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IBM Spectrum Protect vs Quest NetVault Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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
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
Quest NetVault Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
41st
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (25th)
 

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 Quest NetVault Plus 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.
Isa Safii - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive data protection and reliable backup capabilities enable smooth disaster recovery operations
The features of Quest NetVault Plus ( /products/quest-netvault-plus-reviews ) that are most valuable include the ability to pick up and restore to tape servers and external hard disks. It allows us to pick up from devices and then restore to the same devices or external server storage. Additionally, the application supports scanning files for malware before backup operations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is always stable and reliable."
"The ability to do dedupe in the product is nice to have."
"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."
"I have found that the most valuable feature is useful documentation and troubleshooting."
"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."
"The most valuable features are compression and de-duplication."
"Good user interface."
"The solution is really scalable."
"The interface is very user-friendly."
"Its dashboard is quite well done. When you log into the GUI, you can basically see everything you need to know. There is also the possibility to edit the view as you like, which is great."
"Quest NetVault Plus is quite effective for managing backups across multiple systems because we don't need to log in to the backup server to manage it; it's web-based, so from any system in the network, you can log in and manage everything."
"Having the web-based interface is important to us because we can access it from any computer in the network, rather than having it installed and available for use only on a specific one."
"The initial setup is straightforward. It's not that complicated. Deployment took maybe about 15 minutes."
"It has File and SQL backup, which is the main benefit for us."
"If a job is pending, the solution communicates it to us through emails."
"The solution allows us to block off our network and only give access to whatever we want."
 

Cons

"The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement"
"A lot of my customers always ask for legal holds, especially on email."
"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 are behind on many things, especially security. They are catching up a little bit now, but the competitors are doing better security-wise. There should be malware detection and prevention and higher security."
"I think Spectrum Protect's interface is not so user-friendly, but the interface is not so friendly. Some of the functions are too complicated. I prefer a simpler solution."
"They should have a proper technical support team serving the customers and get issues resolved earlier."
"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."
"It doesn't integrate with storage pools, with a normal pool. I'd like to see that."
"Improvements should come, particularly in compatibility, backup performance, or better troubleshooting."
"There are certain issues with the product that we report to Quest, and we get offered a workaround instead of a fix. There could be better interaction with the development teams, perhaps in terms of transparency."
"In the next version, I would like to see support for the MongoDB database. As it is now, there is no component that works with it and we cannot back the data up using NetVault."
"The interface can be improved. It should be more clear what features are available and make them easy to find."
"I would like to see the option of cloud-based management."
"The initial setup is a little complex."
"The stability of the solution is poor."
"Improvements could be made in the deduplication and data management capabilities. There is also a need for better security measures, as security is critical to ensure backups are safe and free from malware."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"We have spec'd out our build, and the cost of it can work quite easily today for our future needs."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"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."
"The product is not cheap."
"The license model that they have at IBM, which is due to volume, from a certain volume onward is not the right license model."
"The tool is expensive."
"When we purchased four licenses, we were given a very good price. However, it is still on the high side when compared to some other vendors."
"The price of our 12-month contract is approximately $1,500 AUD ($1,100 USD)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Performing Arts
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Quest NetVault?
NetVault is a great cloud-ready enterprise backup software for hybrid data centers. Here are some of the things I really like about the solution: It is easy to use right out of the box and scales ...
What needs improvement with Quest NetVault?
There's always scope for improvement with any backup software we discuss, whether it's Quest NetVault Plus or Backup Exec, and I don't think any software is 100% foolproof or satisfactory. Improvem...
What is your primary use case for Quest NetVault?
We have customers in the pharma industry. Our customers' main use cases for this backup are file system backup and different databases such as MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, and bare metal recovery.
 

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
NetVault Backup, Quest NetVault, Quest NetVault Backup, BakBone
 

Overview

 

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
intel, Mars, MERK, Microsoft, Uber, Visa
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Quest NetVault Plus and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.