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IBM Spectrum Protect vs OpenText Data Protector comparison

IBM and OpenText are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.3, while OpenText is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to OpenText’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of OpenText users who would recommend it.
IBM Spectrum Protect
Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews
  • 3,978 Views
  • 3,421 Comparison Views
86% willing to recommend
OpenText Data Protector
Read 102 OpenText Data Protector reviews
  • 1,648 Views
  • 1,351 Comparison Views
80% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and OpenText Data Protector compete in the enterprise data protection category. IBM Spectrum Protect is favored for its pricing and customer support, while OpenText Data Protector excels in features and user satisfaction.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect is valued for scalability, reliability, and effective data backup and recovery. OpenText Data Protector offers comprehensive protection, broader support for varied environments, and superior compatibility.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect needs better reporting, enhanced performance management, and streamlined updates. OpenText Data Protector requires improved technical support, simplified updates, and more efficient customer service.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect is praised for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. OpenText Data Protector's deployment is more complex, and users face slower support responses.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect is cost-effective with a favorable ROI. OpenText Data Protector is more expensive, justified by advanced features, but IBM Spectrum Protect offers better value for money.

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To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. OpenText Data Protector Report (Updated: July 2025).
Buyer's Guide
IBM Spectrum Protect vs. OpenText Data Protector
July 2025
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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
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
149
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Data Protector
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Data Protector is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Read full review
Jeroen Vranckaerts - PeerSpot reviewer
Though a highly stable tool, it needs to be made easier to use and configure
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a five out of ten. OpenText Data Protector is complex to configure correctly, but the areas concerning the data and compression are good. Once you get the product to work, it works, but it's much too complex to configure and troubleshoot, as it takes a lot of time and energy, making it not so efficient. Once the tool is configured in your environment, it provides good backup and compression features. In my company, we use OpenText Data Protector as a backup for our servers, and we have a team of 20 people to take care of the data backup using the tool. My company doesn't use OpenText Data Protector as a backup for our client's computers. In my company, we have scheduled the process related to backup, which makes the tool run daily around 30 to 40 times.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best part of this solution is that it just works."
"Since the technology is reliable, it simplifies the backup process significantly. Now, our focus can primarily be on managing full backups and creating some offline copies."
"Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs."
"Its incremental forever approach is valuable, so we don't have to load tapes to do a restore."
"The technical support for Spectrum Protect is very mature. It is very committed to giving a top-notch support experience."
"The MN backup for a cluster is most valuable because it has made backing up the GSF as a zero-file system easier. I like its stability a lot. Over the years, I very rarely had a problem with it."
"The solution is not complex, it's very easy to configure agents or VM backup and restore. Upgrades from one version to another are very fast and the product is very stable."
"Reliability: It has never had a problem with backups or restores. If you store something, it is there."
More IBM Spectrum Protect pros
"Deduplication implementation with CAPA is very good."
"The reliability of HP Data Protector is the most valuable feature for us."
"The solution is easy to use."
"It works excellently only with Oracle."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"The initial setup was relatively easy."
"It's a good product that's pretty easy to use."
"The tool's most valuable aspect is its ease of management. It was not complex. In terms of features, I can mention a couple of things. For example, if you need to restore a VM, you can do it with multiple streams in OpenText Data Protector, which is an advantage over Commvault, from what I've noticed, having worked with multiple tools. Another thing is the Oracle backups; configuring Oracle backups is much easier in OpenText Data Protector."
More OpenText Data Protector pros
 

Cons

"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center."
"The solution should have better integration with VMware and with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus."
"Any feature that is compliant with virtualizing the application should be improved."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
"An area for improvement would be the ease of use - the GUI is not up to the mark compared to other products in the market."
"RTO is a huge gap for us. If we had a disaster scenario and had to recover a bunch of stuff from tape, the RTO would be too long for us."
More IBM Spectrum Protect cons
"Faster VEAgent Restores"
"I do not think that this solution is relevant in the current IT market. They have not upgraded their features and functionalities which makes it difficult for them to remain competitive."
"Virtualization."
"In general, you can say that Micro Focus Data Protector is behind in capabilities when compared with other backup solutions, such as Commvault, Symantec, NetBackup, but it is very strong for certain use cases such as array integration. We are using it in production even now. There should be some kind of cloud integration and archiving solutions. I think this is the area they need to focus on."
"It would be ideal if they could improve their level of support."
"It has a lot of undeveloped functions like window searching and patent searching, and within the main backup processes like VMware and Microsoft Exchange. It's completely not user-friendly, and it has no built-in antivirus software. In my opinion, Micro Focus Data Protector is not an enterprise level solution."
"It can occasionally be inaccurate in its backup/recovery time estimates."
"We have a lot of requests for the Micro Focus team, particularly in terms of the Japanese data pattern, as it's not as good now. The Japanese data pattern accuracy of the Micro Focus Data Protector needs to be improved because there are a lot of false negatives and false positives. We are currently testing this and our product team has been communicating with the Micro Focus team."
More OpenText Data Protector cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"License-wise regarding IBM, it's licensed per terabyte. And that is after compression and deduplication."
"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."
"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is high in comparison to other products on the market. For example, IBM and Symantec have less costly options."
"IBM Spectrum Protect can be considered an averagely-priced product."
"IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs."
More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice
"The license for the solution is very expensive compared to the other products in the market."
"The licensing cost was not annual. We didn't pay any license. We paid when we deployed and we didn't pay for anything after that. There were no additional fees after the initial payment."
"The product is cheaper than Commvault."
"Data Protector's pricing is very competitive and we have no issues in this regard. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"The pricing is neither too expensive nor very cheap."
"They have two types of licensing, one is for storage capacity and the other is client licensing. The capacity licensing here is a bit expensive."
"The pricing is around $3,000 to $5,000. The charge additionally for support and to scale."
"It is fast, reliable, and its licensing policy is great."
More OpenText Data Protector pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?
IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?
It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.
See all answers
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum 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...
See all answers
What do you like most about Micro Focus Data Protector?
I haven't experienced any crashes while using the solution...Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Data Protector?
The solution is expensive as it requires purchasing all features without the option to negotiate based on client numbers, unlike Veeam which offers flexibility in pricing.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Data Protector?
OpenText Data Protector is not user-friendly, especially for cloud backup. It lacks functions and facilities compared to Veeam, which offers more user-friendliness for virtual machine backups. Ther...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
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Compared 12% of the time
Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect
Compared 10% of the time
HPE StoreOnce vs IBM Spectrum Protect Logo
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Compared 7% of the time
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Veeam Data Platform vs OpenText Data Protector Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs OpenText Data Protector
Compared 53% of the time
Veritas NetBackup vs OpenText Data Protector Logo
Veritas NetBackup vs OpenText Data Protector
Compared 12% of the time
Commvault Cloud vs OpenText Data Protector Logo
Commvault Cloud vs OpenText Data Protector
Compared 8% of the time
Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs OpenText Data Protector Logo
Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention vs OpenText Data Protector
Compared 6% of the time
IBM Tivoli CDP for Files vs OpenText Data Protector Logo
IBM Tivoli CDP for Files vs OpenText Data Protector
Compared 6% of the time
More OpenText Data Protector Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM Spectrum Protect
June 2025
IBM Spectrum Protect reportDownload IBM Spectrum Protect product report
Buyer's Guide
OpenText Data Protector
June 2025
OpenText Data Protector reportDownload OpenText Data Protector product report
 

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
Micro Focus Data Protector, Data Protector, OmniBack, HPE Data Protector
 

Overview

IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.
IBM
OpenText Data Protector standardizes and consolidates backups across multiple platforms. It provides secure, comprehensive backup protection for business-critical data and applications whether virtual, physical, or online in the cloud.
OpenText
 

Sample Customers

CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology
GSK Vaccines, Repsol, Vodafone Group, Siemens AG, Medium Enterprise Transportation Services Company
Buyer's Guide
IBM Spectrum Protect vs. OpenText Data Protector
July 2025
Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. OpenText Data Protector
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. OpenText Data Protector and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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