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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs MSP360 Backup 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

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
47th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MSP360 Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
59th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (47th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (33rd), MSP Backup (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MSP360 Backup is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.0%
MSP360 Backup0.8%
Other98.2%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1656648 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Offers reliable recovery and backup but needs better ransomware protection
With ransomware protection and cyber protection, more improvement is possible. IBM provides these through a third party, so enhancement is needed. There's significant room for improvement. They are not yet where I want them to be. It does not offer horizontal and vertical scaling. These are areas IBM can improve.
CONRAD FORREST - PeerSpot reviewer
President at MTS Consulting Group, Inc.
The solution provides the ability to backup all types of cloud drives, is inexpensive, and has decent support
MSP360 Backup provides the backup functionality, but we need to provide the storage component. We can use Azure, AWS, or another provider, but we need to choose the storage provider and create a bucket to store our data. The vendor is making changes to improve the functionality of the service and the separation of storage, but I would like to see more integration and a knowledge base of the tool. Currently trying to understand why the storage is separated and how to implement the storage properly is a challenge. Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service. Unlike other solutions such as Kohl which includes everything at one price. MSP360 Backup can be improved by adding inclusive pricing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Virtual snapshots that offer incremental backups."
"This solution is very stable and has good support available online."
"The biggest benefit of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is that it's an agentless backup product which is very easy to configure and use."
"The most valuable feature of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is the deduplication functionality. The clients moved to this solution originally because of this feature."
"This is a multi-platform backup solution where you can take a backup from AIX, Windows, or Linux servers and restore from CD, disk, or tape."
"Using this tool, we can easily backup and restore or recover the data for PCs and mobiles in case of system crashes."
"A full-featured data protection solution that is reliable and stable."
"The solution offers a very straightforward deployment. You click, click, click and it's done. There's not much configuration to do."
"It has allowed me to implement a cost effective, highly configurable solution."
"The initial setup is very easy. It's not overly complex."
"The solution is easy to access and handles things efficiently."
"The most valuable feature of MSP360 Backup is its reliability."
"MSP360 Backup's most valuable feature is its backup interface."
"The solution is simple to use and easy to configure."
"The UI is pretty good. It's very simple. That is one thing that we like about this. It's very user-friendly."
"One massive advantage of this solution, as compared to more enterprise products, is that no firewall changes are needed on the client's premises. For the product to back up from the client's premise to the cloud, it just needs port 8 and port 443, which are anyway always open. This was one of the things that made us decide to go with the product. It is very difficult to justify a firewall change for a small client who doesn't even know what a firewall is and how to maintain a firewall, or doesn't have anybody maintaining their firewall. You then have to maintain the firewall. MSP360 Backup takes away firewall change requirements, VPNs, or channels that are needed for the backup."
 

Cons

"The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy."
"It still needs to grow and add new features. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, I believe, requires time to become competitive due to a weakness in the other software products."
"The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use."
"I would like more integration with security. We need to show the value of the product in regards to handling security. For example, how it handles current malware or viruses. IBM should be more proactive in this direction."
"The tool needs to increase the number of threats."
"The solution only supports HyperV and VMware but doesn't support Nutanix."
"The one issue we are facing is related to file restores."
"I think the graphical reports are a shortcoming of the tool since it fails to provide my company with what we want in terms of reporting. Due to the product's inability to take care of its reporting part, we have to use third-party software."
"The solution's pricing is very high."
"The interface feels like it is targeted for end users who typically are looking for an all-in-one integrated push button solution. It would be better if the interface had a beginner mode and an expert mode."
"There are some things that we don't like about it. That is why I was exploring alternatives in a hyper-scale environment. That is why I was checking IT Central Station."
"The main improvement is that it should have GDPR compliance. That's the problematic point. They say they are GDPR compliant, but they are not."
"The Linux GUI leaves a lot to be desired. It lacks many of the features of the Windows version and is buggy, but it is still usable."
"Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service."
"They can add some production backup capabilities and the ability to do single instance back up. At the moment, it doesn't do deduplication on the standard backup. So, the issue is backing up PSG files for customers who have limited bandwidth. The other issue is that I don't like the implementation of the SQL backup. We do use SQL ourselves using a PowerShell script with the VDA tools as a module. That's how we back up. The rotation feature would be nice to have, but I know that they've got it on their dashboard or on their list to look at. They can also do a few tweaks to the dashboard. I would like the reporting capabilities on the portal to be much more granular. Normally, I export it to a text file, and then I run it through a pivot table in order to look at it from a cost-recovery point of view and to see when the backup last ran and if it was successful when it ran two or three days ago. Such a feature would work really well for my market. They can also add a cost-effective backup for Android and Apple cellphones. I've had one or two customers who were looking for this feature. I haven't found this functionality at the moment. I've been looking for a product that does that."
"The solution needs a better graphical user interface. It's a graphical user interface that is very old-school right now. They could give it a little more modern feel."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."
"The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product."
"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"Clients prefer to buy a perpetual license, but the majority opt for a yearly subscription."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"The price is perpetual, but the maintenance cost is annual. That is, we pay once for the product and pay annually for the maintenance and support. The price was much cheaper than what we would have had to pay for EMC or Veritas. The pricing is competitive, and I would rate it at four out of five."
"Its pricing needs improvement."
"Pricing is reasonable although can be quite a large upfront cost."
"The solution is expensive."
"It includes a standard licensing fee. Once a year, there is a rebranding fee. The licensing costs are available on the internet for MSP360 Backup. There is a discount structure where if you have over 50 devices, you get a 50% discount. So, my cost is $2 a license per month."
"The cost is pretty inexpensive. Around four to five dollars per device, per workstation on each server."
"It provides a good cost savings compared to our previous cloud backup."
"We have a very good return on investment."
"MSP360 is vastly cheaper than its competitors and has almost all the same features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Technical support could be improved significantly. 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.
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Also Known As

No data available
Cloudberry Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
StratX
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.