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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Storage Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 12, 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

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
49th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 2.0%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Storage Protect2.0%
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.0%
Other97.0%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables organizations to make large-scale recoveries easily, but the security must be improved
The security must be improved. We face a lot of cyber threats like ransomware. It impacts data availability and protection. The tool must provide a mechanism to make resilient backups. The tool must ensure that the recent backups have no ransomware. The backup must be immutable. They must be cyber-resilient backups. Finding a good resource person for IBM Spectrum in Pakistan is difficult. We have to rely on the support team. Resource availability is a challenge.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Virtual snapshots that offer incremental backups."
"The solution integrates well with other tools."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration with Oracle."
"What I like about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is its integration, plus it has very good technical support."
"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 most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something."
"The solution is scalable."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"Scalability, performance, mass platform coverage. It's one of the few backup products on the market right now which an organization can bring in and it will serve all of their backup needs. It's a completely centralized solution."
"Their GUI has improved quite a bit. It's made the solution a lot simpler and less complex."
"The product is very stable."
"The backup is very good. In other backup systems, you need a lot of storage to gain the same backup policy."
"They have recently added support tickets specifically engineered around performance. This has been very useful for us when we run into issues where customers are looking to try to squeeze a lot more horsepower out of older system."
"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
 

Cons

"You end up needing to do a lot of troubleshooting to get things to work effectively."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could improve by adding SAP Rena."
"I would like integration into where the VMware guys can do their own restores."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could improve security."
"With ransomware protection and cyber protection, more improvement is possible."
"The solution only supports HyperV and VMware but doesn't support Nutanix."
"Instead of using the command prompt for troubleshooting and administering the backup, there should be an easy-to-use graphical user interface."
"The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy."
"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."
"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."
"This product comes up against other products available that are marketed better but the other products that it's in competition with are a single product and this is one of IBM products. If it could be marketed as more for competitors I think that's where it comes short."
"I find the Level 1 and Level 2 support spend 80% of the time communicating the same information that I have already provided."
"I want to see better compression than what it currently does."
"The only thing that I would like to have a little more of is insight in reporting. I find that Spectrum Protect needs a lot of monitoring, and I have to actually log into the servers."
"Replication services would be nice. If these could be enhanced to be always on so multiple storage backup services could be added as a cluster pool. This would provide a better availability service."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training."
"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."
"The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original."
"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 solution is too expensive."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"There is an annual license required to use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The cost of the license could improve, it is expensive."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."
"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."
"The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD)."
"That's a hard estimate. It depends on the licensing, the hardware, and other stuff, but it is fairly expensive. It is generally more expensive than other solutions."
"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise94
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something.
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.
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.