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Cohesity Data Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect 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

Cohesity Data Cloud
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
40th
Average Rating
9.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (34th), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (6th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity Data Cloud is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

AmarpreetSingh - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers improved data protection and security with indirect ROI
The pricing of the Cloud is on the higher side, and it should be cost-effective enough to compete with native solutions. Currently, Cohesity Cloud seems very costly compared to native backups. Although this is an emerging tool and there is room for growth, it needs to mature further. There is an AI feature, however, it is still in the development phase and requires substantial improvements.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use Cohesity Helios primarily in our data management strategy for backup and reporting."
"I definitely recommend this tool to others due to its simplicity, security, features, and flexibility."
"The hyper-converged architecture and scalability are hugely important for growing service companies."
"Its big data and archive data features are the features that I have found most valuable. I can use it in a big virtual environment."
"I find the most important feature to be data protection."
"It's very regimented and fast. It does local backup, cloud backup, long-term coverage, and disaster recovery."
"Our data center size occupancy for Cohesity appliance is reduced by 70% when we installed Cohesity."
"The clone feature is very nice. You can restore workloads onto Cohesity's storage, which is also nice to have when you don't have enough space to restore on the server."
"It saves you a lot of storage."
"Every time we go and try to get a file, we can get it. Restores are quick and the data is always there."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"The main feature of this product is a flexible architecture and functionality that allows you to solve problems of any complexity and scale. Most importantly, it is not just a product that simply makes a backup, but it restores and saves a large number of services in critical situations. By the way, it works fine with different types of clouds, supports S3."
"We can use it with any storage for the back-end to save data."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"Traditional storage works perfectly with it."
"It protects our data. That is what it is there for."
 

Cons

"It has never been touted as a tier-one storage platform, and that would be a benefit. They are currently working on solving that issue."
"There is limited support for legacy systems, which is something that could be improved."
"The pricing of the Cloud is on the higher side, and it should be cost-effective enough to compete with native solutions."
"Their documentation portal is not up to date for newer releases and I strongly recommend Cohesity to increase their efforts on the documentation portal."
"In terms of functionality, Helios has been effective, but sometimes it doesn't show the exact cluster name for backups."
"The pricing of the Cloud is on the higher side, and it should be cost-effective enough to compete with native solutions."
"The primary drawback is the need to transfer large amounts of data to the cloud via an internet connection, requiring significant bandwidth."
"The limitation that I see in Cohesity is that the minimum sized node is 36 terabytes, which is more than a small customer needs."
"The GUI has long been a problem for TSM/Spectrum Protect."
"The installation process could be simplified."
"The administration tools for GI need improvement, as the current assessment suggests shortcomings in the back-end system."
"This product comes up against other products available that are marketed better but the other products that it's in competition with are a single product and this is one of IBM products. If it could be marketed as more for competitors I think that's where it comes short."
"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."
"It's difficult in terms of the configuration at set up. In our case, it required another admin, one person dedicated to the backup."
"The only thing that I would like to have a little more of is insight in reporting. I find that Spectrum Protect needs a lot of monitoring, and I have to actually log into the servers."
"The solution's initial setup process wasn't easy...The solution is overly complicated in terms of architecture, especially compared to other tools in the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Competing products sometimes use deceptive marketing to make their products seem a lot cheaper. Comparing apples-to-apples, DataPlatform wins out."
"It's priced properly for the market."
"Regarding pricing, it's very costly and I rate it a four."
"Some of the new advanced features are definitely more into cost savings, e.g., dedupe compression, so doing more with less."
"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"The solution is not cheap."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity DataPlatform?
While Cohesity Data Cloud is more costly in the long term compared to physical tapes, it offers value by meeting compliance needs and providing protection against ransomware attacks. The pricing is...
What needs improvement with Cohesity Imanis Data?
The primary drawback is the need to transfer large amounts of data to the cloud via an internet connection, requiring significant bandwidth. Reading data from the cloud can incur additional costs, ...
What is your primary use case for Cohesity Imanis Data?
The primary use case for Cohesity Data Cloud is to offer an additional layer of protection for backup data, which I can restore if needed. It is a managed service that allows me to set up and confi...
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...
 

Also Known As

Imanis Data, DataPlatform, Cohesity Helios
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Navis, 1st Security Bank, Brown University, WestLotto
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity Data Cloud vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,476 professionals have used our research since 2012.