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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs MSP360 Backup 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

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
49th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MSP360 Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
59th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (47th), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (33rd), MSP Backup (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MSP360 Backup is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.0%
MSP360 Backup0.8%
Other98.2%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1656648 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Offers reliable recovery and backup but needs better ransomware protection
With ransomware protection and cyber protection, more improvement is possible. IBM provides these through a third party, so enhancement is needed. There's significant room for improvement. They are not yet where I want them to be. It does not offer horizontal and vertical scaling. These are areas IBM can improve.
CONRAD FORREST - PeerSpot reviewer
President at MTS Consulting Group, Inc.
The solution provides the ability to backup all types of cloud drives, is inexpensive, and has decent support
MSP360 Backup provides the backup functionality, but we need to provide the storage component. We can use Azure, AWS, or another provider, but we need to choose the storage provider and create a bucket to store our data. The vendor is making changes to improve the functionality of the service and the separation of storage, but I would like to see more integration and a knowledge base of the tool. Currently trying to understand why the storage is separated and how to implement the storage properly is a challenge. Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service. Unlike other solutions such as Kohl which includes everything at one price. MSP360 Backup can be improved by adding inclusive pricing.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is scalable and can be fitted for any customer."
"There is protection against disasters with good, fast, reliable recovery options."
"The tool has enough documentation; you don't need to contact the support team."
"The most valuable features are the API features because it allows you to integrate with your Microsoft SQL, your Oracle, and your IBM Db2."
"The solution is scalable."
"This is a multi-platform backup solution where you can take a backup from AIX, Windows, or Linux servers and restore from CD, disk, or tape."
"The feature I find most valuable is the offload to Spectrum Protect for long-term retention. I think the deduplication and replication are quite nice on Plus."
"The most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are you have many possibilities on how to use it. We use it for backups and to create secondary and third copies. It is possible to pick up Kubernetes containers and use a different cloud provider if you need to start backups on the cloud."
"The UI is pretty good. It's very simple. That is one thing that we like about this. It's very user-friendly."
"General ease of use and performance of the Windows version is the most valuable feature."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is its online backup capacity because you don't have to do an entire backup again and again, it just does whatever you type in, you type a, it goes a, you type b, it goes b. It doesn't take an entire site up again and again. So that incremental and bit by bit backup is important, it is a nice feature here."
"I was mainly concerned with cloud backups, OneDrive backups, consumer OneDrive, business OneDrive, Google backups, and SharePoint backups. The solution did a good job of the backup."
"Client-side encryption minimizes worries about data being captured on the back-end."
"The most valuable feature of MSP360 Backup is its reliability."
"It has allowed me to implement a cost effective, highly configurable solution."
"Block level transfers have significantly reduced the amount of time for transfers over some other solutions"
 

Cons

"The user experience is very bad and the interface needs to be improved."
"The tool needs to increase the number of threats."
"It requires much more automation features."
"The replication feature is not available."
"In the future, I would like to see support for global deduplication."
"Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas. In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting."
"IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect."
"The solution should allow for backup of iOS snapshots."
"Maybe implement an easier interface for basic users. For example, a set-up wizard with all the commonly used features as default."
"They can add some production backup capabilities and the ability to do single instance back up. At the moment, it doesn't do deduplication on the standard backup. So, the issue is backing up PSG files for customers who have limited bandwidth. The other issue is that I don't like the implementation of the SQL backup. We do use SQL ourselves using a PowerShell script with the VDA tools as a module. That's how we back up. The rotation feature would be nice to have, but I know that they've got it on their dashboard or on their list to look at. They can also do a few tweaks to the dashboard. I would like the reporting capabilities on the portal to be much more granular. Normally, I export it to a text file, and then I run it through a pivot table in order to look at it from a cost-recovery point of view and to see when the backup last ran and if it was successful when it ran two or three days ago. Such a feature would work really well for my market. They can also add a cost-effective backup for Android and Apple cellphones. I've had one or two customers who were looking for this feature. I haven't found this functionality at the moment. I've been looking for a product that does that."
"As for what can be improved, some reports could be simplified so that you know how much backup you have done and what your backup details are. That report is available but it is very tough to get. I would like to know "today I have just uploaded 35 MB, tomorrow I have loaded 10 MB so my trend of backup is increasing.""
"There are some things that we don't like about it. That is why I was exploring alternatives in a hyper-scale environment. That is why I was checking IT Central Station."
"The solution's pricing is very high."
"The solution needs a better graphical user interface. It's a graphical user interface that is very old-school right now. They could give it a little more modern feel."
"The restore time could improve. When we had an issue the restore time was lengthy."
"Using the solution incurs additional charges for the device storage and backup which are not included in the service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training."
"The solution is too expensive."
"There is an annual license required to use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The cost of the license could improve, it is expensive."
"The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product."
"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"I rate the price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a one on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap."
"The cost is pretty inexpensive. Around four to five dollars per device, per workstation on each server."
"It includes a standard licensing fee. Once a year, there is a rebranding fee. The licensing costs are available on the internet for MSP360 Backup. There is a discount structure where if you have over 50 devices, you get a 50% discount. So, my cost is $2 a license per month."
"Pricing is reasonable although can be quite a large upfront cost."
"I rate the price of MSP360 Backup a seven out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"MSP360 is vastly cheaper than its competitors and has almost all the same features."
"Its pricing needs improvement."
"We have a very good return on investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Technical support could be improved significantly. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could be made more lightweight and user-friendly in terms of GUI features to make it closer to a perfect score.
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Also Known As

No data available
Cloudberry Backup
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
StratX
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. MSP360 Backup and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,255 professionals have used our research since 2012.