Cohesity DataProtect vs IBM Storage Protect vs Rubrik comparison

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Cohesity DataProtect

IBM Storage Protect

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cohesity DataProtect, IBM Storage Protect, and Rubrik based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery.

To learn more, read our detailed Backup and Recovery Report (Updated: August 2025).

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Backup and Recovery

August 2025

Helped 867,821 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

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. The mindshare of Rubrik is 6.0%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Rubrik	6.0%
Cohesity DataProtect	2.7%
IBM Storage Protect	2.2%
Other	89.1%

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli.

Hybrid IT Architect at Quanture Spa

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.

Read full review

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

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.

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AmarpreetSingh

Technical Architect at Wipro Limited

Optimal data security and management achieved with smooth deployment and strong support

I plan to expand the number of users for Rubrik in the future. Currently, I have approximately 10 to 12 customers on Rubrik, as we are partners to Rubrik and a service provider, SIS. I am working with large to medium organizations, not small ones. Regarding Artificial Intelligence, Rubrik is in the initial phase, and I am expecting more from them. I can give them seven out of ten for their improvements in that area. I would recommend Rubrik to other organizations because it is easy to install, easy to manage, and very compact in terms of a solution, with good support from Rubrik. These features allow it to match from small scale to large scale customers very easily. The number of people who usually take part in maintenance from my side depends on the customer size. For large customers, we involve four to five people, but for small customers, one person is enough. I rate Rubrik eight out of ten.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable, with regular updates and patching."

"Cohesity DataProtect is a reliable solution for performing backups within a suitable timeframe, and its forever incremental model is particularly effective for the customer's needs. Additionally, the solution handles instant recovery and file-level recovery from a VMware image backup seamlessly."

"The ease of use and the GUI have really been most valuable to us. Configuring the system to do what we need is simple and straight forward and a lot of guesswork has been removed. One of my favorite features with Cohesity is Kroll for Exchange item-level recovery. The software is simple to use and fast."

"I have found that the speed of restores, especially files and folders, are extremely fast. This bodes well for us, and our end users are always amazed at how fast you can get them their files."

"We can run test scripts on production data."

"A robust, verifiable backup with a restore solution, which decreases our backup and has a restore window."

"The most valuable features of Cohesity DataProtect are SpanFS and the handling of hybrid workloads."

"I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser."

More Cohesity DataProtect pros

"Data archiving is easier and less time-consuming."

"The tool's backup engine is very powerful. Previously, our client finished backup with HPE product in 48 hours. IBM Storage Protect completes backup in 8 hours."

"Good user interface."

"The deduplication and compression features are the most valuable features."

"The main feature of this product is a flexible architecture and functionality that allows you to solve problems of any complexity and scale. Most importantly, it is not just a product that simply makes a backup, but it restores and saves a large number of services in critical situations. By the way, it works fine with different types of clouds, supports S3."

"It is a very stable product. The cost is similar to that of other enterprise solutions."

"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."

"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."

More IBM Storage Protect pros

"Features we have requested are typically added to the next product release."

"The live mount reduces complexity."

"The web-based approach is the most valuable feature."

"I value the options it has for storage tiering (i.e. whether it should be a flash, SSD, or pushed to the cloud) depending on the data provided."

"Instant recovery because it takes about 10 seconds to restore the VM from backup to production"

"The solution is extremely stable. They've been phenomenal, especially for a young company."

"They have a great PowerShell module and easy mediums to speak to the people who create and enhance them."

"Adaptative backup and SLAs simply allow you to tell a machine to backup without taking care of the backup window."

More Rubrik pros

Cons

"You need to put the full name instead of a few letters while searching for backup. It should also improve customization."

"We aren't missing any features. In terms of the solution overall, it's so far so good."

"Cohesity DataProtect takes hours to restore a single file, even a small one."

"In terms of the product itself, there have been a handful of patches that have had to be applied outside of the GUI via the command line. It's very straightforward and easy and in the same redundant fashion, but not quite as simple as one or two clicks. I'm hoping that will decrease going forward."

"The solution's dashboard or UI can be enhanced and made more user-friendly than its competitors."

"Cohesity cluster upgrades have not been as easy as a single button click. They are a manual process that requires upgrading each node into a cluster individually."

"Their UI requires a manual refresh. It doesn't seem like it updates itself sometimes when you're moving from screens or waiting for a change to take effect, so you have to manually refresh."

"For Oracle DBs, we have observed a few bugs. This can be done better."

More Cohesity DataProtect cons

"They took some of the funding off of it for a while. Therefore, instead of being a market leader, they took their position for granted. Then some competitors developed new bells and whistles that they advertise, and due to that lag a few years ago, there are not the resources to explain the differences."

"Perhaps some better documentation, which I believe was better in the past."

"We cannot take VMware backups for our banking data center environment."

"They are behind on many things, especially security. They are catching up a little bit now, but the competitors are doing better security-wise. There should be malware detection and prevention and higher security."

"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."

"The solution's initial setup process wasn't easy...The solution is overly complicated in terms of architecture, especially compared to other tools in the market."

"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."

"The user interface needs to be improved."

More IBM Storage Protect cons

"It is a lot more expensive than other solutions, but you get what you pay for."

"Collecting logs in Rubrik is very difficult compared to other tools."

"I would like for unmanaged backups to be able to be saved in a separate policy."

"Based on my experience with Rubrik, I think they could improve by providing more customer-friendly technical support, even though they currently offer the best support."

"The Polaris piece could use improvement. When you get a report and you have events that are suspicious, you cannot drill down and find out why it's suspicious. You only know it's suspicious, but you don't know the root cause. Other than that, everything works well."

"The functionality is missing, but they are very receptive to our thoughts and ideas."

"Rubrik needs to continue to listen to their customers and what they want/need, not just care about money and the bottom line."

"If I could take a snapshot from a physical and be able to stand it up as a virtual immediately without the need to rebuild an entire system and restoring files, that would be HUGE."

More Rubrik cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is impressive and very effective."

"Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day."

"Pricing, setup costs, etc. are pretty typical. The initial cost for Cohesity was less than other products the we evaluated. Cohesity's pricing does offer benefits as DR target costs are less than other solutions. You are not charged for DataProtect licensing for target DR data consumption."

"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."

"We purchased support from Cohesity to ensure that should we face an issue, we don't have to deal with different service providers."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."

"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."

More Cohesity DataProtect pricing and cost advice

"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."

"Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another."

"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."

"It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."

"Licensing IBM Spectrum Protect can be somewhat confusing for new users due to the options available, such as licensing on a capacity or per server basis."

"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."

"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."

"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."

More IBM Storage Protect pricing and cost advice

"The cost was less than our previous provider, and this is a much better product."

"It’s simple, straightforward, and we were able to see 50% hard savings."

"Rubrik is fairly priced."

"The solution is expensive for small businesses."

"There are additional costs like maintenance, and there are some features on their central management piece that don't come with our licensing."

"Rubrik was probably the most expensive solution but in the long run, it's justified by the value of the data that it protects."

"You need to understand what you're getting for the price. You are getting a backup solution, which is state of the art and works absolutely flawlessly. You are getting the storage needed to store your backups. You have all the sexy features that a modern backup solution can provide you, like deduplication, erasure coding, compression, fast execution time, secured data, and top-notch customer support. So, it might be expensive on paper. It's not free, but when you analyze what you are getting and the time you can spend on other stuff, then Rubrik is very cost-efficient."

"I rate the tool's pricing a six out of ten."

More Rubrik pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	22
Large Enterprise	40

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	53
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	94

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	54

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 protecte...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity DataProtect?

I find Cohesity DataProtect to be expensive.

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 contin...

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 m...

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....

Which would you choose - Rubrik or Veeam Backup & Replication?

Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting...

What do you like most about Rubrik?

It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?

Regarding pricing, Rubrik is a costly solution, and I would rate it an eight.

Veeam Data Platform vs Cohesity DataProtect

Comparisons

Compared 16% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 11% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 5% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 5% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 3% of the time

More Cohesity DataProtect Competitors

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 14% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs IBM Storage Protect

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Storage Protect Competitors

Commvault Cloud vs Rubrik

Compared 17% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Rubrik

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Rubrik

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Backup vs Rubrik

Compared 6% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Rubrik

Compared 5% of the time

More Rubrik Competitors

Product Reports

Download Cohesity DataProtect product report

Cohesity DataProtect

September 2025

Download IBM Storage Protect product report

IBM Storage Protect

September 2025

Download Rubrik product report

September 2025

Also Known As

Cohesity

IBM Spectrum Discover

No data available

Overview

What is Cohesity DataProtect?

Cohesity DataProtect is a top-level, sophisticated, software-defined backup and recovery solution created for cloud environments. Cohesity DataProtect is made to hyperscale and is one the most thorough policy-based protection solutions available on the market today.

Cohesity DataProtect melds multiple-point products into a single software that is able to be deployed as on-premise or consumed as a service.

Top Features:

Hyperscale made easy: Cohesity DataProtect improves data protection by doing away with the need for backup silos and administers backup and recovery with a single user-friendly, easy-to-understand interface. Cohesity DataProtect provides extensive 24/7 enterprise-class protection for a large, varying set of sources, including virtual and physical servers, NAS and SaaS workloads, relational and distributed databases, and traditional and containerized applications.

Super fast recovery: Cohesity DataProtect offers near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) and near-instant recovery time objectives (RTOs) to satisfy your business service-level agreements (SLAs). Using Cohesity Helios’ unified data plane and control plane you can immediately search and recover data on any Cohesity cluster, located anywhere. DataProtect distinctively minimizes downtime by immediately mass restoring any amount of virtual machines (VMs) to any point in time, and lowers data protection costs by as much as 70% or more.

Backup as a Service: Feel free to take advantage of the elasticity of the public cloud and the cost-effective value of Cohesity DataProtect when delivered as a service. When you choose an OPEX option, you can eliminate the need for on-premises hardware. There is a SaaS option that will allow you to very simply configure your backup workloads and immediately begin protecting your vital all-important data and applications.

It’s as easy as: sign-up, connect, and protect!

Ransomware protection: Cohesity DataProtect offers stellar recovery at scale. The solution is so intuitive, it has machine learning-based anomaly detection to stop incidents before they happen. Cohesity DataProtection can provide immutable backups, Datalock write once, read many (WORM), encryption, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Cohesity DataProtect integrates well with many of today’s top solutions, including, but not limited to:

Hypervisors: VMware vSphere (5.5 and later), Microsoft Hyper-V (2019, 2016, 2012 R2), Nutanix AHV and RHeV

Kubernetes-based data and application state

Cloud: AWS EC2, Amazon RDS, Azure VM, and Google Compute

Physical: Windows, Linux(RHEL, CentOS, OEL, Debian, Ubuntu), AIX (7.x), and Solaris

Databases: Oracle (11g R2, 12c), Oracle RAC and SQL (2008 or later)

Distributed Databases (NoSQL and Hadoop): MongoDB, CouchbaseDB, Apache, Cassandra, Cloudera, and Hortonworks.

Bare Machine Recovery: Windows and Linux

Applications: MS Exchange (2010 SP3 or later), MSFT Active Directory, Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, Groups), SalesForce (SFDC), and SAP HANA

Primary storage: Pure FlashArray, HPE Nimble, and Cisco Hyperflex

NAS: Pure FlashBlade, NetApp, Isilon, IBM GPFS, Google EFS, Elastifile, and generic solutions*

Reviews from Real Users

One reviewer, who is head of IT infrastructure at Kampmann says, “Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software,” and goes on to indicate that Cohesity “works flawlessly with easy replication of backups and numerous supported backup sources.”

Another user, who is a senior network engineer at a legal firm, relates that "Cohesity is a robust and feature-rich solution"

Cohesity

IBM Storage Protect offers data protection and management to secure critical business information efficiently. It's designed to be a scalable and flexible solution for data backup, recovery, and archive needs in complex IT environments.

IBM Storage Protect delivers comprehensive data protection by integrating backup, recovery, and archiving functionalities. It supports a range of workloads and infrastructures, from on-premises to cloud environments, facilitating efficient data management. Its platform provides seamless scalability to meet evolving business needs, underpinned by reliable security measures. Organizations leverage its capabilities to ensure business continuity and minimize data loss risks, making it vital in a data-driven world.

What are the key features of IBM Storage Protect?

Advanced Data Protection: Offers robust encryption and data integrity for secure backup processes.
Scalability: Grows with your data demands, supporting large data volumes without compromising performance.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly integrates with cloud platforms, enhancing backup strategies with hybrid options.
Automated Operations: Simplifies management tasks with automation, reducing manual intervention and errors.

What benefits should users expect when evaluating IBM Storage Protect?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces storage costs by optimizing backup processes and data retention strategies.
Data Safety: Ensures data accessibility and integrity during recovery efforts, building trust in data protection strategies.
Operational Efficiency: Boosts productivity through streamlined and automated backup management workflows.
Compliance Readiness: Helps maintain compliance with data protection regulations by providing thorough reporting and audit trails.

Industries like finance and healthcare implement IBM Storage Protect to safeguard sensitive information against threats. In financial services, it's crucial for maintaining client data confidentiality, while healthcare institutions use it to protect patient records, ensuring both accessibility and compliance with regulations.

IBM

Rubrik is a backup and recovery solution that can be used as a converged data management platform for physical, virtual, and hybrid environments. The solution works to protect your data and applications from ransomware, operational failures, and rogue employees, and also helps your organization simplify data management and accelerate cloud mobility. In addition, Rubrik is designed for cloud integration and infinite scalability to enable hybrid cloud for all enterprises.

Rubrik’s software is also built to support most operating systems, databases, hypervisors, clouds, and SaaS applications, and the solution integrates with on-premises hardware if necessary.

Rubrik Features

Rubrik has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Instant recovery
Live-restore
Single console
Automatic incremental backups
Policy-driven automation
Instant search
Live Mount capability
Compliance and capacity customized reporting
Quick and efficient snapshots
Multiple backup destinations
Deduplication and file compression
Intuitive web interface
Good performance
Easy to use
Low maintenance
Flexible deployment

Rubrik Benefits

There are several benefits to implementing Rubrik. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Single policy engine: Because Rubrik is policy-driven, it functions through a single policy engine that orchestrates service level agreements (SLAs) across the data lifecycle. Management is automated through one programmatic interface.

Customized reports: With Rubrik, you can create customized reports and utilize data visualizations.

Advanced security: Regardless of location, data remains secure in transit and at rest throughout its lifecycle, as it is stored and backed up.

Compliance: With Rubrik, you gain granular role-based access control while automating compliance reporting, which helps complete various industry and internal audits.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Rubrik users.

PeerSpot user Chadd B., System Administrator at a manufacturing company, says, “The solution is easy to use with an intuitive web interface, helpful support, good performance, and saves us time. The most valuable feature is the Instant Recovery, where we can restore a VM or SQL database or any server or application, and have it up and running on their appliance within a few seconds. The VM backup and the SQL backup are blazingly fast for both backup and recovery.”

A Storage Administrator at a healthcare company explains that the solution “Cut our backup management time significantly, and the near-instant recovery reduces our downtime. He also comments that “The scalability is wonderful. That is one of our biggest advantages with this.”

Burhan S., Systems Engineer at Harvard University, mentions, "There is a live-restore feature, their Live Mount, and the way it works we can instantly recover a VM, a past backup, to be directly attached to our VMware environment. Rubrik will act as a disk for it. It's like an instant restore. Within a few minutes our VM is up and running. And then, if we want to restore it, we can just migrate it to our actual storage."

Kevin M., Head Of Operations at University of Reading, states, “The solution’s SLA-based functionality means we don't have to manually manage backup windows, and recovery times have been notably reduced. Its web interface is really easy to use. It's just click and go. It's fast and intuitive. We've never had any problems in navigating.”