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Barracuda Backup 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

Barracuda Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (41st)
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 Barracuda Backup is 0.4%, up from 0.2% 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

Ferrianto Suryanto - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effective data backup with room for user interface improvements
I work with various Barracuda products based on customer requests, including Barracuda Backup and Barracuda WAF. In the past, I also worked with Barracuda Web Security Gateway, but it has been phased out One valuable feature of Barracuda Backup is that it can be used as thin VMware storage. If…
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

"Barracuda Backup is cost-effective because there is no licensing cost per server or VM."
"The solution’s scalability is good because its space is unlimited. We can start in Office365 with one terabyte bit of information and leverage through an enterprise solution of 1000 users."
"The most valuable feature of Barracuda Backup is that it's on the cloud, so there is no need for hardware."
"One valuable feature of Barracuda Backup is that it can be used as thin VMware storage."
"Replication processes with container storage pools allow reduction of storage space and network bandwidth, using deduplication and compression."
"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."
"Traditional archiving. One of our revenue streams involves maintaining archives of our customers' data for very long periods of time."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the centralized enterprise backup."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
"It's very robust and has been on the market for a long time."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"Our customers have come to trust IBM."
 

Cons

"In using Barracuda Backup, sometimes the VM has issues and becomes non-functional, requiring support tickets to resolve."
"An improvement is required in reports and backups for sharing on Linux and Unix."
"Barracuda Backup's support could be improved because sometimes the support team is situated outside the country, leading to time zone issues."
"Barracuda Backup's user interface needs to be renewed as it appears outdated."
"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."
"When it comes to virtualization in IBM it's not perfect."
"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."
"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."
"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."
"If IBM could provide a partial module, that would be great."
"Technical support could be improved."
"Most customers still struggle with the reporting piece, especially generating reports. I think it needs some improvements in this area."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"IBM Spectrum Protect can be considered an averagely-priced product."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."
"We chose IBM Spectrum Protect, because they actually have something called MSP pricing, which means managed services provider pricing. The pricing was attractive, and it seems to be a platform that IBM is totally investing on in terms of new functions and new capabilities."
"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Legal Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda Backup?
The pricing is very competitive. Licensing is on a yearly basis, and Barracuda even provides replacements after three years if a device reaches end of life, without any extra charges.
What needs improvement with Barracuda Backup?
Barracuda Backup's support could be improved because sometimes the support team is situated outside the country, leading to time zone issues. Adding AI features for security would also be beneficia...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda Backup?
I am not using Barracuda Backup ( /vendors/barracuda-networks ); I am selling it. The primary use case for my clients is to take the backup. It is used by a range of clients from small to enterpris...
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

LiveVault
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ochsner Health System
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 Barracuda Backup vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.