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Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect vs Veeam Data Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Commvault Cloud is 7.3%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veeam Data Platform is 14.8%, down from 19.8% 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.
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.
Edward Hore - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with good support but needs a better navigation menu
We use Veeam Data to back up our VMware infrastructure Veeam Data Platform is valuable for its stability and the ability to easily contact support for assistance. The support team provides answers whenever we need them. It is also one of the most scalable backup solutions I've worked with. The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Commvault can actually come in and assist you with aspects of the implementation - and they are quite helpful."
"What is most valuable to me are the search features, where you can search through large backup data sets and find what you're looking for. Our data sets are so big that we're over the petabyte mark. To find a specific file for a specific user out of 10,000 users is a challenge... If we can glean from them a general description of where it might be, the search feature comes in very handy to actually locate it and restore it for them."
"We have multiple workloads, including SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA, especially Sybase, as well as file systems, VMs, and Exchange mailboxes. Commvault provides very good support for them."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Commvault is a stable solution for Red Hat Linux."
"It's very easy to set up the storage across all platforms. This allows us to be dynamic and change on-the-fly."
"Great archive feature, OnePass, for the file system and Exchange servers."
"All the management is centralized from that CommServe server. You can manage all the clients and all the infrastructure using one interface and one server... Using the Commvault interface, you can customize and generate multiple reports to easily see what is protected and what is not protected in the environment."
"From a tech perspective, utilizing deduplication is one of the most valuable features."
"Good deduplication and compression features."
"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."
"Enterprise-wide type of architecture supports a lot of different platforms."
"The solution is very stable. It is one of the most important features that we look for in a product before putting it into the market and when establishing a strategy with our customers."
"A robust tool which allows us to backup pretty much any environment, virtual or physical."
"The best functional system I utilize is integrated with the data domain and DIGS backup solution, which makes it easily manageable and comprehensive."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
"The documentation is very good. It's also easy to install Veeam Backup and Replication."
"It lets you verify a backup with the least amount of effort."
"Veeam Data Platform is valuable for its stability and the ability to easily contact support for assistance."
"I have found the most valuable feature to be the configuration and ease of use."
"Replication is the most valuable feature."
"It's simply very good software for backup purposes."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward for me."
 

Cons

"Setup is complex."
"I just wanted to compare the features, which are there in EMC NetWorker, which are not available in Commvault. We have things using Networker."
"Could be easier to implement."
"I need documentation for Azure backups. One expectation that I have is regarding PDF documentation. When I was trying to browse the documentation, I could not locate that."
"Getting my guys the right access has a learning curve. Sometimes, it is, "Oh, okay. I think I got it for you." Then, they say, "Oh, nope. I logged in but I can't see this." Then, it is, "Okay, hold on. Give me a second. Let me change that. Okay, it's this one." That learning curve has probably taken a little bit longer than some simpler things. So, Metallic has some granularity, and as a systems administrator, I appreciate that. At the same time, I also realize that I have to learn it."
"The pricing could be more flexible in terms of licensing."
"The solution needs better Office 365 data backup management."
"We had some small issues with the reporting, but that was just a matter of fine-tuning the kinds of messages we receive by email. It was a little overwhelming in the initial configuration. So we reviewed our configuration with our partner and customized the reports so that we only get the important reports. I haven't seen any big issues or things that the solution is missing."
"Easier configuration of some of the products, e.g., VE comes to mind."
"Probably educating the virtual group who are not as used to the product. Most of our expertise is with AIX servers and virtual server backups."
"The installation process could be simplified."
"A lot of my customers always ask for legal holds, especially on email."
"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."
"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
"We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."
"It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum."
"Margins should not be distinct; instead, they should seamlessly integrate with the Veeam Backup and Replication tools, requiring minimal separation."
"The initial setup is complex."
"Restoration takes about two to four hours with Veeam. Zerto can restore in about 10 seconds. That's the restoration speed I'm looking for now that we're dealing with ransomware."
"Since the solution has many options, it is not easier to give tasks to schedule it."
"There is room for improvement in the application backups, particularly for Oracle and SaaS systems. Veeam Backup & Replication offers a plugin specifically designed for Oracle and SAP HANA databases. In version twelve, they introduced enhancements that allow deploying the plugin from the backup server. However, manual configuration is still required on each server to schedule the backup and specify the backup repository. Additionally, transitioning from a Windows server to a Linux server requires converting the existing model. Previously, Veeam heavily relied on Windows and Microsoft SQL databases for their solution. Fortunately, in version twelve, they introduced an enhancement by offering the option to use a Postgres SQL database, which is an open-source alternative."
"The physical server backups and direct storage connectivity need improvement."
"Could offer a better conclusion of the backups."
"I face difficulties when trying to deploy Veeam ONE because my active directory restricts some particular rights."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Everyone else offers the subscription-based model nowadays, while Commvault Complete Data Protection still has the traditional license model, where you must buy a set of licenses. You pay for one hundred licenses even if you only use fifty virtual machines, so the licensing model needs improvement."
"We went from Veritas NetBackup to Commvault. We switched due to upfront licensing and costs. We have more visibility into what we're actually purchasing. It seemed like, overall, the cost of Commvault was cheaper."
"It was not very popular because of its previous cost, but they have been working on the pricing, and now anyone can afford to use Commvault. They changed the modeling criteria for their pricing. Previously, there was only the capacity modeling based on your content capacity. In this case, they would give you a license and you would have to pay it. Now, most of the environment is virtualized so you can have the best CPU, VMs, etc. You buy whatever you need and pay for what you need."
"The license for Commvault HyperScale X is paid annually."
"Commvault is quite high in terms of pricing and licensing."
"There is now a subscription based licence option that, depending on your environment, could offer a more efficient method to licence the solution if you are OPEX cost driven rather than CAPEX."
"Hands down, Metallic provides us with more predictable costs for our backup requirements. You are getting what you pay for. If they are charging you X amount of dollars at that point, that is what you are going to pay. So far, I have not seen any hidden costs or any kind of gotchas. It is pretty cut-and-dry. They will let you know, "Hey, you are going to use our storage and it will cost you this much. You are going to use your storage, then we are going to charge you this much to backup.""
"In India, this is a very expensive product."
"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."
"I don't have an idea about the pricing. They send that over to someone else, but I know that one of the issues they had was the licensing costs. I don't think they were happy with how they were charged."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."
"That's no longer my department, but I have some past experience with licensing. It is not cheap. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of licensing. In terms of additional costs, there is management overhead. It is a complex solution and a lot of work goes into managing clients. It has gotten better over the years, but compared to its competitor, it is still heavy on management overhead."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"Veeam products are less expensive than other products. The licensing costs are low and they're pretty affordable."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of Veeam Backup and Replication is expensive."
"The licensing is the worst part of Veeam Backup Replication because for the more complex situations and it's quite difficult and complex. In particular, when mixing different requirements the licensing model is complex. For example, mixing a virtual machine backup and a file server backup in the same installation can be somewhat difficult and is expensive."
"It comes with a higher cost and it is an all-inclusive solution."
"We dont have the exact licensing costs, but we pay for a comprehensive service package that includes technical support, cloud services, and data center services. There may be additional costs beyond the standard license, but I'm not sure about the specifics. However, I believe the yearly cost is around five thousand dollars."
"The product is competitively priced."
"Customers require a perpetual license for the product. However, along with the license, they must also subscribe to the support service for one year or three years under a separate contract."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

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...
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 Micr...
What do you like most about Commvault Complete Data Protection?
IntelliSnap and file system backups are valuable features.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past....
Major Differences Between These 4 Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions?
Comparing the features of the four is not the right approach. You need to develop a list of requirements for backup ...
How do the backup solutions of Veeam and Veritas compare?
Technically, Veeam is best for hyper-v & VMWare replications, snapshots, HA failover, also support for file syste...
How does Nakivo compare with Veeam Backup & Replication?
Nakivo is my favorite backup software. Below are the main benefits of Nakivo compared to Veeam 1. Low cost. 2. Backup...
 

Also Known As

Commvault Complete Data Protection, Commvault Backup & Recovery, Commvault HyperScale X, Metallic, ThreatWise
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE
 

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
CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
Business & Legal Resources Inc., Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, Alliance Healthcare, Poulin Grain Inc., Linear Technology, Northwestern University, ARKEMA, Sogegross, City of Lynchburg
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Zerto, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.