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IBM Spectrum Protect vs Veritas NetBackup comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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
Veritas NetBackup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
116
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 Veritas NetBackup is 3.5%, down from 5.3% 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.
Wesam Qashou - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature backup solution, with many features, and great support
Veritas NetBackup is the first line of defense when disaster strikes. Before performing disaster recovery, we must have a good backup of our image that is also protected from ransomware. This way, we have a golden image that is resilient to ransomware attacks. We saw the benefits of Veritas NetBackup within the first three months.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very mature product."
"The business value comes from the capability to overcome data losses."
"We have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis."
"Regarding stability, it's been rock solid."
"It allows us to have one interface."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well."
"It provides our customers with the comfort of having reliable enterprise data protection."
"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."
"We were evaluating other products and getting confused between Commvault and Veritas NetBackup. The one reason that we started with Veritas NetBackup is the pricing of the license. There's no other reason from a technical perspective or even operation or capability of the two software. The main reason we chose Veritas NetBackup was that in our use case it is more cost-effective."
"It is easy to use, and you can run it with all kinds of client software environments. It works well with the most popular software, file systems, and operating systems. It is very useful to us."
"The documentation is good."
"We are quite satisfied with the performance and reliability of the NetBackup product. When it comes to specific features, the most valuable is the Instant Recovery feature, which we call "short-term IR". Instant Recovery allows users to spin up backup images and bring back any VM instantly."
"The VM portal and the CloudCatalyst are two of the solution's most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is that you don't need any special connectivity - you just need to give your seller name, and then it automatically discovers all your virtual machines, which is a great benefit, especially in a bigger environment."
"The solution offers a lot of really great features that organizations can utilize and take advantage of."
"It supports multiple, heterogeneous platforms."
 

Cons

"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
"There have been scalability issues. The core product does not support scale out. We needed to create a new system and manage resources separate from the existing one."
"I would love to see something which allows us to do an auto restart of backup jobs."
"Anytime you are not very current and call in with an issue, it is hard to get it resolved. It will depend on how far back you go though."
"Stability is very good now. It used to be rocky years ago."
"We did not see any drawbacks to IBM Spectrum Protect before assisting a customer using Windows that wanted to migrate to using UNIX. IBM Spectrum Protect does not offer an option to migrate from other operating systems."
"I would like to see more technical training online. Sometimes, it is a little bit difficult to find, or that I do not really know what I am looking for as somebody who is starting off finding their learning curve."
"The solution's ability to integrate with a cloud solution is one area that needs improvement."
"I think reporting can always be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to have a better way to protect against ransomware attacks and a better way of logging issues where you don't have to enable the verbose logging to capture the problems."
"Technical support is somewhat slow and is in need of improvement."
"You cannot tell what your costs are going to be by using the dashboard, which is something that should be improved."
"NetBackup is expensive and should be cheaper. That is why we are moving on to another solution."
"The solution is not that stable because it has to be monitored and administered every day. The stability could be improved."
"Main area that could be improved is the pricing, to make it more competitive"
"It would be better if it had a cloud integration feature. I would like to use a single product for the cloud instances and the on-premise instances. The price could also be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is not cheap."
"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."
"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."
"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."
"IBM Spectrum Protect, cost-wise, has way higher pricing than Veeam. By switching over to Veeam, my company saved over $600,000 in USD. The IBM Spectrum Protect pricing is a two on a scale of one to ten. My company paid additional fees for maintenance, apart from the standard licensing fees."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."
"Most people have felt this solution was somewhat expensive."
"The solution is expensive compared to other alternatives."
"A better price would make this product more competitive."
"It is slightly more expensive than Commvault, but it is pretty much the same. It is an enterprise solution, so it scales quite well. It has a lot of features. So, you pay for what you get. It is not cheap, but it is fit for the purpose."
"Veritas NetBackup is more expensive than Cohesity and Rubrik, but it is comparable in price to Commvault, IBM, and Dell."
"The solution is expensive."
"Veritas NetBackup is considerably cheaper than that of Druva, the former being quite affordable."
"Our license is capacity-based."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
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 dash...
What is the best next generation backup tool?
Assuming you have an onprem ecosystem which runs the VMware, physical systems on Win, Linux and Unix and run both traditional DB's and nosql DB's like mongo, then Netbackup (NBU) will be the right ...
What do you like most about Veritas NetBackup?
The most valuable feature of cloud integration is the ability to send data outside of your location. This can be achieved by integrating cloud tier options or other object storage solutions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veritas NetBackup?
The product is cost-effective, and I would rate its pricing as an eight out of ten. The pricing model is based on the amount of data transferred, making it manageable for us.
 

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
No data available
 

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
Beta Offshore
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Veritas NetBackup and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.