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Dell Avamar vs Unitrends 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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
Unitrends
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
37th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.4%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Unitrends is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.
Todd Guthrie - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution can be used to back up servers and Hyper-V cluster nodes, but its support is super expensive
I wouldn't rate Unitrends a ten out of ten because we had some hard drive failures in the appliance. Typically, when you have OneDrive, you can get it replaced. For some particular reason, the situation caused the entire system to crash. We had to reinstall the CentOS operating system on it, and we lost all our backups. They said there was no way to retain it, and it was pretty devastating and concerning that a drive failure would cause the loss of all the data on the appliance. It was extremely disappointing, and we had to start from scratch after three years worth of backup data. I rate Unitrends a nine out of ten for stability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works quickly and is very stable."
"It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
"Dell EMC Avamar is easy to work with and is user-friendly."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Dell Avamar has helped our organization by allowing us to do backups."
"We've found the product to be stable."
"I always recommend Dell Avamar to our enterprise customers because the product is costly, and enterprise customers can afford it."
"We have seen huge data reduction and data deduplication and compression, which is very cost-effective and cost-reducing for the company."
"The ability to backup both physical and virtual machines, along with having an appliance store the backups locally instead of on a file server, NAS, or SAN."
"The ability to back up both physical and virtual appliances under one roof."
"Unitrends has helped us cut down the time that it takes to restore a server to its original configuration."
"It's not easy to scale it."
"When I have had to use tech support, they've been very good."
"When we talk about a backup point of view, from a backup perspective, it's a good one."
"It is very easy to set up and get started. Almost too easy. We racked this device and had it up and running in less than 15 minutes."
"It is an easy system to use. The support, if needed, is always willing to help."
 

Cons

"The recovery is a bit slow."
"The solution should improve its tape-connectivity features."
"The UI is quite old. We've been using this UI since last year, and they haven't changed it. It would be better to update the UI periodically and create attractive dashboards from an administrative point of view."
"Reporting in Dell Avamar needs improvement. The current reporting tool is very basic, and you have to dig deep into each function to get the information you need. For example, getting the status of failed and succeeded backups is very difficult in Avamar compared to Veeam. As for additional functionality, I would suggest improving WAN optimization. It's very important for getting offline or off-site backups. It should also include a tool to check for ransomware which would be beneficial. If a backup is vulnerable to ransomware, there should be a way to detect it, like using ARR rules to ensure your backup is ransomware-free. I haven't had any experience integrating Dell Avamar with AI solutions. It’s also a good point that Avamar doesn't offer such integrations, which is an area where Dell could improve."
"There also needs to be single sign-on support."
"It lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example."
"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"No appliance update notifications."
"Comparing the features and the working pattern, definitely they have to come down on pricing if they want to compete in the market."
"The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved."
"There's a lot that can be made better. For example, it could be more scalable."
"In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses."
"Probably the biggest issue I've had is actually paying for the unit, and part of that problem is that they use a third party for the billing."
"​​Follow up for the DRaaS service setup. I'm still waiting to schedule a DRaaS test after upgrading several months ago."
"The solution's base operating system needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is easy to use."
"The solution is expensive."
"I'm not sure, but perhaps the pricing could be done better at the moment."
"Dell Avamar is a moderately priced solution."
"Its licensing is weird. It is not just the licenses; we also purchase hardware. With most software products, such as Veeam, Commvault, and Data Protector, there is no hardware purchase at the same time. Because Avamar and Data Domain are tied together, they have an integrated pipe. You can separate them, but basically, they're designed to work as a couple. Because the Data Domain backend is designed to do dedupe and compression, we get 60:1. When you count it, you count it as a straight compression, but of course, that's with dedupe and some other stuff. You have to buy the hardware, the licensing, and the software at the same time. So, it's not just software."
"The price of this product should be lower."
"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."
"When we renew the Unitrends maintenance contract and update it to the latest version, the cost would be $5,000 per year. There are no hidden costs. They've been transparent with the costs."
"You should be aware how much the monthly costs are to use, what the initial costs for hardware are, and what the options to expand are, if needed."
"Based on a scale of one to ten, with one being low and ten being high, I would rate the pricing of this solution as a three. Also, there are no additional costs involved in the standard licensing of the solution."
"We found that the cost of Unitrends was about the same as the Dell DR6300. We liked the fact that the Unitrends appliance was all-in-one."
"Initial pricing is competitive. Renewal pricing is steep, so make sure to project costs for the lifetime of the appliance(s)."
"Pricing model constantly changes."
"Make sure you do the homework to size the solution properly. Buy the Enterprise Plus licensing if you can afford it."
"Their licensing depended on the number of CPUs you had."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
Retailer
8%
 

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...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What do you like most about Unitrends?
The most valuable feature of Unitrends for me is the automated feedback
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Unitrends?
Unitrends is an expensive solution. We've negotiated deals where they've given us the $ 62,000 to $ 64,000 appliance for free but charged $ 90,000 for three years of support.
What needs improvement with Unitrends?
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't s...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Avamar
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
NHL Players Association, Salvation Army, Sligro Food Group, Mason General Hospital, Tec Group, Saldab IT, Baker Tilly, Clinton Savings Bank, Ennit Magna Bank, Manukau Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Unitrends and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.