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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs Veritas Backup Exec 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.4
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is valued for integration, compatibility, and competitive pricing, with some users seeing quick ROI.
Sentiment score
4.7
Veritas Backup Exec is valued for rapid system restoration, with mixed opinions on ROI and licensing preferences.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.6
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus support is generally praised for responsiveness, despite concerns about initial delays and technical complexity issues.
Sentiment score
7.5
Veritas Backup Exec customer service is well-rated for responsiveness, though some seek improvements for quicker, more efficient support.
Their documentation, runbooks, troubleshooting articles, and support people are good.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
We do not have a good experience with this product.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
They don't ask us to wait for a callback or create a ticket.
Presales System Engineer at Eden Infosol Pvt Ltd
I see good technical engineer support resolving issues.
System Advisor at CRIF SpA
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.7
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus scales efficiently from small to large enterprises, though optimal planning enhances its scalability potential.
Sentiment score
7.9
Veritas Backup Exec suits small to mid-sized organizations but larger enterprises should consider NetBackup for extensive data management.
The solution does not provide horizontal and vertical scaling.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
IBM Data Protect is the scalable solution, not IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Now in the current version, I can run more than one process for backup in one job for more virtual machines.
System Advisor at CRIF SpA
It is easy to scale Veritas Backup Exec.
Presales System Engineer at Eden Infosol Pvt Ltd
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.4
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is praised for stability and reliability, though some report recovery issues and version-related instability.
Sentiment score
7.6
Veritas Backup Exec is favored for its stability and reliability, with users mostly rating it highly for consistent performance.
I cannot determine what benefit IBM Spectrum Protect Plus brings to the organization because we deployed this solution with one customer, and that customer changed the product after one or two years because the product is not stable and it changes with every version.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
 

Room For Improvement

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus needs a user-friendly interface, improved security, better integration, efficient backup, and enhanced technical support.
Complex installation, high costs, confusing interface, and need for better integration and scalability highlight the issues needing resolution.
It does not offer horizontal and vertical scaling.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
I used IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but IBM is now replacing it with IBM Data Protect, which is a giant product now in common development with a well-known company in backup solutions.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
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.
Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
We need to have a proper image backup with a documented restore procedure, as some users were unable to do the image backup restoration due to driver issues or similar challenges.
Manager at Fractalio Data Pvt Ltd
Some technology improvement is needed to manage my basic business continuity plan.
Deputy Vice President - IT at TransUnion
I aim to monitor the functionality and probably find something this year to monitor logs from our backup system and storage and notify us about any unusual activities.
System Advisor at CRIF SpA
 

Setup Cost

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is costly but offers flexible licensing and is valued for scalability and automation benefits.
Veritas Backup Exec offers competitive and flexible pricing, ideal for SMEs, despite varying opinions on affordability and setup costs.
They are fairly expensive.
Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
When I compare it with others, it is twice or three times cheaper.
System Advisor at CRIF SpA
The setup is a bit expensive at a corporate price
Deputy Vice President - IT at TransUnion
 

Valuable Features

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus offers seamless integration, user-friendly features, and comprehensive data protection across multiple platforms and applications.
Veritas Backup Exec provides easy-to-use, efficient data protection with diverse compatibility, robust security, and flexible, reliable backup options.
The biggest benefit of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is that it's an agentless backup product which is very easy to configure and use.
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is the software we work with, and the new name is IBM Storage Protect.
Architecte Solutions at Novahe
Veritas has technical compatibility with my hardware and other systems.
Deputy Vice President - IT at TransUnion
My customers find the normal file system backup features of Veritas Backup Exec effective and valuable.
Manager at Fractalio Data Pvt Ltd
It has a lot of functions and security measures, which ensure our backups are secure.
System Advisor at CRIF SpA
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Veritas Backup Exec
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas Backup Exec is 1.4%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Veritas Backup Exec1.4%
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
Other97.5%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Has provided straightforward backup and rapid deployment for diverse environments
There is reporting in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but I'm not very familiar with this area. I always concentrated on getting the customer to do the backup, restore, and related tasks, but there is reporting. IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect. The correct direction is Data Protect, which includes ransomware detection. With IBM Data Protect, you can add more servers for backup. It's scalable, which is a key feature over Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus, even more capable than Veritas, because Veritas has an option to make different media servers. You can scale the backup process regardless of the load of the customer. This speeds up the backup and restore process for a complete data center, which cannot be done with any other product. I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 9 out of 10.
VijayPandey - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales System Engineer at Eden Infosol Pvt Ltd
Ease of deployment and excellent support ensures seamless data security
I am working with Veritas Backup Exec, and that is the one I use. The value of using Veritas Backup Exec across physical and virtual environments is significant. I had a chance to use Veritas Backup Exec on physical and virtual environments, but not on the cloud. The benefits from the platform support of Veritas Backup Exec are that it works very nicely for physical and virtual environments. Veritas Backup Exec is affordable for my customers. My customers use the solution on-premises and in virtualization. Securing the data for customers is obviously a significant benefit of Veritas Backup Exec. I highly recommend using Veritas Backup Exec for backup as it is very easy to use, easy to deploy, and the support is also very nice. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Veritas Backup Exec a 9.5.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
Educational Organization
6%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
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 Business35
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
 

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?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
How do the backup solutions of Veeam and Veritas compare?
Technically, Veeam is best for hyper-v & VMWare replications, snapshots, HA failover, also support for file system backups inside VMs., support for tape library & FC too. But Veritas Netbac...
What do you like most about Veritas Backup Exec?
The most important feature is the variety of backup applications it supports, including ERP systems and most other programs, such as Microsoft.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Backup Exec, Symantec Backup Exec
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Beta Offshore
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. Veritas Backup Exec and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.