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Cohesity DataProtect 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

Cohesity DataProtect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (8th)
IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
13th
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 September 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity DataProtect is 2.7%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cohesity DataProtect2.7%
IBM Storage Protect2.2%
Other95.1%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli. - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support
The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup. Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance. We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site. Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.
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 aspect for me is that I don't have to deal with media in terms of tapes like our existing system does."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Cohesity is a cost-effective storage designed for secondary or archival data. It also integrates well with a number of other systems, like VMware, Pure Storage, or AWS with its large array of APIs available to the user."
"It makes our administrators' lives much easier to combine backup, archiving, and services like hosting file shares in one central system with only one user interface."
"Cohesity DataProtect is more of a unified solution, which is also trying to expand for ransomware protection."
"A robust, verifiable backup with a restore solution, which decreases our backup and has a restore window."
"It has a lightning fast restore."
"The four independent node cluster architecture is redundant. It maintains data integrity and load balancing."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"The product is always stable and reliable."
"It helps our customers protect their data, keep it long-term, and feel pretty secure about it, basically sleeping well at night."
"Data reduction definitely reduces costs, not only software costs, but from the infrastructure needed."
"It is also a product that has been maturing for a long time. This is good because customers need reliability in their enterprise initiatives."
"Incremental backup is highly valuable as it allows for significant time and cost savings."
"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."
"The ability to migrate between media over a long period of time. My customers are long-time users, and they have benefited from being able to move between tiers. They have been able to do this within the product."
 

Cons

"Many of the reports are basic, at most, and at times we had to open a support ticket to help find or develop a report for our needs."
"The product is still young and is continually improving. There have been a couple of buggy releases in the software that have caused us minor issues, so possibly some better QA before releasing would prove to be useful. We have also been inquiring about new app and functionality via the Marketplace that was teased months back but has yet to come to fruition."
"The error handling could be improved."
"I would like to see Microsoft Exchange DAG supported as soon as possible."
"I would like to see the management of multiple nodes inside a tenant. If you want to manage a Cohesity environment, you either go on a per-node base, and you can hop from one node to the other, or you need to implement their SaaS capability but it always needs an internet connection. We would really like to have some kind of local management entity so that we can see all the Cohesity nodes in a customer environment and manage those nodes centrally. That's something that we would really like, and they are really working on it."
"Cohesity DataProtect can improve in the area of databases. We have had some challenges with both Cohesity and Rubrik being able to effectively back up in a timely manner the SQL Oracle workloads."
"Reducing storage capacity requirements and improving security features are also areas that could be enhanced."
"Non-cloud services need improvement."
"Ease of use."
"There were scalability issues only in the brand new features which were recently released."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"It should have the ability to break down the data that's being backed up. It should have better reporting."
"There could be various client systems and process integration included in the product."
"I think Spectrum Protect's interface is not so user-friendly, but the interface is not so friendly. Some of the functions are too complicated. I prefer a simpler solution."
"The installation process could be simplified."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."
"Sizing is important and it is easy to overestimate."
"The pricing model is impressive and very effective."
"The ROI is huge. Not really measurable at this point, but the price of the unit was a fraction of what a couple hours of downtime could result in."
"Ensure that you understand the per TB licensing model. Also, Exchange backups are not native to Cohesity and require Kroll."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Cohesity came in at the best price."
"From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more advanced security features than Cohesity DataProtect currently, Cohesity DataProtect is releasing a new solution in the near future that will compete directly with Rubrik."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."
"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"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."
"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."
"We are paying for support and maintenance on a monthly basis."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"The solution is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise40
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity DataProtect?
Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with m...
What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?
What areas have room for improvement? Is there anything that could be simplified to make it better?
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

Cohesity
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tribune Media
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
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