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 7.3, while NetApp is ranked #50 with an average rating of 7.5. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to NetApp’s 0.7% 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 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,978 Views
3,421 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

NetApp SnapCenter

Read 27 NetApp SnapCenter reviews

1,207 Views
1,135 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NetApp SnapCenter

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

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 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 NetApp SnapCenter is 0.7%, 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

Mir Gulzar Ahmed

IT Manager at Synergy Computers

Integrates well with various applications , provides a cloning feature for creating snapshots or clones of volume and a centralized command

It is basically centralized command control software. When the users visualize the workflow of the backup, the management and the customer storage administrator know the ins and outs of the backup and recovery. They can make the strategy for their backup and recovery and the certainty of their backups and restore. Strategic planning: Also, it is easy to make a strategy when you have visualized the inflow and outflow of the backup and recovery. With the CLI or native way, without any UI or management tool, you might not be able to create any strategy at all. This is especially important when you have multiple storage systems inside your data center or organization. You need a tool that connects and visualizes the workflow of the backup and recovery from all the storage systems and NetApp storage systems installed within the organization. It is very important when you have multiple storage systems, and you need to manage your backup and recovery workflow. Ease of Management: Unlike other storage vendors, NetApp has its own product called SnapCenter. Other vendors need to acquire third-party software or integrate with other software to manage storage systems. NetApp has its own solution, which is SnapCenter. NetApp's SnapCenter gels well with their storage systems and products. Ease of management is already there. It's a fine software with easy installation, management, and understanding. It's not a complicated software to understand.

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

"Scalability: Our customers are able to grow the product without having to buy additional hardware, so it is very scalable."

"The backup on real-time, especially for the virtual machine, archiving, and retrieving the reader from the backup repository and getting it online, getting it validated, then performing the data consistency check over the backup."

"The platform’s most valuable feature is its ability to verify the recoverability of backups."

"The scalability of IBM Spectrum Protect is good."

"The solution is mostly stable."

"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."

"Incremental backup is highly valuable as it allows for significant time and cost savings."

"Forever incremental - allows TSM to optimize storage needs."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"I like the instant backups and recovery feature that SnapCenter provides within NetApp storage systems."

"The product’s most valuable feature is cloning."

"It's a centralized, easy-to-use solution empowering RBAC management, monitoring, notifications, extensive logging, and backup schedules for standalone as well as groups of the same types of environments. The cloning capabilities accelerate development."

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

"It's all together managing both storage and backup, which makes it easier for troubleshooting issues and the automation part of it"

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

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

"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."

More NetApp SnapCenter pros

Cons

"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."

"One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past."

"Perhaps if they could add replication to a second site or third site from the same console, that would be helpful. Currently, we have to connect to another console."

"We cannot take VMware backups for our banking data center environment."

"It's difficult in terms of the configuration at set up. In our case, it required another admin, one person dedicated to the backup."

"The solution could be more user-friendly and provide better monitoring. The monitoring should be improved first since it is a higher priority."

"The solution is evolving, so it has to be evolved to fit all new types of software requirements too."

"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."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"Plugins should be developed in shorter times. Performance generally could be a little bit faster."

"The product lags in terms of availability."

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

"I'm waiting for SnapCenter for hybrid solutions. Right now, we only have SnapManager for hybrid. I need agents for that. People are looking to install SnapCenter in a SQL environment, but where they're running SQL on Hyper-V and using virtual files. Currently, we don't have support for hybrid."

"We have hundreds of servers and systems and hundreds of customers and they're separated in a multi-tenancy way in NetApp SVM. Right now, the problem is that it always scan all SVMs. If I backup Customer A, it scans all SVMs, or tries to scan all SVMs, if there is a backup relationship on the storage. But it doesn't have the permissions, so we run into timeouts or the backup just takes too long. They're fixing that in the upcoming release..."

"My major issue is when I upgrade. I have to touch every last client that I have in SnapCenter, and right now I have 60... They said that in another release that will get better, but right now it's not better and I've had to do this three times."

"Groups might be helpful for each site or data center so that we know a given data center has these resources while another data center has those resources. It's not always easy to group hosts by type."

"I have an issue with SnapCenter because sometimes a VM cannot be backed up... The way SnapCenter works is that it makes a backup of all the VMs and then it removes all the old backups. If one VM cannot be backed up for some reason, it has already created a new backup for all the VMs but it cannot remove the old backups. It ends up creating so many backups in VMware and it will cause a performance problem if the condition is not fixed."

More NetApp SnapCenter cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It can be perceived as expensive since it is designed for enterprise use."

"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."

"Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another."

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

"You need to put it in a PoC and test it out if you can."

"The license model that they have at IBM, which is due to volume, from a certain volume onward is not the right license model."

"We chose IBM Spectrum Protect, because they actually have something called MSP pricing, which means managed services provider pricing. The pricing was attractive, and it seems to be a platform that IBM is totally investing on in terms of new functions and new capabilities."

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

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

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

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

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

"The product is inexpensive."

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

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

18%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

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 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

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 16% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Synology DSM vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 24% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 16% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 13% of the time

Rubrik vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 9% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs NetApp SnapCenter

Compared 8% of the time

More NetApp SnapCenter Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

July 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

NetApp SnapCenter

June 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

July 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: July 2025.

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