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Dell Avamar vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.3. Dell Technologies holds a 3.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.
Dell Avamar
Read 89 Dell Avamar reviews
  • 5,560 Views
  • 3,962 Comparison Views
87% willing to recommend
IBM Spectrum Protect
Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews
  • 3,421 Views
  • 2,509 Comparison Views
86% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Dell Avamar both offer robust data protection and backup solutions. Users tend to prefer IBM Spectrum Protect for pricing and support, but Dell Avamar is favored for its advanced features, making it a strong choice for handling large data sets.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect users note its scalability, comprehensive data protection, and reliable backup capabilities. Dell Avamar is recognized for its efficient deduplication, seamless integration with existing systems, and superior handling of large data sets.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect users suggest enhancements in reporting capabilities, performance during peak loads, and user interface. Dell Avamar users recommend better support for cloud environments, enhanced user experience, and streamlined update processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect has a relatively complex deployment process but offers strong customer support. Dell Avamar is easier to deploy and has responsive customer service, giving it an edge in deployment.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect offers competitive setup costs and a favorable ROI over time. Dell Avamar has higher setup costs, but its advanced features justify the investment for many users.

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To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect
June 2025
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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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (5th)
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 Dell Avamar is 3.2%, down from 3.6% 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

Ayodeji Oyewole - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with good backups but has occasional failures
I use Dell Avamar primarily for backup and recovery The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality. It gives large enterprises the comfort of knowing their workloads are being backed up. There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be…
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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.
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

"Dell EMC Avamar is easy to work with and is user-friendly."
"I found the most valuable features of Dell Avamar are the user-friendly interface and ease to use. Our clients have administrated this software and there is no additional training required."
"The backup is the solution's most valuable feature. It's very reliable."
"The product is good for backups."
"Dell EMC Avamar is very good with endpoint backups."
"It is one of the best solutions for backing up Oracle and other servers."
"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
More Dell Avamar pros
"It is a very stable product. The cost is similar to that of other enterprise solutions."
"The most valuable feature for data recovery in IBM Spectrum Protect is its database protection capabilities."
"It allows us to have one interface."
"We can use it with any storage for the back-end to save data."
"by backing up only the changed data, we average around 75TB per night. If we had to do full backups, even occasionally, we would not be able to complete the backup within 12 hours, or we would have to make a large investment to fit a full backup within the 12 hour window."
"The product is very stable."
"The most valuable features of the product are data deduplication and disaster recovery."
"The scheduled backups ensure we meet the requirements for our business, and we keep backups of certain environments."
More IBM Spectrum Protect pros
 

Cons

"What would make Dell Avamar better is if it can do faster backups because right now, PowerProtect Data Manager is better in this area with its new UI and a new way to implement backups. Customers nowadays also expect more up-to-date solutions, and this is another area for improvement in Dell Avamar. It's not as up-to-date, so I'm counting on PowerProtect Data Manager, but customers who have Dell Avamar don't want to switch because you don't have as many backup problems in Dell Avamar compared to other solutions. What I'd like to see in the next release of Dell Avamar is an updated UI and a different way to manage backups because currently, backup management is a bit heavy for customers using Dell Avamar."
"We don't trust the product 100 percent. Kaspersky has many features Dell Avamar doesn't support, such as granular backup and history."
"Avamar is still competitive because of the way we have deployed it, but we need to diversify and shift away from specific technologies. In addition to hypervisors, virtual machines, and bare metal servers, our customers need protection for Microsoft 365, SaaS, and the public cloud, so we need other technologies in the business to cater to those customers' needs. Those are the enhancements we would want from the Avamar platform, but that's not likely to happen. Dell has PowerProtect and Apex backup services. There are other Dell solutions that we'll use to fulfill our customers' requirements."
"It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
"The performance takes up a lot of resources, unfortunately."
"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."
"If you need to pull data out of it to offload to tapes, that's messy. You have a mechanism for it, but it is painful."
"Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution."
More Dell Avamar cons
"A lot of my customers always ask for legal holds, especially on email."
"The solution must protect against ransomware attacks better."
"It would be helpful if the solution included some sort of ransomware protection."
"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier."
"I find the solution somewhat difficult to use with virtual environments or VMware."
"Although I am not a technical user, I would say the cloud integration features could be improved."
"We should be talking about the capacity of the tape drives. That's the only problem."
"I find the Level 1 and Level 2 support spend 80% of the time communicating the same information that I have already provided."
More IBM Spectrum Protect cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell Avamar is a moderately priced solution."
"Dell Avamar, including its virtual add-ons and cloud-based offerings, is cheaper than other solutions, but in the end, the price still depends on your use case. Price-wise, I'm rating Dell Avamar as six out of ten."
"It was very expensive before, but after integrating it with Dell EMC Avamar Data Protection suite licensing, we are getting better discounts."
"The solution is costly."
"It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing."
"It is easy to use."
"Dell Avamar is expensive."
"Dell's pricing structure is not overly expensive."
More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice
"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."
"The license model that they have at IBM, which is due to volume, from a certain volume onward is not the right license model."
"IBM Spectrum Protect can be considered an averagely-priced product."
"The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer."
"We are paying for support and maintenance on a monthly basis."
"The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD)."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."
More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

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

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...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?
The cost is very significant, and it could be lower.
See all answers
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
See all answers
What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?
IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?
It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar Logo
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar
Compared 34% of the time
Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar
Compared 15% of the time
Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar Logo
Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar
Compared 9% of the time
Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar Logo
Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar
Compared 6% of the time
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Dell Avamar Logo
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Dell Avamar
Compared 6% of the time
More Dell Avamar Competitors
Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 15% of the time
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 15% of the time
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 12% of the time
Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 10% of the time
IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 7% of the time
More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar
June 2025
Dell Avamar reportDownload Dell Avamar product report
Buyer's Guide
IBM Spectrum Protect
June 2025
IBM Spectrum Protect reportDownload IBM Spectrum Protect product report
 

Also Known As

Avamar
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

Dell Avamar data protection software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery operations that can scale from daily backup protection for endpoints to high-performance protection for large enterprises with diverse applications and workloads. With application consistent recovery, automation and fast backup and restores, Avamar can help you meet your SLAs and optimize your backup and recovery processes

If you are deploying all or part of your backup environment to the cloud, Avamar enables you to make the most of your cloud investment, enabling replication, disaster recovery and long-term retention for customers using AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.

Avamar is available as part of Dell Data Protection Suite, which offers comprehensive data protection software applications and tools. Avamar is delivered as software and as a virtual edition.

Dell Technologies
IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.
IBM
 

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
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
Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect
June 2025
Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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