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Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs OpenText Data Protector 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 PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
OpenText Data Protector
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
21st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.1%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Data Protector is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.1%
OpenText Data Protector1.0%
Other96.9%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2767527 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized backups have simplified hybrid protection and improved ransomware recovery and compliance
The majorly needed improvement is that the product should easily simplify the upgrade and installation process. Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues. Sometimes it is not a P1 for Dell, but it is P1 for the customer, and the support needs to be very mature. That is a major drawback I see. Otherwise, the product is quite well. This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard. In that way, it makes their backup management easier and they can get detected anomalies as soon as possible. This is one of the solutions I would recommend. However, if it is a very small company, they really need to think about the cost, as it is very costlier for them. But as an enterprise solution and a mid-enterprise solution, this is the solution where companies think their data is very critical, in sectors such as financial, banking, and health. This kind of sector should go with that solution because it always gives the compliances of HIPAA, GDPR, and all those things that are really required for them. From management perspectives and consolidation solution perspective, the integration is quite easy. With respect to the backup administrator and everything, it is quite straightforward. There are some layers that need to be improved and should have the internal feature instead of creating the additional VMs for the NAS backup. It should be internal and directly have the agent base or something that can communicate easily with Dell storage. If it is third-party, I would understand, but it should be able to communicate. The benefit of it is that it is easily understood and you can do knowledge transfer with a lot of documents available. The drawback of it is that when it comes to the installation, Dell always takes a lot of time for all these things with third-party involvement in between Dell and the customer. Support is the major part of it. People need to understand that when a customer raises their ticket for P1, they should treat it as a P1. Instead of by their book being P3 or P2, sometimes they only treat it as such when the complete backup server is down. However, for the customer, if it is not happening with the critical system of backup, then it is a P1 for them. From Dell support, they do not treat it as a P1, or they treat it as a P3 or P2. That kind of understanding and some agreements need to be done between the customer and Dell. It is a costlier solution. Comparatively, other backup solutions make this one of the costlier solutions. However, someone who has their enterprise data or needs protection in a good way can go for it. I could say it is a mid-enterprise or enterprise level solution. Otherwise, people do have the same solution but with differentiated features. However, it is costlier compared to the other.
Ahmad-Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager And Technical Consultant at EEMC
Provides effective backup for physical servers and needs improvements for cloud compatibility
We use OpenText Data Protector for Oracle database backup and some applications that run for database security OpenText Data Protector is good for physical backup, specifically for physical servers. It is effective for direct backups to EMC library or storage without using a repository. However,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The use of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager certainly improves the speed of my data recovery efforts compared to the previous Dell products because it is easier to use and much faster; the compression and deduplication are also good, which helps in recovery."
"It satisfies my customers' scalability needs and provides interactive features, allowing efficient integration."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager helps to reduce the amount of data being transferred and stored."
"When we moved out of all of this and migrated everything to Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, it reduced their cost by somewhere around 30 percent."
"So far all of the features have been good."
"Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is a good cost-effective tool to back up your infrastructure and restore the data when needed."
"It's the perfect solution for virtual and container directives. The data reduction feature works well, and we haven't had any issues."
"The initial setup was relatively easy."
"It is fast, reliable, and its licensing policy is great."
"Data Protector is a very mature product that allows custom backups, scheduling, and copying in a manner that reduces the amount of time spent with backups from an administrative point of view."
"With Data Protector, if we lose data, we can recover it."
"This solution is awesome; it is leaps ahead of Backup Exec, leaps ahead."
"Backup of SAP/Oracle -- they are more robust than the competition."
"For our data there is no price."
"The most valuable feature of Data Protector is its integration with VMware. A lot of software these days integrates with VMware, and you can run some of these things on virtual machines. You can even have your backup manager running on a virtual machine and use physical managers to move data around. Their VMware integration isn't too bad, but Commvault has that feature, and many other backup products do."
 

Cons

"The tool's scalability has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Regarding the pricing aspect of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not very happy with that; compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly, and there are definitely areas for improvement."
"The solution should enhance its user interface and make it more flexible."
"Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly."
"There is always room for improvement. The compression ratio should be improved as well as the efficiency."
"The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers."
"They should include a feature similar to S3 bucket."
"The main issue that needs improvement is the support system. When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response."
"This product is lagging behind most of its competitors. It is still expensive to add features and the ESXi integration is terrible -- you have to restore a whole VMDK to then get the ability to restore a file."
"In terms of what can be improved, I would say integrations with MongoDB. We use MongoDB and we need to go to scripts to do backups. We need more integrations."
"I do not think that this solution is relevant in the current IT market. They have not upgraded their features and functionalities which makes it difficult for them to remain competitive."
"Actually, we're moving away from Data Protector due to lack of support on newer operating systems and latest products."
"Technical support is OK. They responded to me within a reasonable time, but the person with whom I spoke didn't really know how to do or understand what I was doing."
"With scalability, there are a few limitations. It's limited to certain platforms."
"The scheduler setup could be better. We are facing some issues scheduling the job based on our requirements."
"The Disk Agent feature is pretty basic, for instance, with the included wildcards."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"We offer monthly or yearly subscriptions. The price could be cheaper."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
"The licensing costs and pricing model are based on capacity and the license is easy to upgrade."
"The product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
"The product is cheaper than Commvault."
"It is more affordable compared to other vendors."
"In Data Protector, if you need extra features, you need to buy the agents for these features. Some of the features are Terabytes, some of them are agents. There's some complexity in the pricing and licensing."
"The licensing cost was not annual. We didn't pay any license. We paid when we deployed and we didn't pay for anything after that. There were no additional fees after the initial payment."
"There is a perpetual license involved in addition to support which needs to be renewed annually."
"Pricing/licensing is Data Protector's single best offering. In its most basic environment, the only license required is for whatever target device is required."
"Our licensing is on a capacity basis."
"It is fast, reliable, and its licensing policy is great."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise61
 

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?
Regarding the pricing aspect of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not very happy with that; compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly, and there are definitely areas for improvement.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
I apologize, but I'm not in a position to answer what areas of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager I would like to see improved or enhanced. There is still a lot of features that we haven't tried yet. I...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Data Protector?
The solution is expensive as it requires purchasing all features without the option to negotiate based on client numbers, unlike Veeam which offers flexibility in pricing.
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Data Protector?
OpenText Data Protector is not user-friendly, especially for cloud backup. It lacks functions and facilities compared to Veeam, which offers more user-friendliness for virtual machine backups. Ther...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Data Protector?
We use OpenText Data Protector ( /products/opentext-data-protector-reviews ) for Oracle database backup and some applications that run for database security.
 

Also Known As

PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
Micro Focus Data Protector, Data Protector, OmniBack, HPE Data Protector
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
GSK Vaccines, Repsol, Vodafone Group, Siemens AG, Medium Enterprise Transportation Services Company
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs. OpenText Data Protector and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.