IBM Spectrum Protect vs NovaStor NovaBACKUP comparison

IBM and NovaStor are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. IBM is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.2, while NovaStor is ranked #34 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 2.2% mindshare in BRS, compared to NovaStor’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of NovaStor users who would recommend it.

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

4,073 Views
3,133 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

NovaStor NovaBACKUP

Read 3 NovaStor NovaBACKUP reviews

332 Views
228 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

NovaStor NovaBACKUP

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and NovaStor NovaBACKUP are two popular backup solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive coverage and scalability, while NovaStor NovaBACKUP is simpler to use and quicker to set up. Based on the data comparisons, IBM Spectrum Protect seems to have the upper hand due to its robust features and long-term ROI despite initial complexity.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect users find its scalability, advanced data protection, and comprehensive coverage highly valuable. NovaStor NovaBACKUP is preferred for its ease of use, quick setup time, and intuitive design.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect reviews suggest enhancements in user training, technical support, and simplifying its complexity. NovaStor NovaBACKUP users seek better cloud integration, more sophisticated reporting tools, and an enhanced level of technical support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect's deployment is complex and often requires professional services, but it has responsive customer service. NovaStor NovaBACKUP offers hassle-free deployment, though its customer service could be more proactive.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect has a higher initial setup cost, justified by long-term ROI through reliability and scalability, appealing to large enterprises. NovaStor NovaBACKUP is more cost-effective with lower upfront costs, attracting small to mid-sized businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP

April 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

17th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

149

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

NovaStor NovaBACKUP

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

34th

Average Rating

9.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (17th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is 0.2%, up from 0.2% 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

Rainer Kummerfeldt

IT-Teamleader at Bechtle

Easy to work and offers features for tape backups, disk backups, and whatever you want

NovaStor NovaBACKUP is still working on new features because they listen to the customers and integrate their needs into new versions. You can see they make progress with each new version. They are much faster than IBM, where you sometimes have to wait years for new features. It is very quick and fast. NovaStor have big competitors like Veeam, which is very fast and aggressive. It's good, but it depends on the price. I think NovaStor might be cheaper. They have a direct connection to their developers and sales teams, which makes getting answers very fast. Veeam has a lot of features, like a special reporting tool. However, I've heard from some customers that Veeam wasn't always the right decision because it couldn't work with their environment. But Veeam has aggressive marketing, which is why they are probably in first place at the moment, besides Commvault. IBM has lost its competitive edge and is trying to catch up, but it might be too late.

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

"IBM support is friendly, knowledgeable, and they always respond quickly. They've always been able to find the cause of my problem."

"The solution offers very good flexibility."

"It is very stable. A plus is to use POWERAge for the SNR copy of the Spectrum Protect, then it is more reliable."

"It's a very stable product, and we've never had any downtime with it."

"The main thing is to keep the data safe and in files, keep it on tape ready for a request from a bank, and it is working perfectly with all our hardware."

"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."

"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."

"Good deduplication and compression features."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"It's the easiest way to configure it."

"It is a very good and easy-to-use tool for non-technical people."

Cons

"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."

"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."

"They need to do a better job on Windows, because if you are running Windows, the scalability is more limited than AIX and Linux."

"The Hyper-V and SQL Server backup could be improved. In the 2016 version there was a significant improvement, but I think IBM has a big challenge with these technologies."

"We are not so happy with the technical support because dealing with them is not easy. We have a very complicated environment, therefore I understand for a support person that it is not easy to troubleshoot it."

"The licensing isn't very clear. They should work to simply or clarify the cost structure."

"Customers have migrated off of it because of its lack of virtual environment functions."

"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"The room for improvement lies in the compatibility of NovaBACKUP with older operating systems."

"The price of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is an area that can be considered as a weakness or drawback, where improvements are required."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."

"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very expensive."

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

"I don't have an idea about the pricing. They send that over to someone else, but I know that one of the issues they had was the licensing costs. I don't think they were happy with how they were charged."

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

"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."

"We have found that the pricing is high in our country."

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

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"My company has to make yearly payments towards the solution's maintenance and support."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

University

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 NovaStor NovaBACKUP?

It is a very good and easy-to-use tool for non-technical people.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NovaStor NovaBACKUP?

My company has to make yearly payments towards the solution's maintenance and support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with NovaStor NovaBACKUP?

The room for improvement lies in the compatibility of NovaBACKUP with older operating systems like Windows XP. Some customers still rely on outdated systems due to specific production requirements....

See all answers

Comparisons

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 18% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 18% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 7% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs NovaStor NovaBACKUP

Compared 76% of the time

Acronis Cyber Protect vs NovaStor NovaBACKUP

Compared 24% of the time

More NovaStor NovaBACKUP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

April 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Buyer's Guide

Backup and Recovery

April 2025

Download NovaStor NovaBACKUP product report

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

NovaBACKUP

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

NovaBACKUP is a data protection software that enables SMBÂ users to backup and recover mission critical data across a hybrid of physical and virtual machines. NovaBACKUP is designed to work onÂ Microsoft Windows operating systems, offering local and online file backups and disaster recovery image backups.

NovaStor

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

Ex'pression College, Osborne Wood Products Inc., REIT Technologies

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP

April 2025

Free Report: IBM Spectrum Protect vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP

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