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Acronis Cyber Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect 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

Acronis Cyber Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (6th)
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 Acronis Cyber Protect is 4.2%, down from 4.7% 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

SameerMogale - PeerSpot reviewer
Encounter challenges in troubleshooting but experience efficient customer support
The application itself is a bit bloated. Although it has a lot of features when it comes to troubleshooting, we don't basically know where to start even though we do give them the log files to troubleshoot they don't give us a proper solution set. So I would say because it's bloated, it's a bit more difficult to troubleshoot where you get certain errors. From my side, on the POC I didn't really need to do much. It's only after we discovered there was a compatibility issue with the application that the client was running that we actually had to do a lot of log file shipping to Acronis themselves and getting solutions because of other problems. So on a day-to-day basis, you don't even maintain it, you just forget about it. You get alerts, but usually in between. It's quite easy to manage. To be honest with you, since I didn't really test that option of Acronis Cyber Protect, it's supposed to make everything feasible and easy to manage but I never got the option of testing it out, so I cannot really say at this stage.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a good solution that's very easy to use. Acronis has two valuable features. The first one is creating images, and the other is starting virtual machines in the cloud so the client can work immediately."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"I can encrypt the data, I can make it send me an email if it fails. It lets me choose which files I want to ignore during backup."
"The most valuable features of Acronis Backup are cloning and many other capabilities. For example, you are able to clone the whole operating system and drive. Additionally, the solution is a complete package."
"One of the most valuable features of Acronis is its AnyData Engine which allows any device to connect to any other device for the purpose of data restoration."
"The most valuable feature is that you can do a bare-metal restore even with dissimilar hardware."
"The most valuable feature is the extra protection, especially for the backup."
"The solution was easy to install and to deploy."
"Good user interface."
"The customization and the ability to backup across all platforms are the most valuable features."
"I've had no problems with the stability of this solution."
"The way it covers backup and archive needs. The flexibility of backup copy group always allows me to cover the customer's requests."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is application-aware backups."
"The product is always stable and reliable."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."
"A little bit more integration would be good. It should support broader platforms."
"It could back up more things. I don't think it can back up Box and some of the other third-party ones. Not that we use them that much, but the more they can do, the better it would be. There could also be better integrations with RMM tools."
"The whole product structure is confusing. You can actually get to do what you want to do. But Acronis seems to have a singular ability to make things difficult."
"If I could create a protected image backup on a computer partition that just would be just for the image backup; and only the program could access it to prevent viruses from getting into it. That would be very, very good."
"Acronis Backup can improve the latency when the file size is larger, we have had issues. Additionally, they could allow more flexibility when searching for information and I cannot download the CBIS backup copy information which could be made easier."
"They can include something called a backup appliance. Although Acronis is a software-driven company, it would be good for customers to have some kind of backup appliance on top of a lightweight operating system. This will also reduce the cost. Currently, the customers have to buy the hardware in addition to the operating system, which increases the overhead in terms of procurement."
"When you are using enterprise hardware and software that increases over time, there need to be better and more management features. For pure backup software, it is fine, but when it comes to managing a large infrastructure it is lacking."
"There is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"For Spectrum Protect Plus, I would like to see more enhanced reporting features and integration with Spectrum Protect."
"Sometimes we experience trouble with the backup transfer of the control files."
"My customers are not always happy with the Level 1 support. Sometimes, it just takes too long for the response to come, which is probably something that needs to be addressed."
"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."
"Our new leadership has pushed us to go more toward the cloud, so we are definitely going to leverage anything we can in that direction."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Acronis Backup could be reduced, it is expensive."
"Pricing is what it is. I don't shop around once I find a good solution. I insist they maintain ongoing support year after year for updates and tech support."
"Doing what this is capable of doing, the cost of it is in line."
"The price of the solution is expensive and could be reduced a little."
"Our licenses come with a one-time yearly subscription fee."
"It is very cost-effective for the SMB segment, especially for start-ups and smaller environments. It is cost-effective for on-premises and on-cloud deployments in such environments."
"The license is a perpetual license. The cost is an area for improvement."
"I find the pricing structure satisfactory, it is around $25 per year."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."
"There may be an advantage to going with IBM in terms of pricing. They have a pay-as-you-grow policy, so there is no need to take one license for the entire datacenter. You can start with small licenses and then grow, and pay, as you use more."
"The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."
"It can be perceived as expensive since it is designed for enterprise use."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD)."
"The solution is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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

Major Differences Between These 4 Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions?
Comparing the features of the four is not the right approach. You need to develop a list of requirements for backup and DR that are specific to your organization and then compare each of the four ...
How does Acronis Backup compare with Veeam Backup & Replication?
Acronis Backup is a versatile backup-as-a-service solution for service providers. It allows you to protect workloads on-premises and in the cloud and provide backup to any storage. The deployment i...
What do you like most about Acronis Backup?
One of its most valuable aspects is its user-friendly interface.
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...
 

Also Known As

Acronis Backup, Acronis Backup 12.5 Standard, Acronis Backup 12.5 Advanced
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Kings Academy, Rush Memorial, Pentagon Credit Union, Oxford School District, New York City Probation, Dolmen Insurance, New Bedford Community Health, Gerard Darel, Ready Honda
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Acronis Cyber Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.