No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Catalogic DPX vs Dell PowerProtect Data Manager 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

Catalogic DPX
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
76th
Average Rating
6.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Catalogic DPX is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.0%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.0%
Catalogic DPX0.5%
Other97.5%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

it_user292722 - PeerSpot reviewer
Data Center Global SAP Operations Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
We use it to backup some high output critical physical servers, knowing that in case of disaster we could still recover to our VM environment. The user interface needs improvement.
The user interface needs improvement, the selection boxes to select a backup job are very small not adequate for managing 400+ backup jobs, we only see 8 job names in the small scroll window. The scheduler features are lacking, we must edit backup specs to reach the option to change the schedule. The new reporting feature has greatly improved the product, prior to this it was very difficult to have a full view of our backup schedules when scheduling a new job. Since the move from Syncsort to Catalogic, the quality control of upgrades has diminished and backups that used to work could not be restored without contacting Catalogic for a fix. We still see a lot of value in the product, but hope that the next few updates will not cause more issues... We wanted a mission critical enterprise solution, and sincerely hope that the future upgrades will bring the product back on track.
Pranav Telang - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at Airtel Digital
Centralized backups have simplified hybrid protection and improved ransomware recovery and compliance
The majorly needed improvement is that the product should easily simplify the upgrade and installation process. Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues. Sometimes it is not a P1 for Dell, but it is P1 for the customer, and the support needs to be very mature. That is a major drawback I see. Otherwise, the product is quite well. This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard. In that way, it makes their backup management easier and they can get detected anomalies as soon as possible. This is one of the solutions I would recommend. However, if it is a very small company, they really need to think about the cost, as it is very costlier for them. But as an enterprise solution and a mid-enterprise solution, this is the solution where companies think their data is very critical, in sectors such as financial, banking, and health. This kind of sector should go with that solution because it always gives the compliances of HIPAA, GDPR, and all those things that are really required for them. From management perspectives and consolidation solution perspective, the integration is quite easy. With respect to the backup administrator and everything, it is quite straightforward. There are some layers that need to be improved and should have the internal feature instead of creating the additional VMs for the NAS backup. It should be internal and directly have the agent base or something that can communicate easily with Dell storage. If it is third-party, I would understand, but it should be able to communicate. The benefit of it is that it is easily understood and you can do knowledge transfer with a lot of documents available. The drawback of it is that when it comes to the installation, Dell always takes a lot of time for all these things with third-party involvement in between Dell and the customer. Support is the major part of it. People need to understand that when a customer raises their ticket for P1, they should treat it as a P1. Instead of by their book being P3 or P2, sometimes they only treat it as such when the complete backup server is down. However, for the customer, if it is not happening with the critical system of backup, then it is a P1 for them. From Dell support, they do not treat it as a P1, or they treat it as a P3 or P2. That kind of understanding and some agreements need to be done between the customer and Dell. It is a costlier solution. Comparatively, other backup solutions make this one of the costlier solutions. However, someone who has their enterprise data or needs protection in a good way can go for it. I could say it is a mid-enterprise or enterprise level solution. Otherwise, people do have the same solution but with differentiated features. However, it is costlier compared to the other.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"By implementing an OVF (docker based) and without any agents on your servers, you’ll get a system which provides you with: Orchestration, Automation DR and Data analytics."
"Catalogic has great features including the ability to P2V from snapvaults, and recently the addition of agent-less backups for Linux."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"I would recommend it, as it's stable and you don't have downtimes, even with upgrades."
"When we moved out of all of this and migrated everything to Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it reduced their cost by somewhere around 30 percent."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has drastically improved our backup processes, reducing the time needed for backups from 12 to 15 hours to just an hour and 30 minutes, allowing me to efficiently manage critical data resources."
"The solution adequately handles data storage."
"The strongest point for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is because of Dell's very broad product portfolio."
"I love that it has an interactive GUI, and it is not complicated to use."
"The features I appreciate about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager include the snapshot killer, which is a very good feature, and the ability to access the hypervisor directly to take backups from VMs."
 

Cons

"And hearing about all these awesome posibilities, it kind of struck me that this was only possible with NetApp storage."
"Since the move from Syncsort to Catalogic, the quality control of upgrades has diminished and backups that used to work could not be restored without contacting Catalogic for a fix."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager should add support for Hyper-V and Nutanix VMs, as well as Kubernetes. Additionally, they should support tape library backup capabilities."
"One improvement I would suggest for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is the ability to send data not just to a Data Domain but also to a PowerScale, which would provide faster backups for critical VMs, enhancing the Instant Recovery backups' speed."
"In my opinion, what can be improved about PPPDM is that for the reporting perspective, we need to install an additional reporting component."
"There is always room for improvement. The compression ratio should be improved as well as the efficiency."
"PowerProtect Data Manager is missing a feature for takeout, which means I cannot store backup data off-site within the software. This is a limitation for organizations that require off-site solutions."
"PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems."
"The Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager reports could improve. There should be different kinds of reports on failures, such as dashboards that we can submit to top management or auditors."
"Sometimes we have struggled with some S3 operations, but we can solve all the problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
"The licensing costs and pricing model are based on capacity and the license is easy to upgrade."
"We offer monthly or yearly subscriptions. The price could be cheaper."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
"The product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
I have had a great experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing; it is clear and simple.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
I think Dell PowerProtect can be improved in that I see PowerStore supporting the synchronous and asynchronous replica, similar to PowerMax.
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Our main cases for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager are for virtual tape library.
 

Also Known As

BEX
PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Hendrick Medical, CommonFund, Red-8, Fairfax County Schools, Tectrade, Storage Assessments
National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Rubrik and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.