Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs Rubrik comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 2025

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
5.9
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain enhances storage efficiency and cost savings with compression, deduplication, but may be costly for small businesses.
Sentiment score
7.1
Rubrik enhances ROI with time savings, reduced costs, data protection, improved productivity, seamless backups, and compliance benefits.
One is less floor space in the data center and the ability to pack more data into the backup storage on Dell PowerProtect Data Domain as compared to the traditional backup storage.
Vice President - Information Technology Systems Engineering at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The best part is the compression and deduplication feature.
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
We have not fully expanded the air gap yet, and we are still in the testing stages concerning recovery in case of a cybersecurity threat.
Sr Systems Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Rubrik provides long-term return on investment for my customers, as well as immediate benefits because of deduplication and compression, drastically reducing the cost on the storage side from traditional to Rubrik.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain service is highly rated, with efficient support despite regional inconsistencies and occasional escalation challenges.
Sentiment score
8.3
Rubrik's support excels with quick responses, proactive issue resolution, and incorporates user feedback, surpassing other vendors in service.
We feel that we are working with people who understand the technology and the historical patterns of this environment, and when we raise a support request, we have no doubt because it seems that we are working with a product engineer.
System Administrator at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
They respond within 24 hours of case submission, which is crucial for maintaining the solution.
Sr System Expert at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
I have dedicated support from Dell for Vietnam, and they are responsive.
Information Technology Technician at Lac Viet Computing
They offer 24/7 support and even have a dedicated ransomware hotline with a team ready to engage immediately.
Rubrik administrator at Freelance
Rubrik's support has been good, better than many other vendors like Microsoft, VMware, and Dell.
IT Program Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rubrik provides excellent customer service and technical support.
Senior System Engineer at Goya Foods
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain offers scalable, seamless expansion with future-proof planning and compatibility across diverse enterprise environments.
Sentiment score
7.8
Rubrik offers scalable, high-performance data management with seamless integration and expansion, praised for adaptability and non-intrusive scaling.
The scalability depends on the IT department's strategy.
Sr System Expert at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is very scalable; it expands easily with new enclosures.
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain can scale up horizontally to meet the growing needs of our organization.
lead at Boston Scientific
It can scale out horizontally as well as vertically, and the availability of expansion is very quick.
Technical Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Azure Backup solution offers faster restoration for data over six terabytes compared to on-premises.
Information Technology Specialist at LIGHTHOUSE DOCUMENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC
Rubrik is highly scalable, with a rating of nine out of ten based on its seamless integration.
Sales Manager at Beta Information Technology
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is highly stable and reliable, with minimal issues and consistently positive user satisfaction and performance.
Sentiment score
8.1
Rubrik is praised for stability and reliability, offering seamless integration and prompt support for minor issues.
We have never encountered issues such as data corruption with these systems.
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with it.
IT Infrastructure and Telecom TL at a construction company with 51-200 employees
I have been using it for up to three years with no upgrading or downtime.
Data Protection Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Rubrik has been stable, and we have not experienced any downtime.
IT Program Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
When you do the restore, it is also stable and quickly delivering what we have been looking for.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The prerequisite dependencies with the cost team site, infrastructure, port opening, and adding the complete Rubrik console module take time, depending on the volume of servers and storage occupancy.
Information Technology Specialist at LIGHTHOUSE DOCUMENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improved features, better integration, and cost transparency for Dell PowerProtect Data Domain, highlighting security and support issues.
Rubrik users suggest improvements in UI, integration, database compatibility, and pricing while praising their receptiveness to feedback.
Local support must be available in the country.
Head Of Systems Group at NCCPL
We can leverage writing NAS level backup into Dell PowerProtect Data Domain rather than utilizing any other software tools such as Networker.
Vice President - Information Technology Systems Engineering at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain represents the fastest and most reliable solution, ensuring great integration with backup software.
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
We need more efficient search capabilities that allow searching by last name or login ID.
IT Program Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
I need a better output from the existing reports as they currently do not provide comprehensive metrics.
Senior System Engineer at Goya Foods
Including packaged training with the product at the time of purchase would be beneficial.
Rubrik administrator at Freelance
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain offers high performance for enterprises but may be costly for smaller businesses, with regional pricing variations.
Rubrik's cost is justified by its simplicity, comprehensive features, and potential TCO savings through multi-year agreements.
It is almost four times the earlier price.
Head of Sales and Operations at New Horizon Computers
For small clients, it is very expensive.
Specialist Senior N2 at Entelgy
The pricing has become higher since July, and the license costs are more expensive compared to the past.
Technical manager at Advanced Computer Technology (ACT)
Rubrik is considered expensive, with a price rating of three out of ten.
Sales Manager at Beta Information Technology
We could mix and match to optimize costs for our needs.
IT Program Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rubrik is expensive due to its robust hardware.
Rubrik administrator at Freelance
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain excels in deduplication, scalability, and compression, ensuring cost-effective, fast, and secure data management.
Rubrik features instant recovery, a user-friendly interface, automation, and immutability, providing efficient, secure, and cost-effective backup management.
The most valuable feature of Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is its deduplication capability.
Technical manager at Advanced Computer Technology (ACT)
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) is highly consistent, durable, easy to install, scalable, and compatible with any software today.
Head of Sales and Operations at New Horizon Computers
The most beneficial features in the product are compatibility, which is the most valuable function.
Head Of Systems Group at NCCPL
The most valuable feature of Rubrik is its concept of a 'backup airbag', which provides a robust defense against attacks.
Sales Manager at Beta Information Technology
Since switching to Rubrik, our backup times have decreased significantly, going from two and a half days to one and a half hours for certain systems.
IT Program Manager at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Even if my network is compromised by ransomware, the file system does not allow overwriting of the backups, ensuring that my backups remain safe.
Rubrik administrator at Freelance
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (1st), Disk Based Backup Systems (1st)
Rubrik
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (4th), Cloud Backup (4th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Backup and Replication solutions, they serve different purposes. Dell PowerProtect Data Domain is designed for Deduplication Software and holds a mindshare of 25.4%, down 29.2% compared to last year.
Rubrik, on the other hand, focuses on Backup and Recovery, holds 4.1% mindshare, down 7.7% since last year.
Deduplication Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Domain25.4%
HPE StoreOnce18.1%
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager12.7%
Other43.8%
Deduplication Software
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Rubrik4.1%
Veeam Data Platform7.6%
Commvault Cloud4.4%
Other83.9%
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot
Apr 02, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Branko Cirovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage Engineer at Comtrade Group
Provides seamless backup integration and long-term reliability for enterprise data protection
The price is quite high; this product is not considered cheap. Additionally, if you use higher availability boxes, they also come at a premium price. However, they provide business continuity, which is the main reason why companies invest in this solution. Tape is slow; when restoring several virtual machines or databases amounting to several terabytes, Dell PowerProtect Data Domain represents the fastest and most reliable solution, ensuring great integration with backup software. If a customer has limited budget constraints, they may opt for cheaper external storage comprised of just a bunch of disks and utilize it for backup, as backup is not a business-critical service. However, I see great value in Dell PowerProtect Data Domain because it is fully automated, features great integration with backup software, and provides good value for money. I would rate software support as a ten, while I would give hardware support a seven. I never give any product a perfect score; I think Dell PowerProtect Data Domain deserves a nine. The only minor problems are the certificate issue and the price. These certificate issues are quite rare and mainly arise when we forget to restart and upgrade the box for several years.
KB
Information Technology Specialist at LIGHTHOUSE DOCUMENT TECHNOLOGIES, INC
Technical support has improved my data management process but I encounter GUI and cost challenges
The solution is available in the Azure Marketplace, but approaching directly is more cost-effective. The Marketplace approach incurs additional platform and reporting costs. We initially built Rubrik at host level and DB level. We encountered latency issues when reverting back, with numerous snapshots available. This resulted in increased costs and occupied spaces. I performed manual deletion of snapshots and verified with the Rubrik team for confirmation. The GUI reporting functionality lacks flexibility. For instance, obtaining specific server reports considering drive space and backup quantities is not possible, as it only provides overall reporting.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Deduplication Software solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Answers from the Community

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager at PeerSpot
Apr 2, 2020
Apr 2, 2020
As Neil Mistry said, they are quite different products: Rubrik is a complete solution where Data Domain is deduplicating storage that requires software to drive. I used to manage a B&R for a company that had a Data Domain in each data center which supported 4, Tivoli Storage Manager instances at each site and the Data Domain replicated all data cross-site. It was a simple setup but we did r...
2 out of 3 answers
NM
Founder and Ceo at MIS3 inc.
Jul 9, 2019
The biggest difference is Rubrik has native software and hardware on one platform. Data Domain is only a disk target and a very good one but you still need backup software such as Networker, Veritas, Commvault, etc. That software requires both a master and media server which drives a lot of complexity. Rubrik is hyperconverged data management, there is not software licensing, end of year true-ups or additional infrastructure. Policy-based backup and restore functions with cloud archiving integration. It’s also really fast! Finally, if you’re running Nutanix and its native hypervisor AHV then Rubrik can protect that hypervisor and VMware.
it_user1132758 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sys Admin 4 at UC Davis Health System
Jul 9, 2019
As Neil Mistry said, they are quite different products: Rubrik is a complete solution where Data Domain is deduplicating storage that requires software to drive. I used to manage a B&R for a company that had a Data Domain in each data center which supported 4, Tivoli Storage Manager instances at each site and the Data Domain replicated all data cross-site. It was a simple setup but we did run into some performance issues since our TSM servers were all VMs and networking inside VMware is hard to determine performance. In the end, the customer didn't like the cost of DD disk and our devices ran out of capacity. Turns out only database full backups deduplicate well. All else, including transaction logs, can go to much less expensive disk and simply be compressed.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Dell EMC PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
My use cases for it involve primarily backing up the on-premises servers, and besides that, we also provision CIFS shares and NFS exports on Dell PowerProtect Data Domain.
What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain)?
The product, a disk backup solution, improves our data application tasks. We used tape libraries with Dev drives in legacy architectures, resulting in slow backups compared to modern drives like NV...
Which would you choose - Rubrik or Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting it up is a relatively simple affair. For the most part it prompts you from scre...
What do you like most about Rubrik?
It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?
Regarding pricing, Rubrik is a costly solution, and I would rate it an eight.
 

Also Known As

DataDomain, Dell EMC Data Domain, PowerProtect Data Domain
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The US Army, City of Houston, Lloyds TSB, TiVo, Teck, Ingram Entertainment, The New York Mets
Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp and others in Deduplication Software. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.