Dell Avamar vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

Dell Technologies and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.4. Dell Technologies holds a 3.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Dell Avamar

Read 89 Dell Avamar reviews

6,178 Views
5,560 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,978 Views
3,421 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

IBM Spectrum Protect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Dell Avamar both offer robust data protection and backup solutions. Users tend to prefer IBM Spectrum Protect for pricing and support, but Dell Avamar is favored for its advanced features, making it a strong choice for handling large data sets.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect users note its scalability, comprehensive data protection, and reliable backup capabilities. Dell Avamar is recognized for its efficient deduplication, seamless integration with existing systems, and superior handling of large data sets.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect users suggest enhancements in reporting capabilities, performance during peak loads, and user interface. Dell Avamar users recommend better support for cloud environments, enhanced user experience, and streamlined update processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect has a relatively complex deployment process but offers strong customer support. Dell Avamar is easier to deploy and has responsive customer service, giving it an edge in deployment.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect offers competitive setup costs and a favorable ROI over time. Dell Avamar has higher setup costs, but its advanced features justify the investment for many users.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 864,053 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:

Categories and Ranking

Dell Avamar

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

7th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (5th)

IBM Spectrum Protect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

149

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.2%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Ayodeji Oyewole

Managing Director at Atlantic factorial

Reliable with good backups but has occasional failures

I use Dell Avamar primarily for backup and recovery The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality. It gives large enterprises the comfort of knowing their workloads are being backed up. There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be…

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.

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

"For the on-prem backup, it has all the necessary features that we require. They keep coming up with new scripts and new updates."

"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."

"It is very easy when you want to restore back to the original state."

"The tool’s ability to restore files discretely is useful."

"I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."

"The installation of the solution is easy."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"The product is very powerful and offers very good performance."

More Dell Avamar pros

"Disk-based implementation of a data protection solution for multiple sites is a better fit for my complex data protection needs."

"We do not lose data. That is why we are using this product and have a backup in place."

"With Spectrum Protect, you can use any type of disk to back-end the repositories. It gave us flexibility to use whatever storage we wanted at our secondary site."

"This solution has improved our organization through better file and database recovery."

"Our customers have come to trust IBM."

"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."

"The solution can back up every kind of workload in the environment."

"The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

Cons

"I think they could also move more towards cloud solutions. It already has some cloud tiering, but I think that could be more extensive. They should work with all cloud providers and I think in the future they will be on all cloud platforms."

"Performance can sometimes be affected when tools are utilized for tasks like backup or deep archiving."

"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."

"The solution should improve its tape-connectivity features."

"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."

"The bare-metal restores could be improved."

"Some customers need to back up to tape, but Avamar lacks support, so it costs a lot."

"Its ability to back up very large objects can be improved. In terms of new features, they can include the ability to use cloud services, like S3, more natively."

More Dell Avamar cons

"This solution is not mature in terms of disaster recovery and could be improved."

"I would like to see integration with Copy Data Management, which is an IBM product. Right now, these two products are siloed, so if these two become integrated, the product would become a bit of a powerhouse."

"An area for improvement would be the ease of use - the GUI is not up to the mark compared to other products in the market."

"Perhaps if they could add replication to a second site or third site from the same console, that would be helpful. Currently, we have to connect to another console."

"The administration interface should implement more functionalities that exist only in the command line and needs improvement in how some reports are created."

"We are not so happy with the technical support because dealing with them is not easy. We have a very complicated environment, therefore I understand for a support person that it is not easy to troubleshoot it."

"It needs agents that take into account more databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.)."

"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually."

"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."

"Dell Avamar, including its virtual add-ons and cloud-based offerings, is cheaper than other solutions, but in the end, the price still depends on your use case. Price-wise, I'm rating Dell Avamar as six out of ten."

"On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing policy of Dell Avamar as five. The solution has a very good price, and a lot of improvements were done to it."

"The solution is expensive."

"Licensing fees are paid annually."

"Dell EMC needs to lower Avamar's price and add more features to stay competitive."

"Its price should be reduced. It would be good if you could pay as per usage, and there is a subscription model like VMware. There should be some flexibility because sometimes, the customer only uses the backup for one month or three months. Currently, I have to pay whether I use it or not. Its licensing should be flexible and based on consumption."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."

"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."

"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."

"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."

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

"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."

"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."

"When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

See all answers

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 do you like most about Dell Avamar?

Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?

It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.

See all answers

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. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 34% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 14% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar

Compared 9% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 14% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

July 2025

Download Dell Avamar product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

July 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Also Known As

Avamar

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Overview

Dell Avamar data protection software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery operations that can scale from daily backup protection for endpoints to high-performance protection for large enterprises with diverse applications and workloads. With application consistent recovery, automation and fast backup and restores, Avamar can help you meet your SLAs and optimize your backup and recovery processes

If you are deploying all or part of your backup environment to the cloud, Avamar enables you to make the most of your cloud investment, enabling replication, disaster recovery and long-term retention for customers using AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.

Avamar is available as part of Dell Data Protection Suite, which offers comprehensive data protection software applications and tools. Avamar is delivered as software and as a virtual edition.

Dell Technologies

IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.

IBM

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

July 2025

Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell Avamar vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.

See our list of best Backup and Recovery vendors.

We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.