Dell NetWorker vs N2W comparison

Dell Technologies and N2WS are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Dell Technologies is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.9, while N2WS is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.9. Dell Technologies holds a 1.7% mindshare in BRS, compared to N2WS’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Dell Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of N2WS users who would recommend it.

Dell NetWorker

Read 86 Dell NetWorker reviews

4,461 Views
4,060 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

N2W

Read 20 N2W reviews

1,761 Views
933 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Dell NetWorker

N2W

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

Dell NetWorker and N2W Backup & Recovery compete in the data backup and recovery market. Dell NetWorker appears to hold an advantage in mixed environments with its adaptability across legacy and modern systems, while N2W delivers high performance in cloud-native AWS scenarios.

Features: Dell NetWorker supports extensive plugins for software like SAP and Oracle, facilitates centralized management of backup tasks, and integrates well with Data Domain for enhanced backup efficiency. N2W specializes in AWS environments, provides robust cloud-native backup capabilities, and offers strong automation features with seamless integration into AWS services.

Room for Improvement: Dell NetWorker has challenges with complex setup, user interface, stability, and lacks intuitive reporting tools. It's less efficient in integrating modern cloud-native features. N2W requires better disaster recovery options, expanded AWS multi-cloud support, and simplified manual backup management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell NetWorker is focused on on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments and experiences mixed-quality support, facing difficulties in cloud-only environments. N2W excels in AWS integration with straightforward cloud deployments and benefits from alignment with AWS support.

Pricing and ROI: Dell NetWorker offers competitive traditional and capacity-based licensing but can be complex in cost prediction. It delivers cost-effectiveness when paired with Data Protection Suite. N2W provides flexible pricing through AWS Marketplace, aligning with AWS billing, and offers significant ROI by reducing complexity and enhancing AWS operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Dell NetWorker vs. N2W Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Dell NetWorker vs. N2W

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,114 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:

ROI

Sentiment score

5.0

Dell NetWorker delivers cost savings, enhanced recovery, and efficiency, proving invaluable for business continuity and operational efficiency.

Sentiment score

2.2

<p>N2WS Backup & Recovery users saved time and money, improved efficiency, reduced downtime, and achieved better data protection and ROI.</p>

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

In my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I have seen a return on investment as there are definitely fewer employees required to manage the backups, and there is definitely a major time save due to the single pane of glass.

NicholasCappuccino

Sr. Manager Data Protection at Epsilon

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.1

Dell NetWorker customer service is praised for quick assistance but criticized for delays and variable expertise, especially regionally.

Sentiment score

4.1

N2W's customer service is praised for promptness, expertise, and proactive problem-solving, making them a valued partner for users.

Technical support from Dell is excellent.

AamirIlyas

Solution Architect at Apollo Telecom

quick responses whenever we log a complaint

Shrikant Teggi

Sr. Area Technical Manager at tata elxsi

They are very responsive and helpful.

Hassan Amin

System Engineer at NCCPL

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

Their support is amazing. They get back to you in a timely manner and work with you.

NicholasCappuccino

Sr. Manager Data Protection at Epsilon

We would rate the customer support of N2W a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, as they are very easily accessible, friendly, and absolutely knowledgeable.

Adebayo Ogunleye

Director of Information Technology & Customer Success at Maplewave

Customer support for N2W is excellent, as they are able to answer quickly.

Sathish Devasenapathy

Director, Cloud Infrastructure and Systems Operations at d1g1t Inc.

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.8

Dell NetWorker offers scalability but faces challenges in VMware connections, storage, licensing, and large-scale stability for some users.

Sentiment score

3.8

N2W effectively manages AWS accounts and instances, ensuring seamless scaling and reliable backup without performance issues for growing needs.

While the solution is scalable, the cost involved in upgrading or enhancing the solution can be significant.

AamirIlyas

Solution Architect at Apollo Telecom

Dell NetWorker is very scalable and flexible, deserving a high rating for its scalability.

ErmiasGirma

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc

It is scalable enough for our environment.

Hassan Amin

System Engineer at NCCPL

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.6

Dell NetWorker exhibits stability, rated high by users, improving with updates, while older versions faced occasional challenges.

Sentiment score

5.4

N2W is highly stable, with no downtime, exceptional cloud resource use, and consistent nine out of ten ratings.

The stability of Dell NetWorker is excellent.

Shrikant Teggi

Sr. Area Technical Manager at tata elxsi

In terms of stability, I would say it is about 80% stable now.

RaedHassan

Senior Specialist Backup/Storage at National Bank of Kuwait

Dell NetWorker is stable.

Hassan Amin

System Engineer at NCCPL

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Room For Improvement

Dell NetWorker users seek improved interfaces, cloud integration, and security, citing deployment challenges and a need for modern enhancements.

N2W requires UI, documentation, and functionality upgrades with enhanced automation, multicloud support, and comprehensive AWS integration.

The interface on the Java application makes it difficult, whereas the web interface is simple to use.

ErmiasGirma

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc

It is complex, and compared to solutions like Tivoli, Veritas, Veeam, and others, its look and feel are not up to par.

AamirIlyas

Solution Architect at Apollo Telecom

To connect to a server, it's necessary to install a client on the server, which is challenging.

Hassan Amin

System Engineer at NCCPL

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

Adding an 'auto-delete after X days' option to manual backups, similar to scheduled policies, would be a fantastic addition for cost management and general housekeeping.

reviewer2757345

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

An automated account enrollment or bulk import feature integrated with AWS Organizations or Control Tower would save significant time and reduce administrative overhead.

reviewer2772105

VP, Solutions Architecture at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Improved disaster recovery options and expanded multicloud support are two areas where N2WS has already made significant advancements in the latest version.

George Philippakos

Cloud Manager at St. John's University

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Setup Cost

Dell NetWorker offers complex licensing, with varied pricing; included in bundles, often costly but comprehensive and flexible for sectors.

Enterprise buyers appreciate N2W's competitive pricing, flexibility, and ROI, with easy AWS Marketplace purchases and praised usability.

The licensing cost is somewhat expensive.

Shrikant Teggi

Sr. Area Technical Manager at tata elxsi

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

Pricing can increase as backup volumes grow, so it is important to balance the level of protection with cost-optimization strategies such as tiering snapshots to S3 or Glacier.

MayanaKhan

Platform Engineer at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees

While N2W is a paid product, the cost is easily justified by the significant reduction in engineering hours spent on managing and troubleshooting custom backup scripts.

reviewer2757345

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I believe N2WS offers a highly competitive pricing model, delivering excellent value.

George Philippakos

Cloud Manager at St. John's University

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Valuable Features

Dell NetWorker provides robust backup solutions with automation, deduplication, scalability, and wide compatibility for various environments and systems.

Users value ease of use, speed, cost efficiency, centralized management, and intuitive interfaces in backup and recovery features.

I find NetWorker valuable for its wide range of automation features, including replication and data processing systems.

AamirIlyas

Solution Architect at Apollo Telecom

Dell NetWorker is versatile, allowing server backups and IBM tape library backups.

Hassan Amin

System Engineer at NCCPL

The new deduplication feature helps significantly with data compression and saves disk space by using pointers for repeated data, improving backup speed.

Shrikant Teggi

Sr. Area Technical Manager at tata elxsi

For more quotes and insights, download the Dell NetWorker report

Lifecycle management and automated transitions to lower-cost storage tiers have been instrumental in optimizing costs while meeting compliance and retention requirements.

George Philippakos

Cloud Manager at St. John's University

We had a ransomware event in 2023, and we were able to recover every machine with minimal effort.

reviewer2753805

IT Operations Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The ability to define backup schedules, retention periods, and disaster recovery policies and have them apply automatically based on resource tags scales perfectly with our environment and enforces a consistent data protection strategy across the organization.

reviewer2757345

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the N2W report

Categories and Ranking

Dell NetWorker

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

10th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

N2W

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

8th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (6th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (7th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell NetWorker is 1.7%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N2W is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
N2W	0.6%
Dell NetWorker	1.7%
Other	97.7%

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

RaedHassan

Senior Specialist Backup/Storage at National Bank of Kuwait

Has supported flexible multi-platform backups and improved over time

Regarding the effectiveness of Dell NetWorker in terms of role-based access controls, I have experience with it, but I find it somewhat lacking in flexibility as it offers limited features, and I would rate it around seven out of ten. It is not that there is something wrong with the role-based access controls in Dell NetWorker, but it lacks many permissions or roles to assign, providing options only for administrator or user. To improve Dell NetWorker for the next release, I recommend enhancing flexibility in the policy, allowing selection of multiple options within the same policy, and addressing issues like the DNS lookup dependency to make it more controllable from Dell NetWorker itself rather than relying on other applications. Looking forward, I would like to see improved policy features and a more enhanced GUI, as it is still slow.

Read full review

reviewer2757345

Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Automation has transformed our backup process and validated our disaster recovery strategy

While the product is excellent, there are a couple of areas for potential improvement. The process for version upgrades, which sometimes requires deploying a new instance, could be streamlined to allow for a more seamless in-place update. It would be extremely useful to have the ability to set a retention period on manual backups. Occasionally, we take a manual snapshot before a major deployment, and currently, these can be forgotten, leading to unnecessary storage costs. Adding an 'auto-delete after X days' option to manual backups, similar to scheduled policies, would be a fantastic addition for cost management and general housekeeping. The EKS backup module should be a great feature, and it would have been a useful functionality to have for cluster backup management.

Read full review

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

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

12%

University

Government

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	9

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 do you like most about Dell NetWorker?

The feature that offers the greatest benefits in ensuring data integrity is its backup capability.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell NetWorker?

Regarding the pricing of Dell NetWorker, it depends on the deal or negotiation we have with the vendor, making it reasonable, although I cannot make a definitive decision without knowing the specif...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N2WS Backup & Recovery?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is smooth, as I have not faced any issues while spinning up the instance from the marketplace, and the documentation is very comprehensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with N2WS Backup & Recovery?

The EKS environment solution could be improved.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for N2WS Backup & Recovery?

Backup and snapshots. Before implementing a dedicated cloud-native solution, our primary pain point was the fragmented and manual nature of our data protection strategy. We were relying on a patchw...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell NetWorker

Compared 24% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell NetWorker

Compared 13% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell NetWorker

Compared 8% of the time

Dell PowerProtect Data Domain vs Dell NetWorker

Compared 7% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell NetWorker

Compared 5% of the time

More Dell NetWorker Competitors

AWS Backup vs N2W

Compared 17% of the time

Azure Backup vs N2W

Compared 10% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs N2W

Compared 9% of the time

Clumio vs N2W

Compared 8% of the time

Druva Phoenix vs N2W

Compared 6% of the time

More N2W Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Dell NetWorker

January 2026

Download Dell NetWorker product report

Buyer's Guide

N2W

January 2026

Download N2W product report

Also Known As

NetWorker

N2WS Backup & Recovery, N2WS Cloud Protection Manager, N2W Backup & Recovery for AWS Free Trial/BYOL

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Dell Technologies

N2WS

Overview

Built on a reputation of efficiency and reliability, thousands of customers trust Dell NetWorker to protect their data and applications across multiple environments, from core to edge to cloud.

Inherently flexible, NetWorker helps you deploy and leverage the data protection that fits your needs. NetWorker protects both physical and virtual environments, including VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, as well as cloud workloads on AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

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

Dell Technologies

N2W offers a cloud-native backup and recovery platform tailored for AWS and Azure environments, delivering secure and rapid data protection.

N2W enables IT teams to effortlessly manage backup and restore processes within AWS and Azure environments. By leveraging policy-based management, users gain full control over rapid, secure recovery across regions and accounts. Designed to scale with workloads of any size, N2W ensures business continuity through features like immutable ransomware-protected backups and smart data lifecycle management. Hosted directly in the cloud account, it simplifies the protection and recovery of mission-critical applications.

What are N2W's key features?

Immutable Backups: Protects against ransomware with unchangeable data versions
Fast Recovery: Ensures rapid data restoration within seconds
Policy-Based Management: Automates backup processes for efficiency
Cost Savings: Optimizes storage with smart data lifecycle management
Granular Reporting: Offers detailed compliance-ready audit trails
Seamless Archival: Supports low-cost storage integration including Wasabi

What benefits should users consider?

Ease of Use: Simple management for quick data recovery
Automation: Reduces manual intervention with automated policies
Cost Optimization: Manages storage efficiently to save costs
Business Continuity: Ensures resilience with flexible scheduling

Organizations across sectors use N2W for automated backup and disaster recovery of AWS resources like EC2 instances and RDS databases. It's employed to manage schedules, streamline backups in production settings, and rely on S3 for storage, providing a robust data protection approach.

N2WS

Sample Customers

Republic Bank, Westgate Resorts, Macquire Cloud Services, Shriners, Panatonni, Qatar Islamic Bank, Eurosport

Deloitte, NASA, Johnson & Johnson, Dyson, Deuthsche Bahn, Skechers, Allan Gray, Hewlett Packard, St. John's University, City of Oakland

Buyer's Guide

Dell NetWorker vs. N2W

December 2025

Free Report: Dell NetWorker vs. N2W

Find out what your peers are saying about Dell NetWorker vs. N2W and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Dell NetWorker vs. N2W 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.