Dell Avamar vs ExaGrid EX Series comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Dell Technologies and ExaGrid are both solutions in the Deduplication Software category. Dell Technologies is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.5, while ExaGrid is ranked #7 with an average rating of 9.0. Dell Technologies holds a 10.2% mindshare in DS, compared to ExaGrid’s 4.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ExaGrid users who would recommend it.

Dell Avamar

Read 90 Dell Avamar reviews

11,894 Views
4,520 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

ExaGrid EX Series

Read 7 ExaGrid EX Series reviews

2,336 Views
2,289 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

ExaGrid EX Series

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Dell Avamar and ExaGrid EX Series compete in the data backup and recovery market. Dell Avamar often holds an edge in pricing and support, while ExaGrid EX Series stands out for its advanced features and rapid recovery capabilities, appealing to businesses with significant data volume needs.

Features: Dell Avamar offers source-side deduplication, integration with VMware, and efficient data protection, reducing network bandwidth requirements. ExaGrid's features include a landing zone technology for faster backups, an adaptive deduplication for optimal storage use, and scalability that grows with the organization.

Room for Improvement: Dell Avamar can improve by expanding its plugin support, enhancing performance in non-VM environments, and refining its user interface for more intuitive navigation. ExaGrid could enhance its dashboard functionality, improve data deduplication for long-term storage, and streamline processes for even faster initial deployments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Avamar is praised for its smooth integration into existing environments and responsive customer support. ExaGrid boasts a straightforward deployment process, facilitated by pre-configured appliances, with customer service noted for its proactive and hands-on approach, ensuring efficient implementation and support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Avamar is attractive for its lower initial costs, appealing to budget-conscious buyers, with ROI enhanced by storage efficiency and deduplication. Conversely, ExaGrid, with a higher initial investment, justifies its ROI through significantly reduced backup times and enhanced scalability, suitable for businesses focused on long-term growth and performance optimization.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

November 2026

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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

Dell Avamar

Ranking in Deduplication Software

8th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Backup and Recovery (24th)

ExaGrid EX Series

Ranking in Deduplication Software

7th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Deduplication Software category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 10.2%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ExaGrid EX Series is 4.9%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Deduplication Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ExaGrid EX Series	4.9%
Dell Avamar	10.2%
Other	84.9%

Deduplication Software

Featured Reviews

SamuelThomas

Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.

Have supported critical environments despite room for improvement in legacy backup options

It is very efficient in cyber resilience. Deduplication, automation, and everything is very efficient. It is multi-cloud enabled and has broad protections. The software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery options through its cyber resiliency features. Dell PowerProtect Manager provides insights in managing backup processes. Its encryption mechanisms are very efficient, helping to secure sensitive data. Its integration with Dell EMC Data Domain is very good. It is easy to integrate with Data Domain. Multi-cloud options are enabled, and backup in cloud options exist in Dell Avamar.

Read full review

Daniel Gillber

Information Technology advisor at Lotus Consulting

Improvements in data storage efficiency and customer support experience

ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly. It was very simple to use. We rarely needed to touch the ExaGrid boxes, except for upgrades. With the systems engineer from ExaGrid, and with our common knowledge of backup software, it was very easy to use. The performance was good, the interface was good, and the GUI was good. When ExaGrid introduced the air gapped feature, it was almost complete. Almost every hardware vendor has an air gapped feature, but they were significantly ahead of other vendors. The air gapped and immutable storage are very nice features. The price compared to other competitors was good with better features. It is not a cheap product, but compared to the features, it is a good competitor.

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

"This product is very easy to use; the interface is easier to use than other backup solutions, and the product is mature and can handle all of our data protection."

"I recommend EMC products due to their stability."

"The solution is very stable."

"Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup."

"If you look at the backup and database of Avamar, it stands out above the rest."

"We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."

"I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end users and integration with EMC products for businesses."

"The stability of Dell EMC Avamar is very good."

More Dell Avamar pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are deduplication and landing zone."

"ExaGrid has improved my organization in the way that we get reliable backups with very little administration."

"One of the most valuable aspects of the ExaGrid EX Series is the support."

"The solution easily integrates with the backup targets, such as Veeam."

"It is a solid and a quite simple solution, which is a good combination. The customers like the simplicity and its scale-out capacity. They like the support pricing, and even the extension capacity pricing, a fixed price, which the executive is offering in Czech market."

"ExaGrid EX Series and Veeam was easy to set up, and it worked seamlessly."

"One of the main features is the landing zone, it is a particular space where the information is not duplicated."

"The tool has improved backup and recovery times. One of the key features contributing to this improvement is the landing zone and deduplication retention zone. When data is in the landing zone, the process is fast, ensuring smooth backup and recovery operations at high speeds. However, the process becomes slower for long-term backups moved to the retention zone due to fragmentation. So, if the data is older than a few days, the speed may be limited, especially for non-deduplicated data in the landing zone."

More ExaGrid EX Series pros

Cons

"I would like to see better integration with third-party applications and platforms."

"The user interface needs to be improved. It's not as good as it could be."

"The product could be improved by simplifying the components available."

"Dell EMC Avamar is hard to manage because of the support. It’s very difficult to get support."

"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."

"Setup and deployment of Dell EMC Avamar is complex. It requires expert engineers."

"The performance is a big issue for us and maybe the support service."

"The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now."

More Dell Avamar cons

"The one place where we are sometimes losing the opportunity with ExaGrid is that a few customers still require a fiber channel connectivity, which is not always possible."

"The support is not that fast to deal with our concerns. It is next day support, they could improve on the speed."

"The tool reduces storage footprint. However, clients are now storing data for longer durations with increasing requirements to retain backups for longer periods, particularly as a defense against ransomware attacks. As a result, the retention zone with duplicated data is experiencing more demand, leading to space constraints. This necessitates using higher-end, more expensive models to address the issue."

"The solution could improve by switching to a flash-type solution rather than the spinning drives that they currently use. However, we have not had any failure with the spinning drives. The flash-type drives are more up-to-date and are something that is in their roadmap."

"The product's documentation can be made more precise."

"When speaking about a scale-out, you want to have better equipment. You cannot just add a disc to the foreign equipment. You have to buy another one and put it together, like parallel."

"I would like for them to develop direct cloud integration with a third-party cloud. Direct integration with AWS and other cloud providers."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing was generally on a per VM or terabyte basis. They changed their licensing model a couple of times and turned it into socket-based licensing, which is an improvement in their licensing model."

"It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years."

"I rate the tool's price as a three out of ten if one means expensive and ten means it is a cheaply priced tool."

"It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity."

"The price of this product should be lower."

"It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing."

"Avamar's pricing is quite competitive compared to other vendors."

"Licensing fees are paid annually."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

"I rate ExaGrid EX Series' pricing eight to nine out of ten."

"The previous solutions I have used both included the Backup Software and the Appliance making it hard to compare to this solution. However, overall the solution is reasonably priced for the features you receive. ExaGrid EX Series is priced better than HP, Dell, and possibly Commvault which I have compared in the past."

"The current agreement has 21 terabytes of free space and it cost approximately $35,000."

"In comparison to other solutions, it's affordable. They're all too expensive."

"My company had to pay 1,60,000 EUR for the system we use, and the payment was made just once for the system and five years of full support."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	2

Questions from the Community

What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?

From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?

The cost is very significant, and it could be lower.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell Avamar?

It is a very good product. My only concern is that there is no tape backup. For tape backup, we have to use Dell NetWorker. They could add more features for cyber resilience and multi-cloud options...

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What needs improvement with ExaGrid EX Series?

Everything can always be better, so I would give it a nine.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ExaGrid EX Series?

We used ExaGrid EX Series as a landing zone for Veeam software. Initially they did not have immutable storage, but when they released that feature, we implemented it. We used it with Veeam software...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering ExaGrid EX Series?

I was a customer. My overall rating for ExaGrid EX Series is 9 out of 10.

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 28% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 4% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 4% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs Dell Avamar

Compared 4% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar

Compared 3% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

HPE StoreOnce vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 20% of the time

Quantum DXi Series vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 13% of the time

NetApp FAS Series vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 9% of the time

NetApp AltaVault vs ExaGrid EX Series

Compared 4% of the time

More ExaGrid EX Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

November 2026

Download Dell Avamar product report

Buyer's Guide

ExaGrid EX Series

November 2026

Download ExaGrid EX Series product report

Also Known As

Avamar

EX Series

Overview

Dell Avamar offers advanced deduplication, efficient data compression, and high backup and recovery speed, enhancing backup management and operations optimization for virtual environments and data protection needs.

Known for its seamless integration with VMware, Dell Avamar provides a user-friendly interface and robust performance. Its centralized data handling and minimal bandwidth requirements make it effective for different backup scenarios. While Avamar efficiently supports virtual environments and provides broad protection capabilities, users often report challenges with the interface and backup speed. There can be complexities in training and management, and integration with cloud and external platforms can be troublesome. Additional complaints include high pricing, scalability issues, and challenging transitions that complicate data migration.

What are the standout features of Dell Avamar?

Advanced Deduplication: Significantly reduces data size.
Efficient Data Compression: Optimizes storage use.
High Backup and Recovery Speed: Enhances operational efficiency.
VMware Integration: Facilitates smooth virtual environment operations.
Centralized Data Management: Simplifies data handling.

What benefits and ROI should users seek?

Improved Backup Management: Streamlines processes and enhances efficiency.
Optimal Storage Usage: Through data deduplication and compression.
Reliable Disaster Recovery: Ensures business continuity and data security.
Enhanced Cyber Resilience: Protects against data loss and security threats.
Scalable Operations: Grows with business needs while reducing overhead.

In industries focusing on virtual machine protections, Dell Avamar is widely used for VMware environments, endpoint, server, and database backups. Often integrated with Dell Data Domain for storage efficiency, it supports diverse environments, including remote office backups. Companies also leverage Avamar for compliance with geographical data retention regulations, adapting for on-premises and cloud deployments.

Dell Technologies

ExaGrid EX Series provides ease of use, strong data deduplication and compression, and a fast recovery landing zone. It integrates seamlessly with backup environments and is known for competitive pricing, particularly in the Czech market, despite requiring higher investment.

ExaGrid EX Series is highly valued for onsite backup and recovery, often paired with Veeam software, specifically for virtual machine backups. It offers improved backup and recovery speeds, excellent scale-out capacity, and an innovative air-gapped feature that enhances data protection. The system's integration with Veeam, Oracle Storage, and VMware allows efficient data management. Feedback highlights the need for direct cloud integration and better next-day support parts. There's a call for fiber channel connectivity and enhanced documentation. Transitioning to flash drives is a consideration for more modern infrastructure, although the current technology remains effective.

What are the Key Features of ExaGrid EX Series?

Data Deduplication and Compression: Minimizes storage needs and reduces costs.
Fast Recovery Landing Zone: Ensures quick and reliable data retrieval.
Scale-Out Architecture: Facilitates expansion by adding appliances, optimizing capacity.
Seamless Backup Integration: Works effectively with Veeam, Oracle Storage, VMware.
Air-Gapped Feature: Adds an extra layer of protection against data breaches.

What Benefits Should Users Consider in Reviews?

Improved Backup and Recovery Times: Enhances operational efficiency.
Cost-Effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing, especially in certain markets.
Reliable Performance: Delivers high-quality data management and protection.
Simplicity of Use: Reduces complexity in data operations.

ExaGrid EX Series excels in sectors requiring robust data protection, such as finance and healthcare. Its compatibility with Veeam and VMware suits organizations with extensive virtual environments. Industries with stringent data integrity requirements benefit from its air-gapped feature and high deduplication efficiency, ensuring secure operations.

ExaGrid

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions

NCI Group, North Attleborough Public School, North Kingstown School Department, NPS Pharmaceuticals, Prudential Douglas Elliman, Rathbone Brothers PLC, Rio Hondo College, Ruder Finn, Sarah Lawrence College

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

November 2026

Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. ExaGrid EX Series

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