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Azure Backup vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 2025

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

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
58
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.0%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure Backup3.0%
IBM Storage Protect2.3%
Other94.7%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost savings and efficiency with high-level restore capabilities
I use Azure Backup mainly for backing up virtual machines The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore. Additionally, it has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution. The area that I believe needs improvement in…
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

"The hardware is always updated and it's saved us a lot of money."
"When it comes to Azure Backup, the advantage is that it's native and it's very easy to configure. We don't require a separate tool or manage something on a separate server. At the backend, it's managed by Microsoft itself, and we don't need to manage it."
"It's useful, it works, and it's fairly reliable."
"It is easy to schedule backups."
"The storage backup is very efficient."
"You can select the tiering for your backup and manage your cost."
"Azure Backup is very simple to use and user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Azure Backup is the file recovery and file vault."
"The most valuable features are compression and de-duplication."
"We cannot live without it, since it gives us the confidence to move forward."
"In general, the solution is quite user-friendly. The GUI is very nice."
"The product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."
"The scheduled backups ensure we meet the requirements for our business, and we keep backups of certain environments."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"It covers all the different operating systems. If you need backup, it can pretty much do everything."
 

Cons

"The solution’s user interface could be improved."
"It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure."
"The monitoring and tagging features could be improved."
"It would be beneficial to receive alert messages if something isn't configured correctly, for instance, if service principal names are missing, a message could prompt you to set them up."
"While Azure Backup allows ingress data, the egress data is chargeable, which should be excluded."
"I would like to have the option to increase the frequency of the backups. Azure Backup does backups on an hourly basis, but I would prefer it to take backups more often."
"I once tried restoring a Linux environment, and the size of the Linux VM or the data disk was really huge. It took a really long time to restore the environment and send the data from the storage to the disk. It took around 25 to 30 minutes, which was much longer than I anticipated. They can improve the duration of such restore operations. In the next release, it would also be good if they could reduce the duration for transferring the data from their storage to the actual storage while creating a virtual machine. They can reduce the duration or increase the data transfer rate."
"The extensibility onto hybrid environments needs a bit of tweaking for those on-prem."
"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."
"The product should improve its GUI. It should also support Windows clustering."
"I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution."
"We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center."
"The previous GUI that they had was slow, and it did not have enough information on it."
"I am looking forward to new features in the next release. One of the main features is the cloud storage integration, which was one of my main required features. I've had more difficult experiences with other platforms than with this one."
"The usability of IBM Spectrum Protect could be improved, specifically additional features to the product in the operations center. Additional reporting facilities and stronger reporting tools such as build dashboards would be beneficial."
"The solution should have better integration with VMware and with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price should be cheaper, but it's affordable if you use the yearly subscription."
"We have enterprise-level pricing. I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The product is neither too expensive nor too cheap."
"The price is pretty good, maybe $30 for a machine, I can't complain."
"The product is not expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is good, and it is one of the easiest things that you can sell Azure with."
"The pricing of this solution is ok, but I'm expecting that the price will decrease in the future."
"It's around $10 to $15 per month per virtual machine, along with something extra based on the size of the data."
"The solution is expensive."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."
"Licensing IBM Spectrum Protect can be somewhat confusing for new users due to the options available, such as licensing on a capacity or per server basis."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
The pricing of Azure Backup is fine; it is a low-cost solution.
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage 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

No data available
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.