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Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 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
4.0
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers high ROI with improved recovery and efficiency, though some find better alternatives or no return.
Sentiment score
5.4
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is valued for integration, compatibility, and competitive pricing, with some users seeing quick ROI.
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
6.1
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager's customer service is adequate but needs improved responsiveness, especially for Polish users.
Sentiment score
4.6
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus support is generally praised for responsiveness, despite concerns about initial delays and technical complexity issues.
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
Delays in feedback and scheduling can affect interactions, but generally, support provides good solutions once engaged.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
Their documentation, runbooks, troubleshooting articles, and support people are good.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
We do not have a good experience with this product.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is praised for its scalability and flexibility, with minor improvements needed in cloud adaptability.
Sentiment score
5.7
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus scales efficiently from small to large enterprises, though optimal planning enhances its scalability potential.
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
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager performs well from a scalability perspective and is functioning properly with our current implementation.
Backup Administrator at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The solution does not provide horizontal and vertical scaling.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
IBM Data Protect is the scalable solution, not IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is stable, using modern technology for reliability, with effective documentation, though minor maintenance issues occur.
Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is praised for stability and reliability, though some report recovery issues and version-related instability.
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
I cannot determine what benefit IBM Spectrum Protect Plus brings to the organization because we deployed this solution with one customer, and that customer changed the product after one or two years because the product is not stable and it changes with every version.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerProtect needs better integration, simplified interface, scalability improvements, and support for modern architectures like Kubernetes and Hyper-V.
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus needs a user-friendly interface, improved security, better integration, efficient backup, and enhanced technical support.
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
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
The main issue that needs improvement is the support system.
System Engineer at Konvergenz
It does not offer horizontal and vertical scaling.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I used IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but IBM is now replacing it with IBM Data Protect, which is a giant product now in common development with a well-known company in backup solutions.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could be made more lightweight and user-friendly in terms of GUI features to make it closer to a perfect score.
Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers flexible, competitive pricing appreciated for affordability, with room for improvement, rating six to eight.
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is costly but offers flexible licensing and is valued for scalability and automation benefits.
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
They are fairly expensive.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager offers flexible, efficient data protection with high deduplication, user-friendly interface, and seamless Dell Data Domain integration.
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus offers seamless integration, user-friendly features, and comprehensive data protection across multiple platforms and applications.
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
The biggest benefit of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is that it's an agentless backup product which is very easy to configure and use.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is the software we work with, and the new name is IBM Storage Protect.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (6th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.4%
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
Other96.5%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Jerome Edwards - PeerSpot reviewer
Ops Specialist: System Engineer Backup at BCX
Backup platform has provided faster, reliable RMAN protection for critical databases
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 can't say whether I can answer that because we basically don't experiment as often as we should on PPDM. I won't be able to answer that. Based on my use cases with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I would like to see alerts improved, as streamlining the alerts could help. The alerts are becoming an issue because we don't always get notified of certain things via the alerts.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Has provided straightforward backup and rapid deployment for diverse environments
There is reporting in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but I'm not very familiar with this area. I always concentrated on getting the customer to do the backup, restore, and related tasks, but there is reporting. IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect. The correct direction is Data Protect, which includes ransomware detection. With IBM Data Protect, you can add more servers for backup. It's scalable, which is a key feature over Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus, even more capable than Veritas, because Veritas has an option to make different media servers. You can scale the backup process regardless of the load of the customer. This speeds up the backup and restore process for a complete data center, which cannot be done with any other product. I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 9 out of 10.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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?
I think the license for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is the same as other backup software.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Regarding data recovery improvements in Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, there are challenges with data sets larger than one terabyte that are not related to VM. While VM recovery functions adequate...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
 

Also Known As

PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.