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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
 

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 most valuable feature of Azure Backup is its simplicity."
"I like that it's a stable solution and their support is good. I think Microsoft's commercial force is superior."
"I like the product's restoration cases."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that it is easy to create a backup by using Azure Backup. It also has a good user interface and nice features for sending notifications when any backup fails or there is a change in the status of virtual machines."
"The fact that Azure Backup is integrated is one of its biggest advantages."
"With Azure Backup, you can readily make your environment if your setup somehow fails on the cloud or on-premises."
"I like that it's a simple system."
"The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore."
"The solution is very stable. It is one of the most important features that we look for in a product before putting it into the market and when establishing a strategy with our customers."
"The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best."
"The interface is easy to use."
"Scalability, performance, mass platform coverage. It's one of the few backup products on the market right now which an organization can bring in and it will serve all of their backup needs. It's a completely centralized solution."
"One of the main things that I like about IBM is the versioning of the data - meaning that we can have multiple versions of a file or directory of a server."
"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."
"The most valuable features of the product are data deduplication and disaster recovery."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
 

Cons

"My company faces a lot of difficulties in restoring any encrypted VM backup."
"Microsoft's technical support for Azure products could be improved."
"The product could improve its performance."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"We have a concern with the backup when were are working with VMs that are running in Barracuda Firewall because it usually fails."
"The reporting functionality of Azure Backup needs improvement."
"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."
"It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure."
"They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
"One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past."
"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."
"There have been scalability issues. The core product does not support scale out. We needed to create a new system and manage resources separate from the existing one."
"High availability (HA) is a scalability challenge."
"The features should be a little bit closer together."
"I should be able to backup Linux. I would like SUSE for Linux on POWER. Right now, we have to use Storex, which is a pain to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are paying about $100,000 USD per year, just for a couple of servers."
"Support payment works by the level of partnership and the number of shares."
"Overall, its cost is better because the VMs are already there, and whatever you back up, there is only the additional cost of that storage, whereas if I have to use Avamar in Azure, a separate cost is there for the Avamar server, and in addition, whatever I take as a backup, there is a separate license with Avamar for that. So, there is a double cost if we have to use Avamar in the cloud."
"The price is pretty good, maybe $30 for a machine, I can't complain."
"The product is neither too expensive nor too cheap."
"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"The product is not expensive."
"The product's pricing is a three or four out of ten, where one is inexpensive, and ten is costly."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."
"The platform is neither highly priced nor inexpensive. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"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."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
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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
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.