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Dell Avamar vs Dell Data Protection Advisor 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

Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
Dell Data Protection Advisor
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
24th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Data Protection Advisor is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

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.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive support with predictive insights and seamless integration
As a system engineer, I am deploying Dell Data Protection Advisor solutions, especially in the areas of protection like Avamar, NetWorker, and Data Domain. Our team has deployed these solutions for three organizations in Africa and India Dell Data Protection Advisor provides proactive support by…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The backup and recovery speed is very fast."
"The solution's ease of use simplifies the disaster recovery processes in our company"
"Duplication and the speed of backup are great."
"We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."
"The installation of the solution is easy."
"The solution is easy to use and has high performance."
"The product is very powerful and offers very good performance."
"The initial setup is easy."
"This is a stable solution."
"It has a lot of stock reports. I believe over 300 canned reports, which for the most part meet a lot of generic needs."
"The reporting feature and the Dell's continuous improvement of the solution are the most valuable features. The solution not only supports Dell Power Products but also other products."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. Deployment typically takes about one hour. You just need one person to handle the deployment process."
"It generates very detailed reports, which makes things easier when it comes to IT auditing."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the compression and the duplication."
"I can increase the tool's licensing as per my requirement with no conditions applied."
"It supports our chargeback process by identifying resource users, which helps ensure that departments are billed accurately for data protection services rather than receiving them for free."
 

Cons

"The support is very bad."
"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."
"The interface has room for improvement. It's not ideal right now."
"If there is a need to move the data from one backup solution to another, it might be difficult since there is no option for a straightforward migration."
"The product could offer more integration capabilities."
"When we used the solution, it was still new, and so the customer service/technical support was not the best."
"We don't trust the product 100 percent. Kaspersky has many features Dell Avamar doesn't support, such as granular backup and history."
"The licensing price must be reduced."
"The stability of the solution needs improvement for stand alone users."
"The functionality of the Data Protection Advisor is limited and is something that is lacking in this solution. Other solutions like CloudIQ and DDMC provide a much better outlook on how data protection should be done."
"The solution requires more integration with our other solutions. I know that they have full integration with VMware because it is also from EMC. However, we have to have better integration with Microsoft and Nutanix as well."
"It's a bit difficult for first-time users."
"Dell Data Protection Advisor's feature for data domain protection needs enhancement."
"They should empower their customers with the ability to upgrade this solution as long as it's in the same major release."
"We have encountered issues where we were unable to pull data from the database server. It should also improve the backward compatibility."
"The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years."
"The solution is costly."
"This is a fairly expensive solution. It cost approximately 21,000 each year."
"The cost is high."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing."
"This solution is less expensive than Veeam for us, although it depends on the customer because we get a great discount."
"You need to make an upfront payment for three, five, or seven years and renew the licenses for support. We can do an annual maintenance contract with Dell. I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten."
"If the customer has huge lineup of Dell Products then they receive discount on the pricing."
"For pricing, I would rate Dell 2 out of 5. It's affordable."
"The product is affordable."
"It's not very expensive — I think the price is fair."
"You have to procure the license when you are ordering or quoting for Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). DPS is bundled with the suite and comes with a license. However, if you purchase NetWorker separately then you will have to procure the license for DPS separately."
"The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The platform's most valuable features are data protection and retention.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product pricing has been satisfactory, particularly with the economy of scale in our agreement.
What needs improvement with Dell Data Protection Advisor?
The product could be improved by addressing intermittent collector failures affecting status reports' accuracy. Additionally, enhancing bulk update capabilities for items like cost centers would be...
 

Also Known As

Avamar
DPA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Nielsen, Trek Bicycle, Cal-Israel Credit Cards
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Dell Data Protection Advisor and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.