No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

IBM Storage Protect vs NovaStor NovaBACKUP comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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 Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
NovaStor NovaBACKUP
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
67th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (34th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 1.6%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Storage Protect1.6%
NovaStor NovaBACKUP0.7%
Other97.7%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.
Rainer Kummerfeldt - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is a scalable solution."
"It is a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery."
"The product may look difficult to manage, but if you need enterprise backup software which supports cross platform and you have good design and skills transfer, this product will help reduce costs."
"The capacity of the storage is huge, it can be affected with all of our requirements, and we also have two copies for each volume, which makes life easier and safer for us in cases of disasters happening and for any volume or data corruption as well, and it has increased our security, scalability, and high availability."
"Its flexibility is valuable. It is a very flexible solution. There are always more ways than one to do something. It is a software solution, which means you can buy your own hardware and expand it whenever you want. You are not boxed in or locked into something you've bought and outgrown. You can always expand it."
"I would recommend using Spectrum Protect."
"Spectrum Protect is a complex product and it's suitable for both the cloud and physical environments."
"It is a very good and easy-to-use tool for non-technical people."
"It's the easiest way to configure it."
"NovaBACKUP protects your entire system with a single solution."
 

Cons

"It does what we need it to do, but it could be better with VM backups. It could be better integrated with virtual machines or VM backups, but that's why they have their Plus out now. Plus version is more geared toward VM backups. The regular version is more for endpoint clients."
"We would like to see cloud integration."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
"We have run into some periods where we have found some tape issues which were causing us problems, but we resolved them. For some reason, we had a bunch of drives go offline on our disk storage (our virtual library)."
"Our new leadership has pushed us to go more toward the cloud, so we are definitely going to leverage anything we can in that direction."
"The solution should have better integration with VMware and with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus."
"Software-wise, IBM Spectrum Protect didn't handle virtual machines that well. The license cost is mainly the area for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect."
"We spent more hours working this product issue than I spent with my family."
"The price of NovaStor NovaBACKUP is an area that can be considered as a weakness or drawback, where improvements are required."
"The room for improvement lies in the compatibility of NovaBACKUP with older operating systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Its licensing is complex, and its price is not really reasonable. It is on the expensive side. IBM, in general, is slightly expensive, but with IBM Spectrum for the virtual environment, they are looking into the aspect of helping customers with the cost and providing a cost-effective solution."
"The licensing fees are between $8,000 and $10,000 per year."
"We worked our licensing into a capacity model, which is nice. Now, everything is much simpler to manage from a licensing perspective."
"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the solution's maintenance and support."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Construction Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise95
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing model is not quite standard. We do not buy IBM Storage Protect direct from IBM. We ...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy ...
What is your primary use case for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is my primary tool for backup and recovery. We also use it for immutable backups to protect against ransomware. We use IBM Storage Protect for everything on-premises. The benefi...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
NovaBACKUP
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
Ex'pression College, Osborne Wood Products Inc., REIT Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Storage Protect vs. NovaStor NovaBACKUP and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.