dell data protection appliances portfolio.

PowerProtect DP series appliance: Simple, efficient and agile data protection

The DP series is an all-in-one backup appliance that reduces the complexity of managing multiple data silos, point solutions and vendor relationships. The DP series simplifies deployment and management—while delivering powerful, enterprise-grade data protection capabilities for small, mid-size and enterprise organizations at a low cost-to-protect.

It is an integrated solution that offers complete backup, replication, recovery, deduplication, instant access and restore, search & analytics, seamless VMware integration — plus, cloud readiness with disaster recovery (DR) and long-term retention (LTR) to the cloud — all in a single appliance.

With the DP series, customers reduce their time-to-protect and become more agile with a solution that’s fast, protected more efficiently, can be recovered quickly and is reliable.

Simple to deploy, scale and manage

The DP series enables organizations to protect a broad ecosystem of applications quickly with a single system management console, consolidating workload protection, and eliminating infrastructure or data sprawl. The easy-to-use System Manager simplifies backups and automates daily tasks, including monitoring, management, reporting, analytics and search. The DP series delivers all-in-one data protection: protection storage and software, search and advanced monitoring and analytics, combined with cloud extensibility. It offers integration with VMware, SQL and Oracle management tools so that admins can use familiar UIs.

Powerful cloud, performance and efficiency

The DP series can scale to fit the needs of enterprises with the ability to protect up to 195 PB (logical) of data to the public, private or hybrid clouds with Cloud Tier, with no additional hardware.7 Plus, native Cloud DR with end-to-end orchestration allows enterprises to copy backed-up VMs from on-premises DP series environments to the public cloud with AWS, Azure, or VMware Cloud on AWS —3 clicks to failover and 2 clicks to failback.

The DP series provides support for modern applications like MongoDB and MySQL and is optimized for VMware. It provides fast, single-step recovery of individual files, dynamic policies for VMs as well as complete VMware images, which can be instantly accessed and migrated live from the DP series appliance back to the production environment (using vMotion) while still running, further simplifying and optimizing VM recovery. Plus, instantly access up to 64 VMs with up to 60,000 IOPS to meet the strictest SLAs.

Data protection search simplifies file-level-recovery (FLR) activities with an easy-to-use search interface. The DP series is also built on the industry-proven Data Invulnerability Architecture (DIA), for encryption, fault detection, and healing.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Tribune Media

Under Armour, Christian Brothers University, Presidio

Cohesity DataProtect vs. Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)