HPE Zerto Software vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus comparison

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is ranked #2 with an average rating of 9.0, while IBM is ranked #51 with an average rating of 6.3. Hewlett Packard Enterprise holds a 2.0% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Hewlett Packard Enterprise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of IBM users who would recommend it.

HPE Zerto Software

Read 346 HPE Zerto Software reviews

15,919 Views
9,074 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Read 33 IBM Spectrum Protect Plus reviews

2,389 Views
2,365 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

HPE Zerto Software

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 2025

HPE Zerto Software and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are competing solutions in data protection and disaster recovery. HPE Zerto Software appears to have an advantage in deployment simplicity and fast disaster recovery, while IBM Spectrum Protect Plus shines in comprehensive backup and data management capabilities.

Features: HPE Zerto Software offers real-time data recovery, seamless cloud integration, and fast disaster recovery, appealing to businesses needing quick recovery solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is known for robust data backup capabilities, extensive storage options, and efficient management tools, which are suited for broader data management needs.

Room for Improvement: HPE Zerto could enhance its data management capabilities and provide more extensive training resources. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could simplify its deployment and improve performance speed to match the needs of businesses requiring rapid recovery.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: HPE Zerto Software features a straightforward cloud-centric setup that facilitates rapid implementation, backed by efficient customer support. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus requires a more intricate setup due to its feature-rich environment but offers thorough customer support with substantial guidance through the process.

Pricing and ROI: HPE Zerto Software is noted for its competitive initial costs, delivering strong ROI with fast recovery capabilities, suitable for businesses seeking efficient recovery without heavy expenditure. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, with its higher initial investment, offers long-term ROI via comprehensive backup functionalities, appealing to those focused on extensive data security and management.

To learn more, read our detailed HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,108 peers since 2012

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

7.0

HPE Zerto Software enhances efficiency, reduces costs, minimizes downtime, and improves disaster recovery, offering significant financial benefits.

Sentiment score

5.4

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is valued for integration, compatibility, and competitive pricing, with some users seeing quick ROI.

Before, it was a huge cost. It was several thousand dollars to do a DR test, whereas now, I click a button.

Thomas Sipf

CTO at Erisa Administrative Services, Inc.

It saves us a lot of time and gives us the ability to perform other DR plans for other systems.

reviewer2728620

System Engineer at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's not only in the cloud; it's DR as a service, which means that the recovery operations are performed by a dedicated team specializing in this area.

Itsik Ohana

Founder & CEO at Itix Cyber Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.5

HPE Zerto Software's support is mostly satisfactory, with prompt assistance and knowledgeable staff, despite occasional response delays.

Sentiment score

4.6

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus support is generally praised for responsiveness, despite concerns about initial delays and technical complexity issues.

I have never had an issue that was not resolved, and I have never been in a situation where they did not respond.

reviewer762012

Sr. Systems Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would give them a rating of ten because it represents the highest level of support based on the technical knowledge of the support team, response time, and effectiveness of the provided resolutions.

reviewer1599558

Disaster Recovery Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

When I open a ticket, I usually get a call within an hour or two.

David Comer

Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

Their documentation, runbooks, troubleshooting articles, and support people are good.

reviewer1656648

Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

We do not have a good experience with this product.

Christophe LAMAMY

Architecte Solutions at Novahe

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.4

HPE Zerto Software efficiently scales to meet demands, handling thousands of virtual machines across environments with easy license expansion.

Sentiment score

5.7

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus scales efficiently from small to large enterprises, though optimal planning enhances its scalability potential.

I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

Alan Barrett

Head of IT at TWM SOLICITORS LLP

Customers need to follow good engineering practices for optimal product use.

Proby Patel

Tech Lead, Storage and Data Protection at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees

By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed.

reviewer2641974

Senior Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

The solution does not provide horizontal and vertical scaling.

reviewer1656648

Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

IBM Data Protect is the scalable solution, not IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

AhmedSorour

IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.0

HPE Zerto Software is reliable and stable, with seamless updates and minor issues swiftly addressed across various environments.

Sentiment score

6.4

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is praised for stability and reliability, though some report recovery issues and version-related instability.

I promptly delete the malfunctioning elements and set them up again to resume replication, ensuring stability.

Jagadeesh Ethiraj

Technical Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The ease of use was so good with Zerto that they were able to migrate things much quicker.

reviewer2691450

Inside Sales Representative at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

It is very reliable.

David Comer

Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

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.

Christophe LAMAMY

Architecte Solutions at Novahe

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Room For Improvement

HPE Zerto users seek better Hyper-V support, cloud integration, flexible licensing, enhanced backups, cybersecurity, and improved technical support.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus needs a user-friendly interface, improved security, better integration, efficient backup, and enhanced technical support.

If I have 350 objects that I am protecting, I would like Zerto to be able to fire them up in one order, rather than having to manually bring them up in a sequence.

David Riberdy

Enterprise data management supervisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees

If the host has a lot of VMs on it, there may not always be enough time to relocate all of the VMs from a protection group standpoint to other hosts before the replication appliance that Zerto uses to manage that powers itself down.

David Comer

Systems Engineering Manager at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

If HPE Zerto Software has it built-in where we're going to vCenter and you click on it, it will build the VPG and indicate configuration requirements, that would be amazing.

reviewer2729427

Senior Converged Infrastructure Engineer at a educational organization with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

It does not offer horizontal and vertical scaling.

reviewer1656648

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.

AhmedSorour

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.

reviewer1541931

Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Setup Cost

HPE Zerto Software offers competitive per-VM pricing, praised for rapid recovery, ease of use, and straightforward scalability.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is costly but offers flexible licensing and is valued for scalability and automation benefits.

If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different.

JeffSmith12

IT Manager at American Pioneer Federal Credit Union

However, it can become quite expensive when you start looking at the number of workloads you have in the environment and what you would like to do.

reviewer2645856

Cloud and Infrastructure Services Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Zerto is easier to set up and use, and it's less expensive.

Bill Dudgeon

Professional Services Engineer at US Signal

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

They are fairly expensive.

reviewer1656648

Senior System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.

reviewer1541931

Manager - Storage & Backup at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Valuable Features

HPE Zerto Software offers robust features for disaster recovery, fast recovery, automation, ease of use, and ransomware protection.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus offers seamless integration, user-friendly features, and comprehensive data protection across multiple platforms and applications.

Zerto offers excellent technical support with responsive and helpful experts.

Sachin Vinay

Assistant Manager-Networks at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked.

reviewer2641974

Senior Systems Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

The replication time and the minor amount of time it takes to sync a new server outside of any of my huge 40-terabyte boxes is ridiculously quick.

reviewer762012

Sr. Systems Engineer at a legal firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the HPE Zerto Software report

The biggest benefit of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is that it's an agentless backup product which is very easy to configure and use.

AhmedSorour

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.

Christophe LAMAMY

Architecte Solutions at Novahe

For more quotes and insights, download the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus report

Categories and Ranking

HPE Zerto Software

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

2nd

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

346

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Migration (1st), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st)

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

51st

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
HPE Zerto Software	2.0%
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus	1.1%
Other	96.9%

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

StaffordHall

Cloud Data Center Architect at Cable Bahamas

Cloud disaster recovery has protected critical workloads and reduces downtime after ransomware

One of HPE Zerto Software’s best features for us is its built-in ransomware resilience. Zerto continuously journals data changes and uses anomaly detection to identify unusual write behavior that may indicate a ransomware or cyberattack. This gives us early visibility into potential threats and allows us to respond quickly. A key strength of the platform is its immutable journaling and recovery checkpoints. Zerto maintains frequent, immutable restore points that cannot be altered or encrypted by ransomware. This allows customers to roll environments back to a point just before an incident occurred, with confidence that the data has not been compromised. From a customer perspective, this provides a high level of assurance that their data remains protected and recoverable even in the event of a successful attack

Read full review

AhmedSorour

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.

Read full review

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Comparison Review

it_user159711

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Marketing Services Firm

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	90
Midsize Enterprise	92
Large Enterprise	195

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	17

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...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?

From a pricing standpoint, HPE Zerto Software was reasonably priced initially compared to SRM, but now it is almost on par, if not better.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 6% of the time

Rubrik vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 5% of the time

Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 4% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs HPE Zerto Software

Compared 4% of the time

More HPE Zerto Software Competitors

IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 13% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 8% of the time

Atempo Live Navigator vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 4% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft DPM vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Compared 3% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

HPE Zerto Software

March 2026

Download HPE Zerto Software product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

March 2026

Download IBM Spectrum Protect Plus product report

Also Known As

Zerto Virtual Replication

No data available

Overview

Zerto is used for disaster recovery, business continuity, data migration, and ransomware recovery, providing continuous data protection and near real-time replication. Valued for ease of use, efficient failover processes, and versatile integration, it enhances organizational efficiency, reduces errors, and boosts productivity.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection and availability solution for virtual environments that can be deployed in minutes and protect your environment within an hour. It simplifies data protection, whether data is hosted in physical, virtual, software-defined or cloud environments. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or integrate with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to off-load copies for long term storage and data governance with scale and efficiency.

IBM

Sample Customers

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio

Buyer's Guide

HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

March 2026

Free Report: HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus

Find out what your peers are saying about HPE Zerto Software vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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