IBM Spectrum Protect vs NetApp SnapCenter comparison

IBM and NetApp are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.4, while NetApp is ranked #50 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to NetApp’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NetApp users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 150 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,616 Views
2,660 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

NetApp SnapCenter

Read 27 NetApp SnapCenter reviews

1,151 Views
639 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

NetApp SnapCenter

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and NetApp SnapCenter are two prominent data protection and management solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect shines in pricing and support, while NetApp SnapCenter is noted for its feature set, which users feel justifies its higher cost.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive backup and recovery capabilities, effective scalability, and flexible deployment options. NetApp SnapCenter integrates with various environments, provides high speed, and has intuitive management features.

Room for Improvement: Users of IBM Spectrum Protect point out the need for more straightforward configuration, better documentation, and enhanced user interface. NetApp SnapCenter users seek enhancements in stability, broader platform support, and optimization of resource utilization.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect is praised for its flexible deployment options and responsive customer service. NetApp SnapCenter is also recognized for its deployment process and effective customer support, though some users report additional time spent during setup.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect offers competitive setup costs and a strong ROI, benefiting from lower ongoing expenses. NetApp SnapCenter is seen as pricier upfront, but users find the investment worthwhile due to advanced features and integration capabilities that enhance long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter

June 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

150

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NetApp SnapCenter

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

50th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 NetApp SnapCenter is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

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

MervynMorgan

IT Storage Engineer at Unixque Solutions Pty Ltd

Enables us to save data for data projection but could improve its integration with other backup solutions

NetApp SnapCenter is highly efficient because it allows you to automate the creation of snapshots. Instead of manually creating snapshots using IMS or HMS, you can schedule and automate them, specifying the timing and frequency. This eliminates the need for daily manual intervention and streamlines the process. SnapCenter also enables you to assign specific user roles to manage these tasks, enhancing efficiency. SnapCenter ensures that your LPOs and RTOs are extremely quick. Although it may seem expensive initially, after using it for a while, you'll appreciate the efficiencies and gains it provides. I recommend the solution. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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 product helps us do data protection and restoration for disaster recovery (DR)."

"I have found that the most valuable feature is useful documentation and troubleshooting."

"The platform has valuable stability."

"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."

"With data deduplication and compression, we are reducing our overall storage footprint for our disk histories. Therefore, we are reducing the actual cost of the disk for our data protection and data backups."

"We are able to run it in an enterprise quite easily with one or two resources."

"Regarding technical support, if one has the entire enterprise support, I would rate it a nine out of ten...Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."

"The scheduled backups ensure we meet the requirements for our business, and we keep backups of certain environments."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"You can quickly deploy new virtual environments. It provides efficient and easy-to-use data protection. If a file goes missing or corruption occurs, you can restore it swiftly using the snap restore feature, allowing you to return to work almost immediately."

"Most banks and financial institutions use the solution."

"The backup process finishes very quickly."

"The support from NetApp is very good, and I would rate it as ten points."

"The reporting feature has been particularly beneficial to upper management... When you do manual backups, you do not get the benefit of seeing successes and failures and how often you have to do restores. With SnapCenter, you get all of that."

"A feature that stands out is cloning databases. If you have a SQL database and it's huge, like one terabyte, the classical SQL way would be to do a backup-restore to create a clone of your database for test purposes. With SnapCenter now, we can clone a database but through the Snapshot technology, which means if you right-click and you click Clone, the one terabyte database is there instantly."

"The simplicity of backup and restore directly with VMware is an advantage and the time to backup and restore is reduced."

"It's integrated with VMware vCenter. You can also see the backups there and you can do a restore completely out of vCenter."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

Cons

"It has a lot of areas for improvement. Its reporting for job completion or incompletion can be improved. It should also provide a granular recovery, ease of operation, data life cycle management, and media management. It should support a backup in such a format that in case of a disaster, one can start the virtual machine out of the backup itself. Its reliability can also be better. It is also expensive, and their support is also poor."

"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."

"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."

"It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum."

"The previous GUI that they had was slow, and it did not have enough information on it."

"The software is complex; setup is complex."

"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."

"I am not really impressed with the Level 1 support, but once I get past that and go to Level 2, then we will usually get some type of resolution."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"I want to see a few more features add that will help our team in managing solution better."

"Since the solution's initial setup is complex, it should make training documents available in the public space."

"There is one area that needs improvement and that's in the alerting. When you set up your SMTP alerts, it only has - and I don't understand why - the ability to send an anonymous SMTP. It doesn't do basic authentication, which frustrated me for a while until I figured out that I'm not missing something. It's just not there."

"Some of the minor functionalities from SnapManager did not transfer over to SnapCenter. These should be added in future releases."

"We have experience some difficulties with our current support. We are engaging in engineering level support because some of our problems are more technical."

"The UI, the User Interface, needs to be improved. It's not as clean or modern as it could be."

"When you have role-based access, for example, it's a bit of a problem that the person who creates the backup job is the owner of it. We are struggling a bit with this, that everyone has the same view and the same permissions in there."

"It needs to support vSphere 6.7."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is fair. Price-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."

"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."

"Licensing IBM Spectrum Protect can be somewhat confusing for new users due to the options available, such as licensing on a capacity or per server basis."

"It is fairly reasonable as compared to other solutions in the market."

"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."

"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."

"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."

"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"The license for SnapCenter was included with the storage array."

"Pricing is very good because if you already have NepApp controllers, then it's included."

"The licensing is well-designed because it's already included in some packages with NetApp storage. Therefore, for most customers, it's okay as the SnapCenter license is already included in some NetApp bundles."

"It comes free with the amount of equipment we purchase from NetApp. In terms of pricing, zero is my favorite number."

"The product is inexpensive."

"We have a site license, so it comes with the product."

"We see a financial value with SnapCenter because we don't have to license Commvault, which is pretty expensive."

"It's free. The license is included with other NetApp products."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Government

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?

See all answers

What do you like most about NetApp SnapCenter?

Most banks and financial institutions use the solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetApp SnapCenter?

The product should be free because it is just software to administrate systems purchased from NetApp, which are already expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NetApp SnapCenter?

The interface usability needs improvement. It should be more user-friendly and easier for customers to use.

See all answers

Comparisons

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 17% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 17% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Synology DSM vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 26% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 17% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 14% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 8% of the time

Cohesity DataProtect vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp SnapCenter Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp SnapCenter

May 2025

Download NetApp SnapCenter product report

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

SnapCenter

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

Unified, scalable platform for application-consistent data protection and clone management. This software simplifies backup, restore, and clone lifecycle management with application-integrated workflows.

NetApp

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

All for One Steeb AG, Accenture

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter

June 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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