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Dell Avamar vs Microsoft DPM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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)
Microsoft DPM
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
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 Microsoft DPM is 1.2%, down from 1.3% 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.
RifkanHasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Backup and recovery that is stable but support is no longer in existence
The DPM is pretty good, but when it comes to external devices, you can't back up to the external device. It's a huge drawback because once everything goes down, it goes down fully. We can't take a snapshot and take it outside, which is a problem. Also, when it comes to recovery, the recovery process doesn't work properly. It doesn't recover. One of our drives failed and when we wanted to recover it from the other drive, it never worked. So, we couldn't recover the data. Recovery of data if the server goes down, is not very good. The DPM is good apart from the support services. We were told that the support was no longer in existence, which is why we are looking for another provider. In the next release, I would like to see backup to external devices, so it can always restore the backup and we can take it externally and store it somewhere that it is off-site and archived. Currently, it does not allow us to do that because it is required to be in one location.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Centralization is Avamar's biggest advantage. It moves data to a central location from various geographical locations."
"I found the most valuable features of Dell Avamar are the user-friendly interface and ease to use. Our clients have administrated this software and there is no additional training required."
"For the on-prem backup, it has all the necessary features that we require. They keep coming up with new scripts and new updates."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
"The solution integrates well with Unix, Windows, Hyper-V and VM."
"The stability of Dell EMC Avamar is very good."
"The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality."
"The tool's most valuable features are backup management and speed."
"I like the core backup feature. I also like the file server backup feature. I find Microsoft DPM interesting because it has fantastic integration with Microsoft products. For example, in Exchange and SharePoint, DPM is excellent when it comes to backing up data. It also does a decent job with open-source products."
"It has an application backup, a file backup, a system backup and a hypervisor."
"The automated procedure is quite good for us, as it is able to capture all of the information that we require."
"Its capability to give a BMR for all the workstations that I want to connect to."
"I could back up all the stuff we had, even the VMs we have for Hyper V."
"The most valuable feature is that DPM has an index so individual files can be searched."
"The initial setup is quite straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the total integration of the System Center solution."
 

Cons

"Some integrations are not in place, such as the email alerts, which are not compatible with Office 365 SMTP gateway."
"Backup image browse times should be faster."
"The licensing model is not very flexible. Every time we upgrade our storage size, we need to upgrade the Avamar license."
"It's not the best solution for big databases."
"A benefit would be support for either Azure Cool Storage or AWS Glacier."
"Compared with Cohesity or Rubrik, which have some continuous data protection for backup and replication, this solution tends to lack in this area."
"The screen design is a bit back-dated."
"The interface could be more helpful for people."
"You have only a few settings and if you change them for some special configurations, it's very difficult."
"Microsoft DPM could improve if it was available in a public or private cloud."
"It can back up, yet it lacks features compared to Veeam."
"The user friendliness could be improved."
"It needs portability for other vendors. It is good for backing up Microsoft servers, but it doesn't support third-party solutions such as Oracle Database. It depends on Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy, especially for Hyper-V, which has a lot of problems. They should enhance the Volume Shadow Copy functionality. Its reporting should also be better. Reporting is too weak in DPM."
"The problem lies with the 2019 version, it's the file system they’re using."
"The user interface can be improved quite a bit."
"Management reporting could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current pricing is generally satisfactory."
"There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually."
"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."
"It's an expensive tool"
"It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years."
"Dell's pricing structure is not overly expensive."
"This is a fairly expensive solution. It cost approximately 21,000 each year."
"On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing policy of Dell Avamar as five. The solution has a very good price, and a lot of improvements were done to it."
"Microsoft DPM can be considered as an expensive solution for smaller or medium enterprises, but we have been satisfied with the price structure as it is fixed and it offers a variety of useful features"
"Microsoft DPM is a free solution. However, we pay approximately $3,000 annually for support."
"I think Microsoft DPM pricing is reasonable. The additional costs are related to storage and technical support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

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 Microsoft DPM?
This solution helps us to manage all of the operations across servers and different workstations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft DPM?
Microsoft licensing is complex, especially for enterprise or data center solutions. However, it's not more complicated compared to other competitors and the market is well balanced.
What needs improvement with Microsoft DPM?
I am not sure if I am competent enough to address areas for improvement in Microsoft DPM.
 

Also Known As

Avamar
DPM, Data Protection Manager, MS DPM
 

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
Medical Park, Centropol Energy, a.s., NCFE, D & H Distributing, Metalor, Colosseum, a.s., Sanitas S.A., Icebreaker
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Microsoft DPM and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.