IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs MSP360 Backup comparison

IBM and MSP360 are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #51 with an average rating of 6.3, while MSP360 is ranked #60. IBM holds a 1.1% mindshare in BRS, compared to MSP360’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of MSP360 users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Read 33 IBM Spectrum Protect Plus reviews

2,199 Views
2,177 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

MSP360 Backup

Read 15 MSP360 Backup reviews

2,146 Views
1,395 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

MSP360 Backup

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

MSP360 Backup and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are both significant players in the backup solutions market. MSP360 Backup is favored for pricing and customer support, while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is preferred for its advanced features.

Features: MSP360 Backup supports multiple storage options, offers ease of use, and flexibility in deployment. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides robust data protection, automated backup processes, and advanced functionality.

Room for Improvement: MSP360 Backup needs better reporting, a more intuitive design, and enhanced user documentation. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus requires improved integration with third-party tools, better user documentation, and a less complex interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: MSP360 Backup is noted for easy deployment and responsive customer service. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus has a more complex deployment but also offers well-rated customer service.

Pricing and ROI: MSP360 Backup is recognized for its cost-effectiveness and good ROI. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, although pricier, is justified by its advanced features and long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup

February 2026

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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

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

51st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

MSP360 Backup

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

60th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (47th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (33rd), MSP Backup (8th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MSP360 Backup is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus	1.1%
MSP360 Backup	0.9%
Other	98.0%

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

AhmedSorour

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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CONRAD FORREST

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.

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

"The most valuable feature is how we can easily power speed up the VM even though the VM resides in remote storage."

"This solution is very stable and has good support available online."

"A full-featured data protection solution that is reliable and stable."

"The support from IBM is very good."

"The tool has enough documentation; you don't need to contact the support team."

"We used to use the solution with tapes a few years ago. We've switched to discs, and it has gotten much faster."

"The initial setup of IBM Protect Plus is simple and not complex."

"The API is very good."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pros

"Client-side encryption minimizes worries about data being captured on the back-end."

"MSP360 Backup's most valuable feature is its backup interface."

"The feature that I have found most valuable is its online backup capacity because you don't have to do an entire backup again and again, it just does whatever you type in, you type a, it goes a, you type b, it goes b. It doesn't take an entire site up again and again. So that incremental and bit by bit backup is important, it is a nice feature here."

"The most valuable feature of MSP360 Backup is its reliability."

"The solution is simple to use and easy to configure."

"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."

"Block level transfers have significantly reduced the amount of time for transfers over some other solutions"

"Provides connectivity to a lot of different cloud storage solutions."

More MSP360 Backup pros

Cons

"An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot."

"The one issue we are facing is related to file restores."

"The solution should allow for backup of iOS snapshots."

"I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery."

"There's significant room for improvement. They are not yet where I want them to be."

"Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas. In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting."

"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."

"You end up needing to do a lot of troubleshooting to get things to work effectively."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus cons

"The product could be more user-friendly."

"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."

"The restore time could improve. When we had an issue the restore time was lengthy."

"We could basically use just a more concise visual dashboard reporting on the status of the various machines."

"As for what can be improved, some reports could be simplified so that you know how much backup you have done and what your backup details are. That report is available but it is very tough to get. I would like to know "today I have just uploaded 35 MB, tomorrow I have loaded 10 MB so my trend of backup is increasing.""

"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 main improvement is that it should have GDPR compliance. That's the problematic point. They say they are GDPR compliant, but they are not."

"Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service."

More MSP360 Backup cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."

"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."

"We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise."

"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."

"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."

"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."

"The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original."

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is reasonable although can be quite a large upfront cost."

"The solution is expensive."

"We have a very good return on investment."

"It provides a good cost savings compared to our previous cloud backup."

"I rate the price of MSP360 Backup a seven out of ten."

"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."

"Its pricing needs improvement."

"The cost is pretty inexpensive. Around four to five dollars per device, per workstation on each server."

More MSP360 Backup pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	2

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

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Comparisons

IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 18% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 9% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 5% of the time

Atempo Live Navigator vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 5% of the time

Carbonite Server vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs MSP360 Backup

Compared 7% of the time

Acronis Cyber Protect vs MSP360 Backup

Compared 7% of the time

Comet Backup vs MSP360 Backup

Compared 4% of the time

BDRShield vs MSP360 Backup

Compared 4% of the time

NinjaOne vs MSP360 Backup

Compared 4% of the time

More MSP360 Backup Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

January 2026

Download IBM Spectrum Protect Plus product report

Buyer's Guide

MSP360 Backup

January 2026

Download MSP360 Backup product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cloudberry Backup

Overview

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection and availability solution for virtual environments that can be deployed in minutes and protect your environment within an hour. It simplifies data protection, whether data is hosted in physical, virtual, software-defined or cloud environments. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or integrate with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to off-load copies for long term storage and data governance with scale and efficiency.

IBM

MSP360 Backup is a comprehensive data protection solution designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers a wide range of features and capabilities to ensure the safety and security of critical data.

With support for various storage destinations, including local drives, network shares, and cloud storage providers, MSP360 Backup provides flexibility and scalability. It also offers advanced scheduling options, allowing users to automate backups based on specific time intervals or events.

The solution supports both full and incremental backups, minimizing storage requirements and optimizing backup speed. MSP360 Backup also includes built-in encryption and compression, ensuring data privacy and reducing storage costs. Additionally, it offers easy file and folder recovery, allowing users to quickly restore lost or corrupted data.

With its intuitive user interface and robust set of features, MSP360 Backup is a reliable and efficient solution for businesses looking to protect their valuable data.

MSP360

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio

StratX

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup

February 2026

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup

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