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Actifio vs Dell PowerProtect Backup Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
1.0
Actifio boosts productivity by reducing storage costs, improving data management, and enhancing disaster recovery, offering substantial ROI.
Sentiment score
4.6
Dell PowerProtect offers cost savings, efficient restoration, and operational effectiveness, though critical issue handling remains underutilized by some users.
The fact that I am not managing an infrastructure is actually reducing the cost of the environment because there is no one sitting just to manage that infrastructure.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Instead of having to send a DBA in to investigate the database and the errors within it, we can just quickly restore from an hour or two ago to get back to where we are needing.
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
Some of the returns on investment I see with this product are security and saving time.
Oficial Senior at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.5
Actifio's customer support is mostly praised, though some users report expertise gaps, especially when involving IBM or Google.
Sentiment score
4.8
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services' customer service has mixed feedback, with server support praised but desktop support needing improvement.
Their knowledge isn't great.
Tech Lead / Informix DBA at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
The skill of the support is good, but the response time is something that needs to be better.
Oficial Senior at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
That one number to call, that one tech to call, to rely on support for not just the single product but the whole suite that we are there to do it.
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
I've always rated Dell with excellent support.
System Administrator
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.3
Actifio excels in scalable data management across sectors with optimal performance reliant on network and hardware resources.
Sentiment score
4.9
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services is favored for seamless scalability, outperforming competitors like Datto and Axcient in adaptability for growth.
The one thing that we found is that they were not scalable.
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services is really easy to scale and is pretty scalable.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Actifio is stable and reliable, with robust support and positive user feedback on performance and quick bug resolution.
Sentiment score
7.9
Dell PowerProtect ensures reliable performance and security with cloud deployment, despite occasional longer updates, enhancing user protection and satisfaction.
Once we sorted out all our problems with Actifio and our configuration of our database and other components, I would probably rate stability about a seven.
Tech Lead / Informix DBA at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
If customers need to ensure that data is vaulted and immutable to protect against ransomware, they can pay extra to create a vault in AWS to ensure the data is protected.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
There's never an issue with the data, so the encryption works excellently.
System Administrator
We have not had any performance issues.
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
 

Room For Improvement

Actifio needs workflow flexibility, platform support enhancements, better integration, improved support, pricing features, AI, and seamless upgrades.
Dell PowerProtect aims to enhance support, improve SaaS backup features, and integrate systems, addressing pricing and management issues.
The most concerning issue is IBM support.
Tech Lead / Informix DBA at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
allowing us to get that final single pane of glass to function with everything in the product suite
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services does not allow us to customize the schedule in backup tasks, which only has options for daily or twice a day.
Oficial Senior at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The majority of customers who speak about Office 365 backups want to back up Office 365 on-premises, which means if they have SaaS backups, they need a copy of that cloud data in their data center.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Actifio is praised for its supportive pricing and professional services, offering affordability and rapid implementation despite learning curves.
Dell PowerProtect is competitively priced for Dell users, with $10,000 initial costs and appealing shared storage pools.
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services costs us around 10 grand.
System Administrator
Competitors offer lower prices for Office 365 backups compared to Dell PowerProtect Backup Services.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
That pricing was a big factor in selecting the product, along with the fact that we use many other Dell products in our environment.
Technical Analyst at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Actifio is praised for its Golden Copy, cloud integration, user-friendly interface, cost efficiency, and excellent support team.
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services offer easy, cloud-native management with strong integration, seamless scaling, and robust multi-cloud data protection.
What really stands out in Actifio is that it can provide us full copies of the database without having full copies of the database.
Tech Lead / Informix DBA at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
We can go right into one spot, see where our backups are, understand the situation, restore, make a new backup, move it, migrate it from one location to the other really quickly and easily without having to go into a lot of technical detail.
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
The handiest feature of Dell PowerProtect Backup Services is that it syncs up our backups to other locations.
System Administrator
Some of the returns on investment I see with this product are security and saving time.
Oficial Senior at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Actifio
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Test Data Management (8th)
Dell PowerProtect Backup Se...
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
25th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Jeff Poulton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Lead / Informix DBA at a wholesaler/distributor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has reduced storage requirements for development environments but presents challenges during upgrades and support interactions
The most concerning issue is IBM support. The issue I have with IBM support is that sometimes they don't seem to know their product very well at times. I don't know where the support is coming from, whether it's from IBM or from Google through IBM. I'm not sure who physically does the support. Their knowledge isn't great. Plus, the way we use it is not the focus of Google nowadays. Google, as I understand it, bought the product as an add-on to Google Cloud or whatever as a backup and that's not how we use it. I do see some problems with Actifio, specifically keeping current with operating systems. It can be tricky to upgrade Actifio. It can be a challenge. When we've had to do it, we've had to work with their support people, and some of them are just people reading a sheet of instructions. When those instructions are obviously wrong at times because you can tell if you have half a knowledge of what you're doing, it takes ages for them to go off and find someone to explain what's going wrong. So it can be very laborious.
Keith Bradley - PeerSpot reviewer
VP Of Security at NatureFresh™ Farms
Unified backups have protected our hybrid environment and simplified recovery across sites
Some of the best features that we find within the suite of Dell PowerProtect Data Domain and Dell PowerProtect Backup Services is the integration into the vSphere portal, VXRAILs, and areas that have made it so quick and easy to use. The latest expansion into Dell Native Edge has also been a great feature for us to add an expansion into that. These features benefit our company by allowing a small IT team like ours to not have to go to multiple panes of glass to see what we are doing. We can go right into one spot, see where our backups are, understand the situation, restore, make a new backup, move it, migrate it from one location to the other really quickly and easily without having to go into a lot of technical detail.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Construction Company
13%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Actifio?
The most concerning issue is IBM support. The issue I have with IBM support is that sometimes they don't seem to know their product very well at times. I don't know where the support is coming from...
What is your primary use case for Actifio?
The main use case for me with Actifio is to provide databases to our development teams. We utilize snapshots or images to manage multiple copies of our production database efficiently without using...
What advice do you have for others considering Actifio?
I do not work with the point-in-time recovery feature in Actifio. Our database has that capability. We don't use Actifio as a backup per se. In terms of Actifio's impact on reducing downtime for pr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Backup Services?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is pretty good compared to other vendors. That pricing was a big factor in selecting the product, along with the fact that we use many other De...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Backup Services?
In the next release for Dell PowerProtect services, the final step would be to integrate both the on-prem and the cloud-based models that they are using, allowing us to get that final single pane o...
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerProtect Backup Services?
Dell PowerProtect Backup Services serves as our main solution for the backup and security of our network. It performs backups and controls everything from our physical servers to our virtual server...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IBM, Waste Industries, Nasdaq, Verizon, Sharp, Rosetta Stone, Dakine, JBS Australia, Texas Wesleyan University, Cintra, People's Choice Credit Union, Lotto NZ, Electric Insurance, Tyler Technologies, Intility, Corporate One Federal Credit Union, Bryant University, pc/nametag, Isagenix, Sungard Availability Services, Databank, Electrocraft, Lifescript, Westfleisch, Interstate National Corporation, RestorePoint, Net3, Access Community Health Network, Newmarket International, Rezolve Group Inc., Piri Reis University, MC Assembly, Grass-Merkur, dbMotion, Christian Broadcasting Network, Bezeq, Abilene Christian University, CNW Group, Softcat, Migliori, City of South Portland, NaviSite, News-Press & Gazette, Comtec, Equity Insurance, Admirals Bank, Assistra, Dassault, Henry Davis York Lawyers, SAI Global, Audax Group, DSM, Triad Retail Media, Euronet Worldwide, Palm Beach County School District, iGate, Emerald Queen Casino
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Actifio vs. Dell PowerProtect Backup Services and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.