Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cohesity DataProtect vs Dell Avamar 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 DataProtect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (7th)
Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Cohesity DataProtect is 3.8%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Giovanni Golinelli. - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, offers good scalability and responsive support
The deployment depends on the environment. Deploying on VMs is relatively simple. But for most of our customers, we implement physical clusters with at least three configured hosts using the existing model. So, it depends on the setup. Implementing DataProtect itself wasn't particularly challenging. One key requirement for successful DataProtect deployment is proper network configuration. If the network setup isn't right, you won't achieve optimal performance. We have developed a service for some of our customers where they implement an appliance or physical cluster of Cohesity at the customer site. Then, we use cloud clustering to replicate, and even in production, a second copy of the protected data. And in some cases, we have developed some disaster recovery procedures using Cohesity.
Rahul Sarangdhar - PeerSpot reviewer
Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups
Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that Cohesity offers the chance to have data on-premises and on the cloud. All the data is automatically sent to the cloud."
"Cohesity DataProtect is easy to deploy and operate."
"Cohesity has very simple reports to help you stay in the know of which servers are being backed up or not."
"The most valuable feature is ease of use."
"Backups are quick and painless to set up.​"
"The dashboard is very easy to use."
"We can run test scripts on production data."
"One of the most valuable features is the restore functionality that they offer."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Data Domain and your VM stacks."
"All the features in the system are highly valuable."
"Its deduplication technologies are the best in the market, currently."
"I think the brand is very good. Support is also very nice for end users and integration with EMC products for businesses."
"The tool’s ability to restore files discretely is useful."
"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."
"The product is good for backups."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"We would like it to have more capabilities for different kinds of PaaS or SaaS services in the Azure cloud, such as Azure SQL or Azure Cosmos DB."
"Cohesity DataProtect can improve in the area of databases. We have had some challenges with both Cohesity and Rubrik being able to effectively back up in a timely manner the SQL Oracle workloads."
"Since it is an evolving product, there are lot of frequent releases which require upgrades to be done every other weekend."
"We have had our share of minor bugs over the past two years and a few bigger ones."
"Non-cloud services need improvement."
"When a new release is launched, there may be some bugs that need to be addressed by the developers. However, they promptly resolve these issues, and the software runs smoothly once again."
"Quality testing of upgrades should be somewhat improved."
"The support team could do a better job. Sometimes finding the correct person is cumbersome and time consuming."
"The user interface needs to be improved. It's not as good as it could be."
"The solution could be a bit easier to use in the sense that they need to make it simpler to backup products and restore items."
"The client caches and deduplication system have a few problems."
"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"Dell EMC Avamar is a very complex product. It took a lot of time for the IT admins to get trained on how to use it. It is not very user-friendly, and we won't be using Avamar anymore. It needs a lot of improvement in terms of how the backups have been configured, and the reporting is too complex."
"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 needs a greater emphasis on storage targets. If it's going to keep pace with the times, it needs more ability to leverage cloud storage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Sizing is important and it is easy to overestimate."
"It has reasonable pricing, and we know they can give discounts. If you look at the primary pricing or the list pricing, it conforms to the market pricing, but you have to have a discount on it. Otherwise, it is way too expensive."
"I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years."
"We purchased support from Cohesity to ensure that should we face an issue, we don't have to deal with different service providers."
"From my last assessment, the pricing for Cohesity DataProtect was reasonable. Compared to its closest competitor, Rubrik, I found Rubrik's pricing to be somewhat high-end. While Rubrik may have more advanced security features than Cohesity DataProtect currently, Cohesity DataProtect is releasing a new solution in the near future that will compete directly with Rubrik."
"The tool's pricing is average."
"Ensure that you understand the per TB licensing model. Also, Exchange backups are not native to Cohesity and require Kroll."
"If SQL is in heavy use at your location, I would highly recommend narrowing your PoC testing to Cohesity and Rubrik. They will be competitive on pricing with each other, so really put them through the paces."
"The solution is costly."
"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."
"This solution is less expensive than Veeam for us, although it depends on the customer because we get a great discount."
"The cost is high."
"When it comes to competition the price is not what is important, it's not the problem."
"There is a license required for this solution."
"Dell Avamar is free when we deploy the data protection. When we order data protection, this software is included in the hardware."
"Licensing was generally on a per VM or terabyte basis. They changed their licensing model a couple of times and turned it into socket-based licensing, which is an improvement in their licensing model."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
43%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cohesity DataProtect?
Several features enable us to perform fast recovery, such as instant fast recovery. All our virtual machines protected with the product can be quickly restored to another healthy environment with m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cohesity DataProtect?
Typically on-premises nodes/clusters are deployed for primary backup (to enable instant mass restore) so price will be dependent on chosen OEM and capacity required. MSPs like us utilise PPU licens...
What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?
Cohesity DataProtect needs to improve its reporting capabilities.
What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?
I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
 

Also Known As

Cohesity
Avamar
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tribune Media
Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. Dell Avamar and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.