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Dell Avamar vs Dell Data Protection Advisor 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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
Dell Data Protection Advisor
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
24th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Data Protection Advisor is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with predictive insights and seamless integration
As a system engineer, I am deploying Dell Data Protection Advisor solutions, especially in the areas of protection like Avamar, NetWorker, and Data Domain. Our team has deployed these solutions for three organizations in Africa and India Dell Data Protection Advisor provides proactive support by…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For the on-prem backup, it has all the necessary features that we require. They keep coming up with new scripts and new updates."
"It is a very complete product."
"It is very easy when you want to restore back to the original state."
"Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups."
"All the features in the system are highly valuable."
"It's simple to configure."
"The installation of the solution is easy."
"Effective in protecting the virtualization system and end points."
"I can increase the tool's licensing as per my requirement with no conditions applied."
"The solution is easy to use, flexible and has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality. You can configure the dashboards or you can use a script. However, to fully utilize its capabilities you will want to use a lot of scripts which you will need advanced training. The reports can be customized for many things, such as chargeback billing."
"The product's ability to give predictions and advice on how to protect data is incredible."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the compression and the duplication."
"The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention."
"It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs."
"It generates very detailed reports, which makes things easier when it comes to IT auditing."
"This is a stable solution."
 

Cons

"The challenges we do face typically revolve around aligning specific features with our accustomed tool usage."
"It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
"The screen design is a bit back-dated."
"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."
"There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be improved."
"Avamar needs a greater emphasis on storage targets. If it's going to keep pace with the times, it needs more ability to leverage cloud storage."
"The solution should improve its tape-connectivity features."
"The solution, in the future, should offer support for mobile."
"It is difficult to manage the solution with the available tools. You need to know exactly what are you are doing."
"Customization of reports or creating new reports can be difficult. Users need to have a deep knowledge of SQL. 70-80% of customers can't seem to understand how to do it. They don't know how to address reporting. If Dell EMC could simplify it, it would benefit the end-user."
"The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users."
"There is a steep learning curve to use the interface and to create new reports, this could be made easier. If the solution could provide more drag and drop functionality to build more advanced reports that would be very helpful."
"We have encountered issues where we were unable to pull data from the database server. It should also improve the backward compatibility."
"Dell Data Protection Advisor's feature for data domain protection needs enhancement."
"Some minor adjustments could be made regarding the graphical interface and customization options."
"The functionality of the Data Protection Advisor is limited and is something that is lacking in this solution. Other solutions like CloudIQ and DDMC provide a much better outlook on how data protection should be done."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the solution is very expensive."
"Regarding pricing, I would say Avamar is slightly expensive compared to its functionalities. It's not high-priced or low-priced but somewhere in between."
"I rate the tool's price as a three out of ten if one means expensive and ten means it is a cheaply priced tool."
"The price is fair."
"Dell's pricing structure is not overly expensive."
"It is easy to use."
"The price of this product should be lower."
"It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years."
"The product is affordable."
"If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing."
"The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement."
"It's not very expensive — I think the price is fair."
"You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately."
"For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable."
"You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What do you like most about Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement.
What needs improvement with Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy. Additionally, enhancing bulk update capabilities for items like cost centers would be...
 

Also Known As

Avamar
DPA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Nielsen, Trek Bicycle, Cal-Israel Credit Cards
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Dell Data Protection Advisor and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.