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Dell Avamar vs Unitrends 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)
Unitrends
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
38th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
34
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 Unitrends 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.
Todd Guthrie - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution can be used to back up servers and Hyper-V cluster nodes, but its support is super expensive
I wouldn't rate Unitrends a ten out of ten because we had some hard drive failures in the appliance. Typically, when you have OneDrive, you can get it replaced. For some particular reason, the situation caused the entire system to crash. We had to reinstall the CentOS operating system on it, and we lost all our backups. They said there was no way to retain it, and it was pretty devastating and concerning that a drive failure would cause the loss of all the data on the appliance. It was extremely disappointing, and we had to start from scratch after three years worth of backup data. I rate Unitrends a nine out of ten for stability.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."
"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."
"Quick incremental backups and product replication are the two highlights of the product. Once you capture a full backup, incrementals are pretty quick. It is fairly efficient from that perspective."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"It's a good solution."
"All the features in the system are highly valuable."
"It is a very complete product."
"The most valuable feature is the virtual backup."
"If you are a large organization, this is a product for you."
"Replication to Forever Cloud."
"It's not easy to scale it."
"VM backup is much faster and more reliable, as I can test my backups with Data Copy Access jobs."
"What I found most valuable in Unitrends is its simple user interface. It also works reliably."
"I like the fact that you can recover the VMs inside the appliance. For example, they're basically running this appliance on a Linux-based distribution, and they're spinning off KVM virtual machines inside."
"Being an appliance-based solution, we were able to migrate backup solutions without having to purchase a lot of hardware separately."
"The ability to backup both physical and virtual machines, along with having an appliance store the backups locally instead of on a file server, NAS, or SAN."
 

Cons

"The recovery is a bit slow."
"The solution is not very strong on the Cloud. They should work out how they can use this as a backup as a service."
"The product could be improved by simplifying the components available."
"It would be better if we could integrate easily with other platforms."
"It would be helpful if the product offered more integration potential."
"We have had a lot of problems with the Dell EMC Avamar solution. The snapshots are not being erased after backup."
"There are limitations when trying to use this solution with Hyper-V."
"Dell hasn't done a good job at handling these upgrades, or the way EMC used to handle them."
"No appliance update notifications."
"The solution’s UI can be improved. I am saying this because I have seen solutions with better UIs."
"Network-based storage stability could be improved."
"The solution’s support and onboarding process needs to be improved."
"There's a lot that can be made better. For example, it could be more scalable."
"Techs don't see to be well-versed in troubleshooting issues that arise and tickets stay opened for weeks for resolution."
"If the interface could be less complex, it is would be great."
"​​Follow up for the DRaaS service setup. I'm still waiting to schedule a DRaaS test after upgrading several months ago."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When it comes to competition the price is not what is important, it's not the problem."
"Dell Avamar is expensive."
"This solution is less expensive than Veeam for us, although it depends on the customer because we get a great discount."
"The current pricing is generally satisfactory."
"Avamar's pricing is quite competitive compared to other vendors."
"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."
"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."
"The cost of Unitrends definitely draws you in. The licensing is all included in the appliance, which is a great incentive."
"When we renew the Unitrends maintenance contract and update it to the latest version, the cost would be $5,000 per year. There are no hidden costs. They've been transparent with the costs."
"Based on a scale of one to ten, with one being low and ten being high, I would rate the pricing of this solution as a three. Also, there are no additional costs involved in the standard licensing of the solution."
"You should be aware how much the monthly costs are to use, what the initial costs for hardware are, and what the options to expand are, if needed."
"Unitrends is an expensive solution."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The licensing is yearly and it depends on the customers."
"Talk with the sales guys. They can work with you on the best package."
"We found that the cost of Unitrends was about the same as the Dell DR6300. We liked the fact that the Unitrends appliance was all-in-one."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
9%
 

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 do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What do you like most about Unitrends?
The most valuable feature of Unitrends for me is the automated feedback
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Unitrends?
Unitrends is an expensive solution. We've negotiated deals where they've given us the $ 62,000 to $ 64,000 appliance for free but charged $ 90,000 for three years of support.
What needs improvement with Unitrends?
In terms of improvement, the UI, especially in the recovery section, is unclear about which repository it uses—I had to hover over to find that information. Figuring out the scripting part wasn't s...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Avamar
No data available
 

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
NHL Players Association, Salvation Army, Sligro Food Group, Mason General Hospital, Tec Group, Saldab IT, Baker Tilly, Clinton Savings Bank, Ennit Magna Bank, Manukau Institute of Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Avamar vs. Unitrends and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,476 professionals have used our research since 2012.