Dell Avamar vs NetApp SnapCenter comparison

Dell Technologies and NetApp are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Dell Technologies is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while NetApp is ranked #52 with an average rating of 7.0. Dell Technologies holds a 2.6% mindshare in BRS, compared to NetApp’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

Dell Avamar

Read 90 Dell Avamar reviews

5,583 Views
5,081 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

NetApp SnapCenter

Read 27 NetApp SnapCenter reviews

1,312 Views
1,233 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

NetApp SnapCenter

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Dell Avamar and NetApp SnapCenter are key players in data protection and backup solutions. NetApp SnapCenter has an edge due to its robust feature set and seamless NetApp storage integration.

Features: Dell Avamar is valued for efficient data deduplication, ease of backup management, and user-friendly interface. NetApp SnapCenter provides strong integration with NetApp storage arrays, ability to perform application-consistent backups, and compatibility with varied environments.

Room for Improvement: Dell Avamar needs enhancements in scalability, support for newer technologies, and more detailed documentation. NetApp SnapCenter requires better documentation, streamlined upgrade processes, and improved scalability for large environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Avamar has straightforward deployment but can be time-consuming, with efficient customer support. NetApp SnapCenter offers straightforward deployment with comprehensive guidance, and responsive, knowledgeable customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Avamar has competitive pricing and users report reasonable ROI, especially with its deduplication feature. Extensive features justify NetApp SnapCenter's higher pricing, providing a strong ROI and better value according to user feedback.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell Avamar vs. NetApp SnapCenter Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. NetApp SnapCenter

September 2025

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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 Backup and Recovery

7th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (5th)

NetApp SnapCenter

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

52nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 2.6%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NetApp SnapCenter is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Dell Avamar	2.6%
NetApp SnapCenter	0.7%
Other	96.7%

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…

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Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command

It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

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

"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."

"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."

"Duplication and the speed of backup are great."

"The setup is very easy."

"The deduplication feature is the best aspect of the solution."

"The source site replication feature is valuable."

"The fast backup and recovery and the Full Backup features are valuable."

More Dell Avamar pros

"A feature that stands out is cloning databases. If you have a SQL database and it's huge, like one terabyte, the classical SQL way would be to do a backup-restore to create a clone of your database for test purposes. With SnapCenter now, we can clone a database but through the Snapshot technology, which means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly."

"The backup features are the most valuable because they allow the DBAs to replace SnapManager for Oracle (SMO), which is going away, and to do cloning as well. We can also clone to different servers and have the actual backup clone mounted on different servers. And we can split easily too."

"It has very fast backup and can handle a huge amount of data. It also enables really fast recovery."

"The main advantage is its fast backup and restore."

"Technical support has been very helpful when we have issues."

"I like the instant backups and recovery feature that SnapCenter provides within NetApp storage systems."

"It's very helpful because SnapCenter is already integrated with VMware Snapshot, so it's very easy to use."

"The most valuable feature is that it's centralized. In the old SnapManager days, we had software for each server. Now, with a centralized system, we're able to manage all systems remotely, and all agents remotely, and update them remotely. That's a huge benefit for us."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

Cons

"The solution could be a bit easier to use in the sense that they need to make it simpler to backup products and restore items."

"It's an expensive solution."

"It was challenging to back up our Exchange database, which is one of the reasons we did not continue using this solution."

"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."

"The configuration and expansion aspects of the solution need improvement. They're complicated and don't really integrate well."

"Avamar is still competitive because of the way we have deployed it, but we need to diversify and shift away from specific technologies. In addition to hypervisors, virtual machines, and bare metal servers, our customers need protection for Microsoft 365, SaaS, and the public cloud, so we need other technologies in the business to cater to those customers' needs. Those are the enhancements we would want from the Avamar platform, but that's not likely to happen. Dell has PowerProtect and Apex backup services. There are other Dell solutions that we'll use to fulfill our customers' requirements."

"Compared with Cohesity or Rubrik, which have some continuous data protection for backup and replication, this solution tends to lack in this area."

"The stability could improve, a lot of scheduled backups failed at one time."

More Dell Avamar cons

"I would like to see replication support between systems. Right now, it's kind of limited. We manage them separately from the storage system interface, not from SnapCenter. It would be nice if it was integrated into SnapCenter."

"The DBAs are comparing it to SMO but it doesn't have a lot of the functionalities that SMO has."

"The tool could be faster."

"SnapCenter could improve its integration with other backup solutions, such as Veeam."

"My major issue is when I upgrade. I have to touch every last client that I have in SnapCenter, and right now I have 60... They said that in another release that will get better, but right now it's not better and I've had to do this three times."

"We tend to have a lot of Hyper-V... so now we have two management consoles and we would ideally like to leverage SnapCenter to include Hyper-V."

"We would like to see more granular repording and reporting in bigger sets available in SnapCenter."

"It needs to support vSphere 6.7."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."

"Dell Avamar is expensive."

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

"The solution is costly."

"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."

"Dell Avamar is a moderately priced solution."

"The solution is not expensive for the value one gets."

"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."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."

"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."

"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."

"The product is inexpensive."

"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."

"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."

"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."

"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	18
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	11

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.

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What do you like most about Dell Avamar?

Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?

The product should be free because it is just software to administrate systems purchased from NetApp, which are already expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?

The interface usability needs improvement. It should be more user-friendly and easier for customers to use.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NetApp SnapCenter?

I help my customers to install and integrate NetApp SnapCenter ( /products/netapp-snapcenter-reviews ). The solution is used for central consolidation of NetApp ( /products/netapp-41749-reviews ) d...

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Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 38% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 13% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar

Compared 8% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar

Compared 7% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

Synology DSM vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 23% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 14% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 13% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 11% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 10% of the time

More NetApp SnapCenter Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

September 2025

Download Dell Avamar product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp SnapCenter

August 2025

Download NetApp SnapCenter product report

Also Known As

Avamar

SnapCenter

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

Unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows.

NetApp

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

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar vs. NetApp SnapCenter

September 2025

Free Report: Dell Avamar vs. NetApp SnapCenter

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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