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Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) vs N2W comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

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
3.7
Dell PowerProtect DP offers cost efficiency, high malware protection, and significant ROI with data reduction and time-saving benefits.
Sentiment score
1.9
<p>N2WS Backup &amp; Recovery users saved time and money, improved efficiency, reduced downtime, and achieved better data protection and ROI.</p>
The data reduction allows customers to maintain their capacity without needing to purchase new hardware, which is beneficial.
Senior Solution Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
In terms of cost, because of deduplication and compression, we can almost say there is a savings of 20% to 30%.
A VP Enterprise Sales at Ashtech Infotech (India) Pvt.Ltd.
I see it as both time-saving and money-saving.
Senior System Engineer at Tenece Professional services
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.
Sr. Manager Data Protection at Epsilon
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Customers appreciate Dell PowerProtect DP support but suggest improvements in scheduling, parts delays, and communication on escalated issues.
Sentiment score
3.3
N2W's technical support is efficient, responsive, accessible, proactive, and highly rated for knowledgeable, friendly service and clear communication.
If I were to rate customer service from zero to ten points, I would give it ten out of ten.
Senior System Engineer at Tenece Professional services
Challenges exist in certain Linux-based cases.
Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.
On the one or two occasions where we needed to engage with Dell support, they've been most helpful.
Senior Systems Engineer at NTT DATA
Their support is amazing. They get back to you in a timely manner and work with you.
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.
Director of Information Technology & Customer Success at Maplewave
Customer support for N2W is excellent, as they are able to answer quickly.
Director, Cloud Infrastructure and Systems Operations at d1g1t Inc.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Dell PowerProtect DP offers scalability, supporting scale-up and scale-out, but may require model changes at higher capacities.
Sentiment score
3.2
N2W efficiently scales, supporting numerous AWS accounts, enhancing backup processes, and enabling seamless expansion across diverse environments.
Scalability is great here, and it achieves this without downtime.
Senior System Engineer at Tenece Professional services
Because it is all based on the controller, which has a limited number of expansions.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I think it is just a case of putting another node in and slotting it in, adding it to the storage, which is exactly what you would expect from enterprise equipment.
Infrastructure Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Dell PowerProtect DP is praised for stability, reliability, and performance, ensuring no downtime and seamless management.
Sentiment score
5.7
N2W is praised for exceptional stability, managing backups reliably with high performance and commendable support.
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is a stable solution because it's a mature product.
Senior Systems Engineer at NTT DATA
None of the customers has experienced any downtime.
Senior System Engineer at Tenece Professional services
Regarding stability, I have not really seen any lagging, crashing, or downtime on Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) itself.
Infrastructure Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Dell PowerProtect DP is costly and complex, needing better authentication, compatibility, and improvements in setup and data recovery.
N2W needs a modern UI, streamlined onboarding, advanced features, and improved automation for enhanced usability and cost efficiency.
I believe if they could offer options for higher capacity with QLC drives, it would greatly benefit customer pricing and performance needs.
Senior Solution Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) requires more updates and innovations in AI-powered cyber resilience.
Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.
You cannot integrate with any other third-party solution or your Data Domain since it is very tightly coupled and has limited licenses with respect to capacity that are integrated directly with Avamar.
DGM at Airtel Digital
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.
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.
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.
Cloud Manager at St. John's University
 

Setup Cost

Dell PowerProtect DP offers competitive pricing with flexible licensing, discounts for partners, and features enhancing data reduction and integration.
N2W offers competitive pricing and automation, justifying costs with flexible cloud billing and a helpful free trial.
In fact, as I know, even give details inside Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) and how much it costs every single component in it, I am going to say it is somehow a bit expensive, why? Let me tell you.
Senior System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
In terms of quantifiable CapEx reduction, I can estimate a decrease of about 20% to 30% thanks to the efficient deployment and DRE options available in Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA).
Senior Solution Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Pricing is competitive with other software vendors.
Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.
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.
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.
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.
Cloud Manager at St. John's University
 

Valuable Features

Dell PowerProtect DP excels in ease, scalability, and performance, offering integrated backup, AI, and efficient deployment features.
N2W offers comprehensive backup and recovery features, including automated scheduling, cost-efficient management, and robust disaster recovery capabilities.
AI integration enhances backup operations by analyzing data and ensuring malware protection.
Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) has a scalable architecture, offering flexibility, so you can always scale the capacity to meet any increased demands.
Senior Systems Engineer at NTT DATA
The concept of pre-integrated solutions was very nice, allowing a customer to have a single dashboard to manage everything, which includes backups for desktops, laptops, enterprise applications, virtual and physical servers, along with comprehensive cloud-based backup capabilities.
Pre Sales Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Lifecycle management and automated transitions to lower-cost storage tiers have been instrumental in optimizing costs while meeting compliance and retention requirements.
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.
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.
Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
N2W
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
6th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (5th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N2W is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
N2W1.1%
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)0.7%
Other98.2%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

NimitPuvar - PeerSpot reviewer
A VP Enterprise Sales at Ashtech Infotech (India) Pvt.Ltd.
Centralized backup has improved data protection and simplifies secure, compliant restores
The biggest advantage of the product is that it is basically a single appliance which comes with a bundle of backup software and the appliance, as we have a single console to manage it. It also provides other features such as data encryption at rest, along with data deduplication and compression in backup which is very useful. From the centralized dashboard, we can manage the backup job and determine if the backup job is happening appropriately or not. If any backup job fails, we can find out the root cause for the failures. Because it is a hardware-based appliance, we can restore the data immediately, and it provides genuine restore capabilities. In terms of data availability compliance, we are looking for data availability and data security in terms of encryption, data deduplication and compression. It provides data availability as each appliance comes with RAID. If one or two disks fail, then our data appliance is still available for backup. It also provides encryption, so our data is also ransomware protected.
reviewer2802048 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Manager at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Automated backups have transformed our multi-account recovery and now streamline compliance reporting
While N2WS has served us well, there are areas for improvement. The user interface feels somewhat dated and could benefit from modernization. Navigation between sections could be more intuitive, and the dashboard design could be more streamlined compared to contemporary AWS tools. The initial setup process has a steeper learning curve than we’d prefer, especially for complex multi-account configurations. More guided setup wizards would help new team members get up to speed faster. Reporting capabilities could be more granular, particularly around cost optimization metrics and backup performance analytics. Currently, we need to gather information from multiple screens to get comprehensive insights. For future releases, we’d value enhanced integration with AWS native services like Config and CloudTrail for better compliance reporting. More advanced scheduling options that adjust based on application load would also be beneficial. Better support for newer AWS services as they’re released would help us maintain comprehensive coverage as our infrastructure evolves. Additionally, native integration with popular ITSM tools beyond email notifications would improve our workflow automation.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
16%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
The pricing for Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is quite expensive, but I would say, compared to the work that has been put into the appliance itself, we all know Dell is the most expensive product on ...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
I find it difficult to identify faults with Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA). The only initial issues we had were with bare-metal restores, but their support was absolutely excellent, and we worked thro...
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is used to back up Dell VX Rails, as we have six Dell VX Rail nodes or clusters in our current company, and to have an off-site backup. We have two Dell PowerProtect DP ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N2WS Backup & Recovery?
Pricing is reasonable considering the features provided, especially for organizations heavily invested in AWS. The cost savings from automation and lifecycle management can offset the licensing cos...
What needs improvement with N2WS Backup & Recovery?
While the platform is strong overall, the user interface could be further modernized and made more intuitive in certain areas, especially when navigating complex environments. Reporting and analyti...
What is your primary use case for N2WS Backup & Recovery?
Our primary use case is automated backup and disaster recovery for AWS workloads across multiple accounts and regions. We use N2WS to protect EC2 instances, EBS volumes, and critical application da...
 

Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Under Armour, Christian Brothers University, Presidio
Deloitte, NASA, Johnson & Johnson, Dyson, Deuthsche Bahn, Skechers, Allan Gray, Hewlett Packard, St. John's University, City of Oakland
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) vs. N2W and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.