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IBM ProtectTIER vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 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

IBM ProtectTIER
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
74th
Average Rating
7.2
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (13th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM ProtectTIER is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
IBM ProtectTIER0.6%
Other98.3%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

AG
Technical Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Provides a short-term backup, archive, and cataloging for 20,000 people in our organization
The backup for a large amount of data is slow. When there's a large amount of data, sometimes the backup isn't completed in time. I have a 24 hour cycle, so it doesn't get completed in 24 hours with the large amount of data. With Veritas NetBackup, I can take 20 terabytes of backup in a day.
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Has provided straightforward backup and rapid deployment for diverse environments
There is reporting in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but I'm not very familiar with this area. I always concentrated on getting the customer to do the backup, restore, and related tasks, but there is reporting. IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect. The correct direction is Data Protect, which includes ransomware detection. With IBM Data Protect, you can add more servers for backup. It's scalable, which is a key feature over Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus, even more capable than Veritas, because Veritas has an option to make different media servers. You can scale the backup process regardless of the load of the customer. This speeds up the backup and restore process for a complete data center, which cannot be done with any other product. I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The command-line interface is good."
"In terms of stability, I've found it to be very stable. I've walked into the server room when it was at 60 degrees Celcius, and it was still running fine."
"The solution is highly stable."
"The cataloging is the best feature. It takes millions of frames for the backup. It's incremental, so it takes less time to complete."
"The most valuable features are the Self-Service, and the ability to search the data."
"Overall IBM ProtectTIER is a great solution. It is easy to use."
"The tool has enough documentation; you don't need to contact the support team."
"This solution is very stable and has good support available online."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something."
"The feature I find most valuable is the offload to Spectrum Protect for long-term retention. I think the deduplication and replication are quite nice on Plus."
"Large-scale recoveries are very straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the integration with Oracle."
"Reliability, recovery features, and stability are valuable to me."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
 

Cons

"The backup for a large amount of data is slow."
"IBM ProtectTIER could improve by being more user-friendly."
"I would like the possibility to back up the infrastructure and then replicate it upon on restart, without having to orchestrate the starting of the VM."
"Setting up the system to work with legacy equipment is a bit complex at times."
"The configuration wizards are still complex and hard to navigate. These should be easier to manage."
"The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy."
"There's significant room for improvement. They are not yet where I want them to be."
"Their first level of support can be improved. Often they are too junior to understand the issues we are having, and it takes too much time to get from them to the next level of support, which is what we actually need."
"The one issue we are facing is related to file restores."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could be made more lightweight and user-friendly in terms of GUI features to make it closer to a perfect score."
"With ransomware protection and cyber protection, more improvement is possible."
"I think the graphical reports are a shortcoming of the tool since it fails to provide my company with what we want in terms of reporting. Due to the product's inability to take care of its reporting part, we have to use third-party software."
"The user experience is very bad and the interface needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a capacity-based license, which is managed centrally for all the sites of my company."
"This solution is very expensive."
"IBM ProtectTIER is an expensive solution."
"The customer can decide how they want to purchase a license. However, the price of the solution is expensive."
"I rate the price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a one on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap."
"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."
"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"The solution is too expensive."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product."
"There is an annual license required to use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The cost of the license could improve, it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Durham Police Department, Re-Store LLC, CenterGrid, pixx.io GmbH, Australian Government Department of Defence, QD, Refresco Gerber
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM ProtectTIER vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.