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Carbonite Server vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 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

Carbonite Server
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
58th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (45th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
48th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Carbonite Server is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
Carbonite Server1.0%
Other97.9%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

CP
Backup, storage and disaster recovery technical specialist at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
A reliable backup product which needs little management
For most technical users the setup and initial deployment are fairly straightforward and once deployed it 99% of the time looks after itself. Installation of the agents is similar to most other products in that it has an install wizard to guide you, the accompanying documentation is also very useful to assist wherever you are in the agent install and policy setup process. Normally our customers' IT team does the deployment of agents, however, this isn't a daunting task unless you are dealing with multiple servers to protect the product. On a server-by-server basis, the deployment doesn't take long. From the MSP side of things, the infrastructure sitting behind the scenes doesn't take too much to install, configure and maintain.
Christophe LAMAMY - PeerSpot reviewer
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
Complex deployment has limited adoption but has provided structured backup management
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus may take a couple of days and longer if you have a complex customer solution. The deployment itself is not very lengthy, but the integration in production is more complicated. I assess the efficiency of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus's Advanced Snapshot Technology as not good because they change a lot of things. During multiple versions, we have experienced many changes in the product, and from the customer's view, it is not a good product because with each evolution, we encounter problems. We do not sell this product or advise this product. For SLA management features with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, I utilize file level. SLA management is a good solution and a good idea, but the product does not work well, and customers do not adopt this product. I cannot assess the integration capability of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus using RESTful API. I cannot determine what benefit IBM Spectrum Protect Plus brings to the organization because we deployed this solution with one customer, and that customer changed the product after one or two years because the product is not stable and it changes with every version. The customer wanted to move away from this solution. The price of the product is good, but the solution does not adapt to the market. The market in France does not adopt IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I find the BMR/image and the recovery pieces are valuable."
"It seems reliable and easy to use."
"It does not slow down your computer or use a lot of resources as it works."
"The solution is a free engine to help work with the container."
"The advice that I have for people looking into using Carbonite Server is that it seems reliable and easy to use."
"Technical support handled all our issues quickly and effectively."
"The Granular Restore of SQL feature has been a lifesaver more times than I can count. One of the main reasons for looking at Carbonite was their support for platforms like AIX and AS/400 Series."
"The efficiency and convenience are excellent."
"Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors."
"The biggest benefit of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is that it's an agentless backup product which is very easy to configure and use."
"What I like about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is its integration, plus it has very good technical support."
"The support from IBM is very good."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a good investment."
"If the system were to go down, we needed to make sure that the system could be recovered and available as soon as possible. Spectrum Protect provides you access to directly bind the backup volume to the server and make the system available instead of restoring it and copying the system."
"We conducted a proof-of-concept on the customer side, and they found the product to be user-friendly and extremely useful."
"This solution is very stable and has good support available online."
 

Cons

"They do not yet have USB recovery but they are adding it in coming releases."
"When you have to restore it, Carbonite takes a lot of time."
"It could be a little bit easier or faster to be able to access data files without having to download anything."
"The support for object storage isn't quite there yet; its public cloud support can be improved."
"The stability has room for improvement."
"In the next release I would like to see an improvement in the auto failover option."
"I would like to see an improvement on the management user interface, as well as Kellion integrations."
"The Hyper-V backup has room for improvement."
"There's significant room for improvement. They are not yet where I want them to be."
"The solution only supports HyperV and VMware but doesn't support Nutanix."
"The software's technical support could improve its response time for different time zones."
"The security must be improved."
"The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use."
"An area that needs improvement is data validation. We currently use another product that gives us immediate validation, information about when the last backup was, and no risk of corruption happening. TSM in IBM Spectrum is not mature so that you can validate on the spot."
"Instead of using the command prompt for troubleshooting and administering the backup, there should be an easy-to-use graphical user interface."
"Sometimes you have to try to restore things multiple times. It can sometimes take a whole day just to get a recovery up and running."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is reasonable."
"The pricing is between $120 and $150 per year."
"The solution is open source."
"We pay 9,000 dollars per year for our license."
"In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training."
"The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"The solution is too expensive."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"Clients prefer to buy a perpetual license, but the majority opt for a yearly subscription."
"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."
"Depends on the licensing options that you choose."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
 

Also Known As

Carbonite Recover Backup
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

INLINE Commercial Construction, Hamilton County
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Find out what your peers are saying about Carbonite Server vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.