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HPE Zerto Software vs IBM ProtectTIER comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 14, 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

HPE Zerto Software
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
341
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st)
IBM ProtectTIER
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
83rd
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.6%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 0.3%, up from 0.1% 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%
IBM ProtectTIER0.3%
Other97.1%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

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.
ValereFEUGWANG - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects data in hybrid infrastructures, but it is an expensive product with poor support
The main challenge for our customers is to replicate the virtual environment upon restart, without using any additional solutions such as VMware SLM. I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM. It would be much better for us. This solution can be made easier to use. Technical support is very frustrating and we are considering other solutions because of it. Stability is something that should be improved. The product is expensive and the licensing should be changed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"HPE Zerto Software's continuous data protection or CDP is critical for our organization because it allows us to recover within seconds to minutes, and the journal allows us to pick a point-in-time recovery."
"The granularity enables us to failover specific workloads instead of an all-or-nothing type of scenario, where you have to move your entire IP block and your data center, or you have to move large chunks of VMs. Those situations also make it prohibitive to test effectively."
"The most valuable feature for me is the replication. If I need to fail over sites, it can be done quickly, in less than five minutes."
"The main valuable features are the fast RPO and RTOs we could achieve and the analytics behind that."
"It has enabled DR protection for virtual appliances with minimal administrator time."
"Since the log files are continuously transmitted, the granularity of restores is amazing."
"Zerto helps with quick recovery and integration with other processes."
"Our RTO is quick, and we can recover five to ten terabytes of data within minutes of a failover."
"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The command-line interface is good."
"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."
"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."
"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."
 

Cons

"The HPE Zerto Software can be improved with more visibility. It's really hard to find out what stores and what drives I'm using, and then to translate that over to the cloud solution."
"We would like more mobile options. If we are at a restaurant or out and about in our normal daily lives, we would like to be able to interface via our mobiles."
"Some of the cloud instructions around VNets and peering of networks could be clearer with some best-case examples."
"The ease of setup can be improved in the next release of HPE Zerto Software."
"The tool must improve its long-term storage cloud strategy, making it more seamless and improving the solution's downtime features."
"My input would be to have their sales engineers not overpromise and then have the product underdeliver because we were scoped not-appropriately sized target hardware. That hit us hard. We went with Exagrid as our target. Because of incorrect sizing, we didn't get the expected compression, and we ran out of space. We didn't have enough capacity for all of our backups the way we wanted them tiered. It crippled Zerto as well."
"The challenge we faced occurred during a DR for a database server running on SQL Always On. We experienced a database crash and logged a case with Zerto about a year ago. They said that they do not support Always On."
"It could benefit from tighter integration with VMware."
"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."
"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."
"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."
"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."
"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Get the Enterprise Cloud license because it's the most flexible, and the pricing should come in around $1,000 per VM."
"We have seen ROI. Several times, we needed to recover, and we were able to go to Zerto."
"I wouldn't say I like the licensing pricing structure. Every year, it increases exponentially, which bothers me a little. It's worth it in terms of the value, but I worry the price will increase even more often after the Zerto merger. I still think it's worth it and that the solution is cheaper than the others."
"It initially seemed a little pricey, but in the big picture, you're paying for peace of mind. It could always be cheaper and more competitive, which would make it an easier choice for people, but I can see both ways. They can say this cost is for the value they are providing. If anything happens, they can recover your data very quickly. You won't be losing it, so there is a win. It is a win-win."
"We believe the pricing, setup costs, and licensing are easy to understand. The pricing seems very reasonable."
"Pricing is kind of expensive, but for what we get, it is probably worth it. I know they just had a huge price increase due to the VMware stuff getting expensive, which added about a thousand dollars a month to our bill."
"There is a lot of confusion with Zerto licensing. They have a migration license and a replication license. They should simplify the licensing process. The migration license costs a lot of money, and it is only on a one-time basis. If you use that license, it ties to that VM. I might re-migrate that VM in the next five to ten years. It is another environment, but my license is stuck there. The replication license is fine, and I have no issue with its pricing model, but they should simplify the migration license."
"It's fair. My biggest gripe with Zerto is the initial scoping. What we were promised didn't work with what we ended up with."
"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."
"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."
"This solution is very expensive."
"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."
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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
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise193
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

Zerto Virtual Replication
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber
Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM ProtectTIER and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.