Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) vs Zerto 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 PowerProtect DP (IDPA)
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
21st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zerto
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
279
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is 0.7%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 2.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Johny John - PeerSpot reviewer
Good deduplication and consolidated storage with easy management capabilities
It's a converting solution. We don't need to manage different devices. For example, for storing the data, you don't need to have separate storage. It is in a purposeful built-in backup pipeline. It's a very good product. For our purposes, we are happy with the product. We don't have any challenges and it is not that critical to managing. For a person having any kind of backup experience, background in the backup software, he'll be able to manage it easily. It's one of the best products in the field. The product offers an easy initial setup. The pricing is good. It's not the most expensive option. It gives you a very good deduplication ratio. It is my understanding that no other database can do this much deduplication.
Shri Sharan - PeerSpot reviewer
Is user-friendly, saves us time, and costs
We encountered some issues during Active Directory recovery. When we implemented Active Directory, we provided feedback to Zerto regarding the challenges of recovering AD from the on-premises environment to the disaster recovery site. Unlike other virtual machines, AD recovery presents unique difficulties due to its active-active nature. It's unclear whether these challenges stem from Zerto itself or limitations within Microsoft Active Directory. However, in our experience using Zerto for AD recovery compared to other technologies, we faced data discrepancies that necessitated workarounds to bring AD online at the DR site. Certain applications we migrated from production relied on Active Directory authentication. To ensure successful application functionality at the DR site, a functional AD environment was a prerequisite to application migration. Therefore, our initial step involved copying and guaranteeing a running AD instance on the DR side before application recovery. However, upon attempting application authentication on the DR side, data inconsistencies prevented successful authentication. To address this, we created an isolated clone of the AD environment and conducted tests. Through trial and error, we were able to develop workarounds to resolve the issue. Notably, these challenges were specific to Active Directory; other VMs didn't exhibit similar problems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is integrated with Huawei software and its backup and recovery time is very fast."
"It backs up our Windows systems and our Linux systems and everything."
"Dell PowerProtect is stable and scalable."
"What I find valuable about Dell PowerProtect IDPA is its stability and strong performance."
"Instead of four or five tools, consisting of backup software, storage where the backup resides, and a separate system for reporting and central monitoring, they all now come in the virtual edition for IDP."
"The solution's most valuable features are networker and continuous data protection."
"We don't need to manage different devices."
"We use it for complete backup and recovery. We have multiple clients and have created multiple large virtual capabilities and zoning backlogs."
"The UI is straightforward. It makes it very simple to group our resources and understand that our production workloads are covered because we can set them up as granular or as non-granular as we want."
"I prefer Zerto because it's a little more automated. VMware has more requirements... It's a little more click-and-go versus click-and-monitor..."
"The most valuable tool is the dashboard, which allows us to immediately check the DLP status, replication data, and all other data needed to have cleaner and immediate control of the situation."
"The most valuable aspect of Zerto is the recovery speed."
"Zerto is so easy to use that when I showed it to my manager, he said jokingly, 'Huh. I could use it myself, I don't need you.' Zerto is most elegant."
"There are a lot of valuable features. The basics of what it does to replicate and recover things within minutes is awesome. It's far above anything that any of the competition has. We offer other disaster recovery software but primarily use Zerto for recovery times and the number of recovery points because of how fast and easy it is. It's so much better."
"Zerto is a flexible and resilient business continuity and disaster recovery solution."
"The product is superior compared to the other vendors."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in terms of network connectivity."
"We cannot add IDPA to DPC, and each IP has a DP Central, which cannot monitor other IDPAs."
"The solution should be easier to use."
"After resizing and compression, the system continuously runs out of space. Dell EMC doesn't do automatic cleanup or other things, so we constantly have to manually go in there or work with Dell support on this. The solution has not been working as advertised."
"I would like to see integration with Dell EMC's Cloud Tier."
"Managing the product is a little bit complicated."
"The price could be lowered slightly, to make it more competitive."
"Dell PowerProtect DP needs to include more features and improve backup for a continual base."
"The documentation needs improvement in terms of the setup, getting enough detail, and getting that up to speed."
"There is a need to allow the source vCenter Inventory to be imported with a single click."
"Zerto's connectivity with automation platforms could be improved. For example, vCenter can use a VMware-developed tool called Site Recovery Manager. That can be integrated with automation platforms such as Terraform, Ansible, Chef, or Puppet, to perform automated, self-sufficient recoveries to essentially avoid any downtime. To my knowledge, Zerto does not have integration with those platforms."
"Its price is a little bit on the higher side."
"Zerto can improve the dashboard by making it even more simple. Right now, there's a lot on the dashboard, and it can be overwhelming. If you're an experienced user, then you'll find it easy to use, but if you're a beginner, it will take you some time."
"The tech support on my latest issue wasn't so great. I had to figure a lot of stuff out myself. It could be that I had a Level 1 tech who was new or something, but it seemed like the tech was spitballing, which does not help me."
"I would like to see them continuously improve Zerto's automated functions, such as putting hosts in maintenance mode within vSphere and not having to worry as much about how Zerto is going to react... Sometimes, Zerto almost holds the vSphere environment hostage when it comes to taking certain actions. You really need to be cognizant about what you're about to do. They should further automate that and increase Zerto's ability to handle things like that in a very slick, automated way, without intervention."
"Some of the features need improvement. One would be, as you're creating a Move group or a VPG, as they call it, it should either autosave or have the ability so that you can save it for coming back to later because if the setup times out, you lose all your work. That would be a nice improvement to have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) has a yearly subscription fee."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"We have a perpetual license. It is a capacity-based license."
"The licensing is billed on a monthly basis. Dell is bundled so that when you order IDPA, you get everything together with the license."
"It was a little higher. We were in a corporate agreement, and we had a software package that included RP for VM. It is easy to compare pricing when you are already in a corporate agreement. Zerto lost on the pricing scorecard."
"Zerto is affordable."
"Zerto previously had a perplexing licensing structure, but they have since resolved it by implementing a unified license."
"If you are an IT person and you think that DR is too expensive then the cloud option from Zerto is good because anyone can afford to use it, as far as getting one or two of their criticals protected."
"Staffing may be a little thin at times, but as far as budgeting what we buy, the price for this solution has not been so outrageous that we don't buy it."
"Pricing is adequate at the standard of the product, but there could be "always" some improvement. We would like to see a consumption model that would charge in a DR scenario, where you're failing over and consuming those resources, instead of a per-protected-node model."
"Zerto is like a Ferrari. It's very fast but not the cheapest solution. You're paying a high price for quality and the assurance that you will have the environment up and steady."
"It works very well as a backup and recovery solution, with frequent recovery points. It's very good. But it's too pricey for us to use it as a backup solution for all of our clients. Not every customer needs recovery points every five seconds."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Backup and Recovery solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Educational Organization
37%
Government
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
What I find valuable about Dell PowerProtect IDPA is its stability and strong performance.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
The solution's implementation was very complicated and could be improved.
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?
I would rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around a seven on a scale of one to ten. The pricing model could be more flexible to accommodate startup companies with lower budgets.
 

Also Known As

Dell EMC IDPA, Dell IDPA, EMC IDPA
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Learn More

Video not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Under Armour, Christian Brothers University, Presidio
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 DP (IDPA) vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.