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Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs HPE Zerto Software comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 11, 2025

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 PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (7th)
HPE Zerto Software
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
342
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 3.7%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.6%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Zerto Software2.6%
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager3.7%
Other93.7%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

MinaMagdy1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive integration and user-friendly dashboard enhance data protection workflows
PowerProtect Data Manager lacks the tape-out functionality, which is important for organizations relying on it for offsite backup. While PowerProtect Data Manager offers a workaround, it's not always accepted, notably by sectors like banking. Additionally, I would like PowerProtect Data Manager to provide microservices and container backup for modern applications.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features
Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days. Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss. One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization. Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently. Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems. Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages. Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time. Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management. Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager helps to reduce the amount of data being transferred and stored."
"The most valuable features of the solution are flexibility and data protection."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a comprehensive backup software that integrates with Dell backup storage to enhance data protection."
"The management part of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has improved significantly."
"I love that it has an interactive GUI, and it is not complicated to use."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is user-friendly and easy to use. it does what it needs to do."
"One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solutions. It is highly user-friendly, allowing users to quickly learn and implement backup and restore processes within a week. PPDM represents the next generation of backup software and is comparable to offerings from other vendors. Furthermore, PPDM prioritizes security with various access controls, such as user and database access controls. Its deployment tool is also known for its simplicity."
"HPE Zerto Software has helped reduce downtime in some situations."
"It gives us a seamless, performant data center migration. When we were migrating between physical data centers, we did what normally would have been a 72-hour job in about 18 hours. A large part of that was thanks to Zerto being able to rate limit and throttle how much data was being sent or transfers were happening. Being able to script around it and create governors was important. We didn't have that previously. That is one big use case that has saved an immense amount of time and effort."
"HPE Zerto Software is fast, simple, and fits in our hybrid cloud model."
"I am quite familiar with the user interface. It is easy for me to operate and perform different operations because I am an experienced user. In my opinion, the user interface is easy to understand and operate. The user interface is user-friendly."
"One of the features I appreciate the most about the HPE Zerto Software is the simplicity of the replication, which allows the RPO to be in seconds rather than hours, which is what we were used to."
"It provides real-time backup"
"Since the log files are continuously transmitted, the granularity of restores is amazing."
"The features I find most beneficial about Zerto include continuous data protection, easy configuration, and simplified management with a user-friendly interface."
 

Cons

"PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems."
"When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response."
"The main issue that needs improvement is the support system. When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response."
"The solution should enhance its user interface and make it more flexible."
"PowerProtect Data Manager is missing a feature for takeout, which means I cannot store backup data off-site within the software. This is a limitation for organizations that require off-site solutions."
"The tool's scalability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The interface is too complex."
"As a new product, there are some things that still need to improve a bit as it matures."
"They could improve their online documentation."
"I wouldn't mind seeing Zerto sold at a cheaper price point, although the cost is comparable to VMware SRM."
"For improvement points, because Zerto is not a backup company, if they could implement some kind of backup solutions, it would help us out significantly."
"Zerto could add text alerts if there are critical problems and alerts if changes affect our replication."
"When building out a VPG and doing the machine types within Azure, they were not coming across correctly. It would say it had a CPU and memory of a specific type, but it was not accurate... It was a bug and they were working on it."
"We have had some issues running Linux virtual machines on the new version. There were some issues with virtual replication adapters on Cisco UCS hosts running VMware vCenter 8."
"More user support would be best for me because I'm not in the product all the time. So, having strong support is probably the most important decision on any products that we buy."
"It would also be nice if you could update without having to download a new installation file for Zerto Virtual Manager. Within the app, it could prompt you to install and perform the installation from within the application. Generally, it's relatively easy to use, but it gets a little complex when customers have special network requirements and need to customize how long they want the save points to be retained. We need to work with the storage team on the backend to see what makes the most sense for the client."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We offer monthly or yearly subscriptions. The price could be cheaper."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
"The product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The licensing costs and pricing model are based on capacity and the license is easy to upgrade."
"The pricing seems reasonable. It's still within what we consider to be value-add."
"Obviously, it would be nice to have it for free. Nevertheless, a lot of effort has gone into making it a top-notch product. An excellent product with expert support is never going to be cheap. I think it's fairly priced for what it does and the benefit it brings to our business."
"I am not very involved with the pricing, but from my understanding, it is fairly expensive for us. This is why we limit its use to our tier-one customers. We have other disaster recovery solutions for our other customers due to the cost."
"You need to figure out how many critical servers and applications you have in your environment so you will know how many Zerto licenses to buy."
"Zerto previously had a perplexing licensing structure, but they have since resolved it by implementing a unified license."
"I know it is per server, but I am not fully aware of the price model. I know for our VDI environment, they are looking at something that is on the lower end and that they can use just for migrations and not so much a disaster recovery."
"The pricing is pretty competitive to that of other options out there. When we shopped around, it was in line with the price of other solutions."
"The solution is very cost-effective and very easy to set-up but does not compromise on features."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business92
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise193
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Overall, pricing does not significantly impact our decision. The main concern is the solution itself, presales activities, and positioning it in the right place. Commercial aspects are secondary to...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers.
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What do you like most about Zerto?
Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing, I think on the pricing side, I don't generally deal with it, but from what I hear from my finance team, it's somewhat on the higher...
 

Also Known As

PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs. HPE Zerto Software and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.