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BackupAssist vs Dell Avamar 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

BackupAssist
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
71st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
MSP Backup (12th)
Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of BackupAssist is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

RM
Provides ransomware protection, does good reporting, and is close to perfect for our use case
The main challenge that I have had with it was no line of support, but I've anyway taken away the Linux machine that I was using. So, I don't need that anymore. I'm migrating my Exchange to the cloud. So, I probably will stop using the exchange backup side of it sometime next year, but the rest of the virtual machines that I have on-premises are very well covered by it. To be able to back up my online Exchange, I know there is a backup in the cloud, but I prefer to have something physical with something on my premises as well. It stopped doing my backups after I did the last update on it.
Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.

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 features of BackupAssist are ease of use, configure is simple, and more importantly, ease of recovery. If you needed to do a complete system recovery or another recovery it is straightforward."
"I have found that the backups are usually very successful."
"I get my reports. It is generally very reliable. Unless there is a major change, it doesn't stop backing up. I've got my server room set up with everything connected to the same power, and I never have power issues or failures of backups because a sub-site has gone off."
"We can configure the notifications themselves so that the right people get the notifications. This is very helpful. It allows key stakeholders to know if backups have happened and to remind each other to check the backups if something is not right."
"The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."
"I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."
"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."
"Source based deduplication is the most attractive feature as it drastically reduces the backup window."
"The solution's ease of use simplifies the disaster recovery processes in our company"
"We have seen huge data reduction and data deduplication and compression, which is very cost-effective and cost-reducing for the company."
"The source site replication feature is valuable."
 

Cons

"Many solutions become stagnant over time. However, BackupAssist has been consistent in updates but they must continue to innovate and improve to avoid stagnation."
"In the future I would like to see more support for Linux."
"The solution needs a dashboard or some form of central control from which you can manage all backups."
"It stopped doing my backups after I did the last update on it."
"Many solutions become stagnant over time. However, BackupAssist has been consistent in updates but they must continue to innovate and improve to avoid stagnation."
"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."
"The screen design is a bit back-dated."
"Compared with Cohesity or Rubrik, which have some continuous data protection for backup and replication, this solution tends to lack in this area."
"The solution is not very strong on the Cloud. They should work out how they can use this as a backup as a service."
"It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution."
"EMC has discontinued their Avamar hardware version. They only advertise the Avamar virtual edition."
"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."
"I have found the support from Dell EMC Avamar to be not as good as Veeam. The time it takes to receive support could be improved. However, once we have the support the agents are knowledgeable and helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of the solution is reasonable and there are add-on options that can be purchased. I have used other solutions that are a lot more expensive that are not as good. The ability to get support is very simple and very reasonable from a cost standpoint."
"It's on a yearly basis, but I'm not the one who does the licensing on that. I don't have any figures, but it's on a yearly basis, and I believe it's reasonable."
"The product pricing here in Zimbabwe is good, I cannot complain."
"There's a yearly licensing cost. The costs might be around $2000 USD annually."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"I'm not sure, but perhaps the pricing could be done better at the moment."
"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."
"Dell Avamar, including its virtual add-ons and cloud-based offerings, is cheaper than other solutions, but in the end, the price still depends on your use case. Price-wise, I'm rating Dell Avamar as six out of ten."
"Licensing fees are paid annually."
"It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years."
"Its licensing is weird. It is not just the licenses; we also purchase hardware. With most software products, such as Veeam, Commvault, and Data Protector, there is no hardware purchase at the same time. Because Avamar and Data Domain are tied together, they have an integrated pipe. You can separate them, but basically, they're designed to work as a couple. Because the Data Domain backend is designed to do dedupe and compression, we get 60:1. When you count it, you count it as a straight compression, but of course, that's with dedupe and some other stuff. You have to buy the hardware, the licensing, and the software at the same time. So, it's not just software."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Avamar
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Monash University, NASA, NYU, Pfizer, RAF Association, Rockwell Colins, University of Arizona, US Department of State, Volvo
Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about BackupAssist vs. Dell Avamar and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.