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Cohesity DataProtect 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 DataProtect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
8th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
72
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. - 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.
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

"I found value in the instant recovery with DataMove. I found value in the protection group model for applying policies to VMs. And in the overall UI navigation and the way that the application is laid out in the web browser."
"No longer does it take several hours to backup a VM or troubleshoot a backup issue."
"The ease of use and the GUI have really been most valuable to us. Configuring the system to do what we need is simple and straight forward and a lot of guesswork has been removed. One of my favorite features with Cohesity is Kroll for Exchange item-level recovery. The software is simple to use and fast."
"Cohesity has simplified backups and has cut our costs tremendously."
"The most valuable aspect for me is that I don't have to deal with media in terms of tapes like our existing system does."
"Cohesity's web-scale architecture enables us to scale up as needed."
"We are very satisfied with the product as a whole—all the backup functions, the data protection functions. We are very satisfied with those, and the product is very simple to use."
"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 minimal downtime for our main customers. These features have significantly improved our recovery time objectives."
"Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features."
"The tool proves invaluable in scenarios where systems need recovery, such as restoring damaged data."
"Performance and recoveries are better. Our clients and customers are happier with the performance of it."
"Every time customers make a change or we have made a change, then they use the product to do a cloning and refreshing. They are happy that they get good performance something changes."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well."
"The business value comes from the capability to overcome data losses."
"It seems very scalable and robust. It can do what we require it to do."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
 

Cons

"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."
"I would like to see the management of multiple nodes inside a tenant. If you want to manage a Cohesity environment, you either go on a per-node base, and you can hop from one node to the other, or you need to implement their SaaS capability but it always needs an internet connection. We would really like to have some kind of local management entity so that we can see all the Cohesity nodes in a customer environment and manage those nodes centrally. That's something that we would really like, and they are really working on it."
"The support team could do a better job. Sometimes finding the correct person is cumbersome and time consuming."
"Since it is an evolving product, there are lot of frequent releases which require upgrades to be done every other weekend."
"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."
"Reducing storage capacity requirements and improving security features are also areas that could be enhanced."
"I think Cohesity could add more platform support. For example, they could improve integration with DB2 or make the integration S3 object storage a little tighter. Some of that stuff could use some work, but overall, it's a relatively comprehensive platform."
"Reporting is one area that isn't as robust as it could be."
"I would love to see something which allows us to do an auto restart of backup jobs."
"Integration with some applications in the healthcare field could be added, as that is a big part of our business."
"Perhaps if they could add replication to a second site or third site from the same console, that would be helpful. Currently, we have to connect to another console."
"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"Probably educating the virtual group who are not as used to the product. Most of our expertise is with AIX servers and virtual server backups."
"We are still using TSM Manager for many of our projects to administer our platform because the gap was not resolved with the new Operations Center."
"It needs some software upgrades to fix some of its current bugs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is average."
"Licensing is per node and per protected terabyte. You will also pay 10-15% annually for support."
"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."
"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."
"Cohesity came in at the best price. Setup was included and done in half a day."
"The solution's pricing is quite high, more so than that of its competitors, Veeam, Veritas and Rubrik."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly. It is cheaper than other backup solutions."
"The pricing model is impressive and very effective."
"It is really expensive. Its price is not good for Latin America. Its price is good for the United States or Europe."
"I rate the pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is not cost-effective, and ten is cost-effective."
"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."
"There may be an advantage to going with IBM in terms of pricing. They have a pay-as-you-grow policy, so there is no need to take one license for the entire datacenter. You can start with small licenses and then grow, and pay, as you use more."
"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"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."
"We are paying for support and maintenance on a monthly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
44%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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?
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....
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

Cohesity
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cohesity DataProtect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.