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Commvault Cloud 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

Commvault Cloud
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
110
Ranking in other categories
eDiscovery (3rd), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery as a Service (2nd), File Archiving (1st), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (3rd), SaaS Backup (1st), Threat Deception Platforms (1st), Container Backup Software (1st)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Commvault Cloud is 7.5%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 4.6%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Reller - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides extremely fast backup, is easy to manage, and is flexible
Commvault Cloud's automated policies provide the notification we need to ensure our data is secure and managed correctly. Commvault Cloud provides excellent visibility across all of our organization's data. It is extremely important to our organization that Commvault has a unified platform that offers recovery across cloud, on-prem, and SaaS workloads. It has helped our organization improve by simplifying the way we manage our environment. We could not manage the same environment with only half of our current staff. We have yet to find anything in our environment that Commvault does not support. Commvault Cloud's Risk Analysis helps us identify, categorize, and classify sensitive data enabling us to take the appropriate actions to protect it. Commvault does a good job helping us limit our exposure and ensure compliance. Commvault has helped us reduce our data management costs significantly. Compared to Dell Avamar, the costs are vastly different. Commvault is much more cost-effective. We are licensed by capacity, so we don't have to worry about licensing different features. We have all the features that are licensed by capacity. And as far as ongoing support costs and other expenses, they are much lower than what they were with Dell Avamar. Commvault also gives us the flexibility to use any storage we want, while Avamar is tied to the Data Domain, which is not cheap to support. It has helped us reduce our backup time unless we are using Data Domain. This is because we can perform deduplication and compression on the client layer, which reduces the load on the network. We cannot do this with Data Domain. In fact, if we even attempt to perform a quick progress check before sending data to the Data Domain, the system fails completely. We learned this the hard way. We are using many more advanced features in Commvault Cloud than we ever did in Dell Avamar, simply because we had to license each feature separately in Avamar. As a result, we did not perform many backups in Avamar, such as all database backups (DB2, SAP HANA, Oracle, and SQL). These backups were performed outside of Avamar. We are now using Direct Connect agents for all of our databases. This allows us to perform incremental backups, which we could not do with the previous method. As a result, we have reduced our backup times by two-thirds, or even more in some cases. Compared to when we were backing up directly to Data Domain, Commvault is now running our backups ten times faster. This has resulted in a significant reduction in our backup times. Commvault has helped us reduce the RPO. Even in Data Domain, it has reduced our storage times by about half. It has also helped us reduce the threat detection time. We reduced the RTO significantly with Commvault. Commvault has helped us reduce downtime primarily due to the increase in the performance of resources.
MinaMagdy1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive integration and user-friendly dashboard enhance data protection workflows
PowerProtect Data Manager lacks the tape-out functionality, which is important for organizations relying on it for offsite backup. While PowerProtect Data Manager offers a workaround, it's not always accepted, notably by sectors like banking. Additionally, I would like PowerProtect Data Manager to provide microservices and container backup for modern applications.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Commvault is an all-in-one product that is very simple and operational for business use."
"Commvault can actually come in and assist you with aspects of the implementation - and they are quite helpful."
"We are using a KVM system in our cloud, and this solution works very well with it."
"Commvault helps to ensure broad coverage with the discovery of unprotected workloads. This is important. From the moment that we set it up, we mostly have customers telling us what they need to back up. Then, you can list the machines that are not yet protected. Sometimes, we can see that they are unaware of this, and say, "We didn't know that those servers were not protected yet," or "We did not back them up yet.""
"It is easy to use and stable. It delivers what has been promised. When it says it can do something, it can actually do it, as opposed to some of its competitors."
"It's a software-based solution so we just need a license to expand it."
"The solution is easy to use and the duplication is quite good."
"It's very user-friendly. It supports a wide range of workloads. It's quite easy to use, it's very powerful and it's scalable."
"The management part of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has improved significantly."
"It satisfies my customers' scalability needs and provides interactive features, allowing efficient integration."
"I love that it has an interactive GUI, and it is not complicated to use."
"The solution adequately handles data storage."
"Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is user-friendly and easy to use. it does what it needs to do."
"One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solutions. It is highly user-friendly, allowing users to quickly learn and implement backup and restore processes within a week. PPDM represents the next generation of backup software and is comparable to offerings from other vendors. Furthermore, PPDM prioritizes security with various access controls, such as user and database access controls. Its deployment tool is also known for its simplicity."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager helps to reduce the amount of data being transferred and stored."
"The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and data protection."
 

Cons

"Commvault Complete Data Protection would benefit from improving their training resources."
"The solution needs better Office 365 data backup management."
"Its competitor, Veeam, includes backup and replication in the same product. I don't know if Commvault has it or not, but they should if they don't."
"The retention log feature could be an issue for us and can be improved. The backup schedule can also be better in terms of how you set it up."
"It does not have an easy deployment. The deployment is not something that just anybody can go in and deploy."
"Command Center definitely gives us a complete view of our data. But finding some of the granular, very small items that we sometimes have to find, such as auxiliary copies for tapes, I still find that it's easier to navigate and, sometimes, only possible to find them using the CommCell tool."
"I would like to have a manager-level dashboard to review the backups. This is not from an administrative perspective where you can see the details of the execution. Rather, it would only show the percentage of completeness for each one."
"We've faced problems backing up our virtual machines."
"They should include a feature similar to S3 bucket."
"When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response."
"Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly."
"PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems."
"The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers."
"The interface is too complex."
"The solution should enhance its user interface and make it more flexible."
"There is always room for improvement. The compression ratio should be improved as well as the efficiency."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our yearly cost is around €20,000... The cost is based on the number of users and the amount of data. They sell it per terabyte."
"I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"The license for Commvault HyperScale X is paid annually."
"Commvault is quite high in terms of pricing and licensing."
"HyperScale X is expensive."
"One of the most interesting aspects is that the licensing model can be modified. We're paying for our licensing by the client, as opposed to the size of the footprint of the backup, which decreased our cost by about 20 percent."
"We have checked some other products, but we are not testing them because price-wise, Commvault is better than the other solutions."
"I would rate the price of Commvault Cloud seven out of ten with ten being the cheapest."
"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 product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Commvault?
The tool is affordable. I rate the pricing a six out of ten. Implementation requires additional costs because we need Commvault Professional Services.
What needs improvement with Commvault?
Data center backup must be improved. We also want the product to provide us with a cloud-based backup. If we use Microsoft Exchange Online for email services, we want to know how to get a backup in...
What do you like most about Commvault Complete Data Protection?
IntelliSnap and file system backups are valuable features.
What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Overall, pricing does not significantly impact our decision. The main concern is the solution itself, presales activities, and positioning it in the right place. Commercial aspects are secondary to...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers.
 

Also Known As

Commvault Complete Data Protection, Commvault Backup & Recovery, Commvault HyperScale X, Metallic, ThreatWise
PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aberdeenshire Council, Acxiom, BAM Group Ireland, Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, CI Investments, Clifford Chance, American Municipal Power, American Pacific Mortgage, AstraZeneca, Dongbu Steel, Denver Health, Dow Jones, Emirates Steel, Penn State Health, Prime Healthcare, Sonic Healthcare, Sony Network Communications, TiVO, UCONN Health, The Weitz Company
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 Commvault Cloud vs. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.