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Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs HPE Zerto Software comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 11, 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 PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (7th)
HPE Zerto Software
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
341
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (2nd), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 3.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HPE Zerto Software is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HPE Zerto Software2.6%
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager3.6%
Other93.8%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

MinaMagdy1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive integration and user-friendly dashboard enhance data protection workflows
PowerProtect Data Manager lacks the tape-out functionality, which is important for organizations relying on it for offsite backup. While PowerProtect Data Manager offers a workaround, it's not always accepted, notably by sectors like banking. Additionally, I would like PowerProtect Data Manager to provide microservices and container backup for modern applications.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features
Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days. Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss. One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization. Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently. Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems. Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages. Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time. Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management. Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution's initial setup is straightforward."
"It satisfies my customers' scalability needs and provides interactive features, allowing efficient integration."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager helps to reduce the amount of data being transferred and stored."
"It's the perfect solution for virtual and container directives. The data reduction feature works well, and we haven't had any issues."
"Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is user-friendly and easy to use. it does what it needs to do."
"I love that it has an interactive GUI, and it is not complicated to use."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solutions. It is highly user-friendly, allowing users to quickly learn and implement backup and restore processes within a week. PPDM represents the next generation of backup software and is comparable to offerings from other vendors. Furthermore, PPDM prioritizes security with various access controls, such as user and database access controls. Its deployment tool is also known for its simplicity."
"The product is superior compared to the other vendors."
"The solution has definitely helped reduce our DR testing and automate it, although I do not know those numbers off the top of my head."
"It is cost-effective and stable. It protects virtual machines, and there is a fast recovery time."
"Four years ago when we did a PoC between two other vendors and Zerto, there were two features of Zerto that sold it, hands-down. One was the ease of creating protection groups, the ease with which our engineers could create protection, add virtual machines into the Zerto product, and get them under DR protection."
"The near-synchronous replication is key. That has allowed us to provide the low RPOs that we promise. For key systems, that has been the deciding factor."
"HPE Zerto Software has positively impacted our RTOs and RPOs by improving our recovery objectives and ensuring data is always available."
"I assess the stability and reliability of the HPE Zerto Software as very robust, with no real performance issues experienced; it just works and is easy to use."
"Its ease of use is most valuable. The online documentation is very clear and helpful. We are able to solve a lot of problems on our own without having to contact support."
 

Cons

"You need to use additional software to back up entire environments. It will be good if they could support entire tape libraries."
"PowerProtect Data Manager is missing a feature for takeout, which means I cannot store backup data off-site within the software. This is a limitation for organizations that require off-site solutions."
"The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers."
"PPDM requires further development. It is primarily integrated with DevOps systems."
"A lot of improvement is required in Dell's first level of support."
"The Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager reports could improve. There should be different kinds of reports on failures, such as dashboards that we can submit to top management or auditors."
"The interface is too complex."
"Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly."
"Right now, our production environment runs on-premises, and we have a DR copy of everything that we run in production. However, our development runs on that hardware. In the case of a DR event, we would need to shut down development and bring up our secondary copy of production. We're hoping that Zerto is going to be the tool to help us do that."
"Its pricing could be better. Also, Zerto needs to improve its reporting capabilities and provide better dashboards."
"The backup end of this solution could be improved. We tried using it as a full backup solution and it took way too long to complete at least one backup."
"Automated protection of workloads from one site to another could be improved."
"If I were to nitpick, I would say that I wish I had a better account manager. Our sales guy has changed a couple of times. I would like a little more responsiveness from our account manager. I've had a couple of issues where getting in touch with him has been a little difficult, and I end up just going around him and dealing with support and support has handled it right away."
"Its price is a little bit on the higher side."
"The amount of storage that it takes up for the journals could use improvement. Outside of that, it's been great."
"We have had issues with licensing, where the license we've been given by Zerto support doesn't include VSS replication, which was a pain at the time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
"We offer monthly or yearly subscriptions. The price could be cheaper."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
"The licensing costs and pricing model are based on capacity and the license is easy to upgrade."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"I think the cost is reasonable for VM licensing. It's not outside the scope of an enterprise product."
"The pricing is pretty competitive to that of other options out there. When we shopped around, it was in line with the price of other solutions."
"Price-wise, Zerto is fairly reasonable and I can't complain about it when we compare it against Oracle and SAP licensing."
"Licensing is based on the number of VMs to replicate. The first thing should be to get the number of VMs to replicate based on your business needs."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"I know it is per server, but I am not fully aware of the price model. I know for our VDI environment, they are looking at something that is on the lower end and that they can use just for migrations and not so much a disaster recovery."
"It is not the cheapest product; it is not the most expensive product, but it works. It is a mid-range product, and it is justified in terms of being pretty quick and easy."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business91
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise193
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Overall, pricing does not significantly impact our decision. The main concern is the solution itself, presales activities, and positioning it in the right place. Commercial aspects are secondary to...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers.
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What do you like most about Zerto?
Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?
Regarding my experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing, I think on the pricing side, I don't generally deal with it, but from what I hear from my finance team, it's somewhat on the higher...
 

Also Known As

PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs. HPE Zerto Software and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.