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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
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
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
299
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (3rd), Cloud Backup (2nd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) is 0.6%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 3.0%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

SamuelThomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures data safety and effective cloud integration with AI-powered protection
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) offers a backup, recovery, and management tool that is very easy to use. It provides a flexible protection suite that accommodates scalability and performance needs. Integration with VMware and multi-cloud protection is effective. AI integration enhances backup operations by analyzing data and ensuring malware protection. Customers also benefit from hybrid cloud options and tiers of backup.
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

"It backs up our Windows systems and our Linux systems and everything."
"The solution's most valuable features are networker and continuous data protection."
"The product is integrated with Huawei software and its backup and recovery time is very fast."
"The most valuable feature is the deduplication rate."
"Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) offers a backup, recovery, and management tool that is very easy to use."
"IDPA's best feature is Turbo Boost Technology. The compression and duplication features are excellent, too."
"The product is easy to troubleshoot and store data."
"We don't need to manage different devices."
"Zerto is easy to use and the interface is very intuitive."
"The features I find most beneficial about Zerto include continuous data protection, easy configuration, and simplified management with a user-friendly interface."
"We're able to replicate all of our data and be able to bring up an entire data center within a matter of minutes, which has become our go-to for our resiliency within both of our data centers."
"The instant recovery at DR locations is the most valuable feature. We're required to do periodic DR tests of critical databases, including Oracle and Microsoft SQL. We have recovery point objectives set for specific databases and we need to be able to achieve them. Zerto helps solve that business problem."
"We own another solution called VMware Site Recovery Manager, SRM. We have licenses for our entire environment and we still decided not to use it. That's how big the difference was in the experience that Zerto provides."
"The best feature of Zerto is the fast, automated backup and recovery. The data lift for applications is short, with minimal data loss."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the live migration."
"We had a disaster recovery four or five years ago. I can't remember what happened, but I believe something crashed in our data center, like a power outage. We did a failover of our network using Zerto from production to disaster recovery. We successfully completed the failover process in three or four hours without issue. The data was current, and the application owners could access their data and continue working while the issue was resolved."
 

Cons

"The two-factor authentication is missing from Dell products."
"Managing the product is a little bit complicated."
"We would like to see the pricing drop a bit."
"Dell PowerProtect DP needs to include more features and improve backup for a continual base."
"The product's index master feature needs improvement."
"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."
"The price could be lowered slightly, to make it more competitive."
"I would like to request better reporting in Zerto. I can see the data that I need in the console, but if I need to put the data or the history into a report, it is difficult. It is something that auditors might require, so reporting is something that needs to be improved."
"As a user who used Zerto for eight years, there are specific issues that it cannot address. For instance, recovering physical servers is directly connected to the virtualized solution in use, meaning your infrastructure needs a VMware or Hyper-V solution."
"The mission critical apps, like the ERP system or any casino software, are areas that I always hope to improve."
"If I have to reboot a virtual machine host, I have issues with Zerto catching up afterward. That's about the only thing I would say needs improvement. Sometimes, when I have to do maintenance, Zerto takes a little bit to catch up. That's understandable."
"When we migrated to new virtual infrastructure, we had to set up Zerto all over again. And that took a long time. It would be nice if Zerto had some sort of migration tool where you could migrate all of your virtual machines to a new infrastructure without having to set up Zerto all over again."
"They could improve their online documentation."
"When I have a technical question, it sometimes takes a while for tech support to respond."
"Migration of complex VMware and Hyper-V solution. Using Zerto to replicate to azure and S3."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license. It is a capacity-based license."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) has a yearly subscription fee."
"The licensing is billed on a monthly basis. Dell is bundled so that when you order IDPA, you get everything together with the license."
"My understanding is that it's expensive but worth the price."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable for what it is offering. It gives me the peace of mind that my data is protected. It is worth the cost."
"Zerto is priced high."
"My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was straightforward."
"Its licensing is yearly. You can do multi-year contracts, which is what we did. You pay per VM, and you replicate a license per VM. So, we bought about 20 licenses. We paid somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. There is an initial upfront cost. Basically, you buy the license, and then you have a maintenance cost on top of that. So, the upfront cost is somewhere between $5,000 to $10,000. The maintenance is $5,000 to $10,000 over a three-year period."
"We found that in an event that was massive enough to cause an entire cluster to go offline we would be happy with our core services up and running."
"Zerto is affordable."
"The solution is expensive, but it's worth the price."
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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
Educational Organization
36%
University
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
11%
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
Pricing is competitive with other software vendors. The product's features, network, and VMware integration contribute to its value. There are different licensing options available, such as applian...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA)?
Dell PowerProtect DP (IDPA) requires more updates and innovations in AI-powered cyber resilience. While technical support is generally not poor, there are challenges with expertise in Linux-based c...
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?
Zerto is definitely more costly compared to its competitors, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager. It may not be suitable for small and medium-sized industries.
 

Also Known As

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

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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.