Cohesity DataProtect vs IBM Spectrum Protect comparison

Cohesity and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Cohesity is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #17 with an average rating of 7.2. Cohesity holds a 3.5% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Cohesity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cohesity DataProtect

Read 72 Cohesity DataProtect reviews

9,187 Views
5,666 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

4,073 Views
3,133 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Cohesity DataProtect

IBM Spectrum Protect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Cohesity DataProtect are two leading data protection solutions. Cohesity DataProtect has the upper hand due to its flexibility and innovative features, though IBM Spectrum Protect has robust, time-tested capabilities.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect offers comprehensive backup and recovery options, scalability, and integration with various platforms. Cohesity DataProtect provides cloud-native capabilities, simplified data management, and a modern approach to data protection.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect needs better integration with modern cloud services, enhanced ease of use, and modernized functionalities. Cohesity DataProtect requires more mature reporting tools, performance optimization for large datasets, and further polishing of existing features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect deployment can be complex and time-consuming, with customer service satisfactory but needing quicker response times. Cohesity DataProtect offers a smoother, quicker deployment experience and proactive, responsive support, making it more attractive for users prioritizing ease of use and support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect has higher upfront costs, with long-term reliability and performance justifying the expense for some users. Cohesity DataProtect is cost-effective with a quicker ROI due to efficient resource utilization and lower initial setup costs, generally perceived as delivering better value for its price.

To learn more, read our detailed Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

March 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 845,040 peers since 2012

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

8th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (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 DataProtect is 3.5%, down from 4.6% 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

Giovanni Golinelli.

Hybrid IT Architect at Quanture Spa

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.

Read full review

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most valuable features is the restore functionality that they offer."

"The initial setup is easy."

"Its most valuable feature is its ransomware protection, so it has immutable backups."

"The four independent node cluster architecture is redundant. It maintains data integrity and load balancing."

"I love the ability to clone a virtual server in only minutes."

"After linking a cloud subscription, like Azure for example (AWS and Google are also supported), you can "spin" a VM onto the cloud from any backup snapshot."

"The dashboard is very rich and provides details needed for a moderator."

"Instant recovery options are a big benefit for urgent restores, as we don't need to wait for hours or days for a restore to complete before being able to access the files."

More Cohesity DataProtect pros

"The backup is very good. In other backup systems, you need a lot of storage to gain the same backup policy."

"What I found most valuable in IBM Spectrum Protect is that it allows you to back up physical machines, and its proxy feature lets you back up virtual machines."

"The feature we have found most valuable is when you want to integrate it with a Tape Library and then do the DRM life cycle. That is when it works the best."

"Nothing beats this solution for file backup."

"In the past, one of the most valuable features, and the biggest advantage, was the incremental forever feature. Not many other backup vendors provided that. In the pre-virtualization environment, it was very robust and simple technology, especially writing to tape."

"The fact that we can take the backup straight onto tape is the most valuable feature."

"The components of IBM Spectrum Protect explain how the data is protected. The administration is very easy, and the vertical migration is intuitive."

"The customization and the ability to backup across all platforms are the most valuable features."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

Cons

"They could always keep up with continuous interface refinements."

"Quality testing of upgrades should be somewhat improved."

"In terms of what could be improved, it just needs some maturity."

"You need to put the full name instead of a few letters while searching for backup. It should also improve customization."

"Their documentation could be refined."

"The one area where we would like to see additional improvements is with reporting. There are very granular reports from each grid. There are also some built-in reports within Helios (SAS Management Console) that offers basic reporting. However, for complex, large-enterprise environments, a more robust reporting engine that supports detailed audit reporting and enhanced ad hoc reports would be welcome."

"We aren't missing any features. In terms of the solution overall, it's so far so good."

"We have had our share of minor bugs over the past two years and a few bigger ones."

More Cohesity DataProtect cons

"The interface could be more user-friendly."

"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."

"In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business."

"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."

"It can be improved for large file systems with many files. Spectrum Protect can restore large files very well, but if you're restoring millions of little files, it is not as great. At one point, we tried to implement the VMware module with it, and it was awful and terrible. I don't know if that has improved. If it hasn't, this would be one big improvement."

"It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum."

"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."

"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I expect the system to probably pay off within the first two years."

"The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik."

"Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."

"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 solution's pricing is in the mid-range, where it's neither costly nor cheap."

"The ROI is huge. Not really measurable at this point, but the price of the unit was a fraction of what a couple hours of downtime could result in."

More Cohesity DataProtect pricing and cost advice

"The solution is not cheap."

"The solution is expensive."

"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."

"It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."

"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."

"The pricing model of this solution is another difficult area, it's very sophisticated in the way they charge. It's based on PBU, which is a type of processor, how, many processors, and you need to put everything into an equation. However, they have different ways of charging or licensing. One way is a back-end volume or front-end volume, which is quite complicated."

"IBM Spectrum Protect has a fixed price and includes no additional costs."

"When compared to the cost of other enterprise products, it seems to be in the same range. However, compared to the cost of non-enterprise products, it is really high."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

44%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cohesity DataProtect?

While there are improvements to be made, such as providing support for older systems like IBM iSeries and tandem systems from HP, the solution overall shifts from older methods to modern practices....

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?

It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

See all answers

Comparisons

Rubrik vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 27% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 15% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 6% of the time

AWS Backup vs Cohesity DataProtect

Compared 2% of the time

More Cohesity DataProtect Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 19% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 18% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 11% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 4% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cohesity DataProtect

March 2025

Download Cohesity DataProtect product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

March 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Also Known As

Cohesity

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Overview

What is Cohesity DataProtect?

Cohesity DataProtect is a top-level, sophisticated, software-defined backup and recovery solution created for cloud environments. Cohesity DataProtect is made to hyperscale and is one the most thorough policy-based protection solutions available on the market today.

Cohesity DataProtect melds multiple-point products into a single software that is able to be deployed as on-premise or consumed as a service.

Top Features:

Hyperscale made easy: Cohesity DataProtect improves data protection by doing away with the need for backup silos and administers backup and recovery with a single user-friendly, easy-to-understand interface. Cohesity DataProtect provides extensive 24/7 enterprise-class protection for a large, varying set of sources, including virtual and physical servers, NAS and SaaS workloads, relational and distributed databases, and traditional and containerized applications.

Super fast recovery: Cohesity DataProtect offers near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) and near-instant recovery time objectives (RTOs) to satisfy your business service-level agreements (SLAs). Using Cohesity Helios’ unified data plane and control plane you can immediately search and recover data on any Cohesity cluster, located anywhere. DataProtect distinctively minimizes downtime by immediately mass restoring any amount of virtual machines (VMs) to any point in time, and lowers data protection costs by as much as 70% or more.

Backup as a Service: Feel free to take advantage of the elasticity of the public cloud and the cost-effective value of Cohesity DataProtect when delivered as a service. When you choose an OPEX option, you can eliminate the need for on-premises hardware. There is a SaaS option that will allow you to very simply configure your backup workloads and immediately begin protecting your vital all-important data and applications.

It’s as easy as: sign-up, connect, and protect!

Ransomware protection: Cohesity DataProtect offers stellar recovery at scale. The solution is so intuitive, it has machine learning-based anomaly detection to stop incidents before they happen. Cohesity DataProtection can provide immutable backups, Datalock write once, read many (WORM), encryption, and role-based access control (RBAC).

Cohesity DataProtect integrates well with many of today’s top solutions, including, but not limited to:

Hypervisors: VMware vSphere (5.5 and later), Microsoft Hyper-V (2019, 2016, 2012 R2), Nutanix AHV and RHeV

Kubernetes-based data and application state

Cloud: AWS EC2, Amazon RDS, Azure VM, and Google Compute

Physical: Windows, Linux(RHEL, CentOS, OEL, Debian, Ubuntu), AIX (7.x), and Solaris

Databases: Oracle (11g R2, 12c), Oracle RAC and SQL (2008 or later)

Distributed Databases (NoSQL and Hadoop): MongoDB, CouchbaseDB, Apache, Cassandra, Cloudera, and Hortonworks.

Bare Machine Recovery: Windows and Linux

Applications: MS Exchange (2010 SP3 or later), MSFT Active Directory, Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, Groups), SalesForce (SFDC), and SAP HANA

Primary storage: Pure FlashArray, HPE Nimble, and Cisco Hyperflex

NAS: Pure FlashBlade, NetApp, Isilon, IBM GPFS, Google EFS, Elastifile, and generic solutions*

Reviews from Real Users

One reviewer, who is head of IT infrastructure at Kampmann says, “Cohesity really is a Next-Gen Data Management Software,” and goes on to indicate that Cohesity “works flawlessly with easy replication of backups and numerous supported backup sources.”

Another user, who is a senior network engineer at a legal firm, relates that "Cohesity is a robust and feature-rich solution"

Cohesity

IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.

IBM

Sample Customers

Tribune Media

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

Buyer's Guide

Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

March 2025

Free Report: Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.

See our list of best Backup and Recovery vendors.

We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.