The primary use case is backup, but in this case, my customers want to offload the Avamar server on tape.
Product Manger at System Plus
Stable, scalable, and compresses data
Pros and Cons
- "I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."
- "I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data; it's stable and scalable, and I have not had any problems with it."
- "The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data.
It's stable and scalable, and I have not had any problems with it.
What needs improvement?
The initial setup could be a bit simpler.
An offload to tape would be a great additional feature. The audit people ask for data to be put somewhere else in another location to have a gap between backup data and tape, but the Avamar solution only backs up on Avamar store.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it for about two and a half years.
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Dell Avamar
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Dell Avamar. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very stable and is the most stable solution I've seen.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's scalable, and I have not had any problems with it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is a bit complex and could be simpler.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is fair.
What other advice do I have?
If the setup is done right, it can be great.
I would rate Dell EMC Avamar at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Head Cyber Security at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Easy to use, good performance, but more integration needed
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
- "The solution could improve by having better integration and more flexibility."
What is our primary use case?
We use Dell EMC Avamar for our critical servers backups.
What is most valuable?
The solution is easy to use and has high performance.
What needs improvement?
The solution could improve by having better integration and more flexibility.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell EMC Avamar for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable, we have hundreds of users using this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is a license required for this solution.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution to others.
I rate Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Dell Avamar
August 2026
Learn what your peers think about Dell Avamar. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2026.
907,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Desktop Support Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Quick and easy to set up with good scalability potential
Pros and Cons
- "We've found the product to be stable."
- "The solution is easy to use."
- "It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
What is most valuable?
The solution is easy to use.
We've found the product to be stable.
The scalability is there if a company needs to expand it out.
The initial setup is easy and the deployment is fast.
What needs improvement?
The solution should offer a better data domain.
It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've dealt with the solution for three or four years at this point. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is quite good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability potential is good. If you are a company that needs to scale, you can do so with this product.
We do not have a lot of customers using this solution. Only maybe five to six percent of our customer base uses it.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is quite good. they are helpful and responsive and we are satisfied with the level of support they provide.
How was the initial setup?
We did not find the initial setup to be overly complex. It's pretty straightforward.
The deployment is fast. You can have everything up and running in three to four hours.
We have four to five people on staff that can handle deployment and maintenance duties.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the implementation myself. I did not need the help of an implementor or consultant. I can do it alone, in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
At this time, we do not pay any licenses to Dell.
What other advice do I have?
We don't have a lot of customers that use the product, however, we are recommending it often.
Our customers are using the latest version of the product, however, I can't speak to the exact version number.
On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the solution at a seven.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies. It's worked well for a few of our customers.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Senior Cloud Engineer at PT. Sigma Cipta Caraka (Telkomsigma)
Good stability, deduplication, and support, but should have less hardware dependency and better reporting and price
Pros and Cons
- "Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable."
- "Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage. It can only be implemented with an EMC product. We want to have a backup solution that allows us to use independent storage and other hardware. It would be good if they can simplify its technology and make it possible to implement it with another storage. This is probably not possible because Avamar is an EMC product, and EMC would like to sell its own products."
- "Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage."
What is our primary use case?
We use it as a backup and restore solution for our customers. For replication, we use the Data Domain application. We replicate from our primary site to the DR site.
What is most valuable?
Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable.
What needs improvement?
Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage. It can only be implemented with an EMC product. We want to have a backup solution that allows us to use independent storage and other hardware. It would be good if they can simplify its technology and make it possible to implement it with another storage. This is probably not possible because Avamar is an EMC product, and EMC would like to sell its own products.
It should be simplified because currently if we want to upgrade Avamar, it requires us to assemble too many EMC products. For upgrade, we have to ensure compatibility with Data Domain, proxy, and firmware for storage. There are many dependencies and many steps that we have to take if we want to upgrade the services, which is a weakness of Avamar.
It should also have support for reporting. We have too many reporting challenges. We cannot get information from the console about how big is the data of customer A, customer B, and customer C. EMC should think about providing reporting for the backup solution. Our customers use the basic reporting, but inside our infrastructure, we should be able to see and then analyze the data consumption by different customers. We should also be able to split information and see data consumption within our organization. Such analytical reporting will help us in planning our usage for the future, such as for the next two years. It will be useful for customers and service providers.
Its price should be reduced, and it should have a flexible and pay-per-use licensing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution since 2017.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have had their tech support until now. There is no problem with their tech support. They provide good support.
How was the initial setup?
Its initial setup is complex.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its price should be reduced. It would be good if you could pay as per usage, and there is a subscription model like VMware. There should be some flexibility because sometimes, the customer only uses the backup for one month or three months. Currently, I have to pay whether I use it or not. Its licensing should be flexible and based on consumption.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Currently, we are evaluating Veeam to see if it is possible to switch to Veeam. Veeam has an issue of deduplication failure. With Avamar, we use Data Domain, and the deduplication ratio is 26 or 25 times, whereas, with Veeam, the ratio is only half. We are thinking of using Avamar for archive backup and using Veeam for short retention.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Dell EMC Avamar a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Senior Infrastructure Solutions Specialist at Fiber Nisr
Very effective virtualization system and end point protection
Pros and Cons
- "Effective in protecting the virtualization system and end points."
- "It's very cost effective and affordable when compared to other solutions."
- "I believe they need to improve the interfaces."
What is our primary use case?
Our company is Dell EMCs largest partner in Egypt and the Middle East. We have a titanium partnership with them and I'm the senior infrastructure solutions specialist.
What is most valuable?
Avamar is a very effective product when it comes to protecting the virtualization system and end points. Data Protection Suite has three recovery and backup protection solutions and Avamar is one of them. It's a very effective product and can be used for replication and high-end enterprise applications. The solution doesn't require a specific backup admin in the environment, every application admin will perform their own backup and data protection process. It's very easy to use.
What needs improvement?
I believe they need to improve the interfaces. Without official training it's harder to deliver the marketing and the reviews over shared media.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a very stable and easy to use program.
How are customer service and technical support?
Dell offers us good technical support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Data Protection Suite has Avamar as one of its components and comes with a license that covers a limited number of virtual machines, capacity, and end points. It's not sold as a separate product. I believe $1000 may cover a single socket and covers the whole data center including the endpoint, the replication, the CD and data protection. It's very cost effective and affordable when compared to other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I need to rate the Data Protection Suite as a whole, given that Avamar is no longer sold as a separate product.
I rate the whole solution a nine out of 10.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
Founder & CEO at Technomatters
Very user-friendly but lacks support for certain plugins
Pros and Cons
- "Graphically, it's very user interactive. It's got a very nice interface."
- "It lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example."
- "It's really a nightmare if you want to tape out with Avamar."
What is our primary use case?
My customer has a huge virtual environment — vCenter and VMware. They need images backed up, they have different workloads like Oracle, SAP, and NetWorker. They have a compliance policy that they have to tape out but Avamar, out of the box, cannot do the tape out. That's why I had to introduce NetWorker into the picture.
What is most valuable?
Graphically, it's very user interactive. It's got a very nice interface. Compared to NetWorker, although Avamar is more user-friendly, it lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example. In this particular project that I'm working on, they need to back up SAP HANA but Avamar does not support that. Also, regarding compliance, they need to tape out. Avamar does not support that out of the box.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for over six years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For the project that I am currently working on, I will be using Avamar to migrate their old historical data to the new environment because this new environment is attached to Data Domain. Scalability-wise and stability-wise, I don't see any issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
I haven't had to contact support as of yet.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It's good that Dell EMC provides the virtual additions of these appliances for people to practice beforehand. Otherwise, you might be familiar with a certain version but not understand the subsequent versions. You would never know unless you could get a production set up, which is not possible. You can't go and play with the client setup. For this reason, Dell EMC, like other good vendors, offers virtual additions. Data Domain, NetWorker, Avamar, everything you can practice.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The client has directly bought this solution from another partner. I've been subcontracted for this. I don't know anything about the pricing.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding end-users, I would say stick with disk-based backup. Avamar does it very well with the VMware virtual environments, even Hyper-V for that reason.
Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Dell EMC Avamar a rating of seven.
The reason I am giving it a rating of seven is because of the plugin issues and the inability to tape out. Frankly, there are still a lot of clients in this region who need to be in compliance — they need the tape out. It's really a nightmare if you want to tape out with Avamar. There's a way to work around this but you've got to install an ADME node, which is actually a small brother of NetWorker. Still, it's a really painful process.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Quick and straightforward to set up but needs a better interface
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very stable."
- "The user interface needs to be improved. It's not as good as it could be."
What is our primary use case?
We use a basic called a DPS. Typically, we are using mostly networkers just to back up most of the workloads, like cellphone audio ware and the connection, et cetera.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very stable.
We've found the solution to be scalable.
The initial installation is pretty straightforward and quick to set up.
What needs improvement?
The user interface needs to be improved. It's not as good as it could be.
There are certain bugs in terms of support. It's too slow. It needs to be more responsive.
We've found the product to be a little costly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been likely using the solution for five years at this point. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable in terms of performance overall.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We've found the solution scalable. If a company needs to expand the solution, it can do so with relative ease.
We are mostly using it for the server backups, not for the end-users.
We do plan to continue to use the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support isn't as good as it could be. They are rather slow to respond. They should work towards getting their support staff to be more responsive to clients when they have queries. We're not overly satisfied with the level of support provided to our organization.
How was the initial setup?
We did not the initial setup to be overly complex. It's pretty straightforward and relatively easy to deploy. The deployment process itself is fast and only takes a few hours.
We only needed a product manager that handled the implementation and can handle any maintenance required.
What about the implementation team?
We did not need the assistance of an integrator or consultant during our implementation process. We handled it ourselves in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is a bit expensive.
What other advice do I have?
We are Avamar partners.
I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Modern Data Center and Cloud Engineer II at IE Network Solutions PLC
Flexible and stable with great reporting
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is very stable."
- "In general, the product has been extremely easy to use."
- "The product could offer more integration capabilities."
- "The product does not scale. If a company needs something that can scale, they need something else."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution the database replications in web hosting, mostly.
What is most valuable?
The duplication capabilities are very helpful.
The native data protection capability and remote data protection capabilities make it a unique solution. It makes it possible so that it will fit with any kind of vendor the customer needs.
The backup features. for example, the exclusionary statement, are excellent.
Overall, the solution offers some really great reporting.
It's very flexible when it comes to the end-user device backup.
In general, the product has been extremely easy to use. It's one of the best aspects.
The solution is very stable.
What needs improvement?
The solution does not scale. It would be nice if there were much more scalability capabilities.
The solution could get better at data process managing. It can take more than three or four hours for supporting images. It's critical to do this faster.
It would be helpful if the product could support Linux patches. It's my understanding it only offers HTML.
The product could offer more integration capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for a few years at this point. It's been a while. I personally have been dealing with the solution for four years or so.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. The performance is very reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product does not scale. If a company needs something that can scale, they need something else.
We have three customers that are currently using the solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Typically, we handle support-related queries from customers, however, we have dealt with Avamar's technical support in the past and they have been helpful and responsive. The response time in particular has always been very good.
How was the initial setup?
The installation process is not complex at all. It's very straightforward. A company shouldn't have any trouble with the process. It's easy.
Deployments typically take about one and a half hours or so.
What about the implementation team?
Currently, we have five technical engineers. Each one has its own specialization that they are capable of deploying Avamar. We can deploy the solution for our clients.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Customers do have to pay for a professional license in order to use the solution.
What other advice do I have?
We are integrators.
We tend to work with relatively new versions of the solution. It may not always be the latest version. Typically the versions we use have been released in the last six months or so.
I'd recommend the solution to other organizations and especially to end-users.
In general, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
Backup Administrator at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Good technical support, good virtual backup functionality, and good support
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
- "For the needs of my organization, EMC Avamar is the preferred option."
- "The reporting should be improved, as we currently have to use another tool for that purpose."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Dell EMC Avamar for backing up our virtual environment.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the virtual backup.
What needs improvement?
The reporting should be improved, as we currently have to use another tool for that purpose.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Dell EMC Avamar for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This has been a stable solution, so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable product. We have three people who administer it.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support from EMC is quite good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to Avamar, I have worked with Veem and with IBM Spectrum Protect.
All of these are specialty tools and from my point of view, all of them are good. For the needs of my organization, EMC Avamar is the preferred option.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is of average difficulty. It is not very easy and not very complex.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not evaluate other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is that this product covers all of your needs as far as backup is concerned.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Works at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Good image and file backup capabilities, but technical support should be more knowledgeable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are image backups and file backups."
- "Technical support should be more knowledgeable."
- "The newest version is not very stable, which is something that should be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We use this product for Windows and Linux servers, and we have both file and database backups stored on them. We use them at smaller sites, which are small offices that are located around the world.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are image backups and file backups.
Image backups are very good to use, since they don´t require a backup agent.
What needs improvement?
Technical support should be more knowledgeable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Dell EMC Avamar for more than 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The newest version is not very stable, which is something that should be improved.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have perhaps 70 clients/server and have not tried to scale beyond that. We have about 40 users in total and do not plan to increase our usage at this time.
How are customer service and technical support?
The quality of technical support varies. Sometimes they are very good, and sometimes they are not. They should be faster and more knowledgeable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use Dell EMC NetWorker.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the initial setup but from what I understand, it's pretty simple.
What about the implementation team?
There are five of us in the technical team who deploy and maintain our solutions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of this product should be cheaper.
What other advice do I have?
This is a product that I can recommend for small sites without anything special.
I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
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Updated: August 2026
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