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IBM Storage Protect vs Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 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

IBM Storage Protect
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Backup and Recovery (12th)
Veeam Agent for Microsoft W...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.
Salman Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Habib Bank Ltd.
Functional application availability
There are not many options available for AIX backup. They provide the agent for AIX, but it could be more mature, and they should improve that option. They also provide the AIX agent, which is similar to the Windows and Linux agents. Since we use AIX machines, we need to take backups of those machines. However, the options available in that agent are limited. Therefore, the new version should have improvements in that area.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The deduplication and compression features are the most valuable features."
"It is more efficient than most traditional backup solutions."
"Overall, my experience with the solution is very positive, and I rate it a 9 out of 10."
"It covers all the different operating systems. If you need backup, it can pretty much do everything."
"The customization and the ability to backup across all platforms are the most valuable features."
"It has increased our security, scalability, and high availability."
"It is a very mature product."
"We've found the product to be quite stable and the performance is very good."
"It is a stable solution."
"It's straightforward to set up."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It was very easy. Deployment only took about one hour with configuration and everything considered."
"A full-featured option for managing virtual machines with an instant recovery feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and stability of the product."
"The most valuable feature is that it's a VMware environment."
"The most valuable features of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows are the backups, ease of use, and report manager."
 

Cons

"We need better protection from ransomware or the ability to identify ways we can protect ourselves from ransomware. Having backups is one thing, but specifically, we need methods to recover if we have a ransomware attack."
"The deduplication must be perfect, and thus should be improved."
"Some features are outdated as the product does not use the latest technologies. The graphical user interface, known as the operation center, is not very well designed. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect does not work well with virtual environments such as VMware and Hyper-V."
"Ease of use. That has got to be the one thing that I routinely hear from clients and customers, that it's a little bit more difficult than it should be. What I'm finding is that IBM has heard that and they're responding with updated interfaces and things like that."
"Scalability is poor. As you get to bigger environments, this is where our gaps have been introduced. As we have grown over the past couple of years, the gaps have become more apparent."
"Any feature that is compliant with virtualizing the application should be improved."
"We recently had a situation where we quickly got code, and the number of tapes exceeded the library capacity so we were waiting a while to change. We got a fix for this right away."
"In a future release, it would be a benefit to have the ability to add an application as a storage target, as a storage pool. Additionally, they should add more functionality to the administration for the Operation Center."
"An area that this solution could be improved would be with the licensing."
"There isn't really anything I would like to improve. Maybe the solution could be more secure."
"If they could let you can do replication to physical servers - a backup from physical servers and a replication to physical servers - that will be better."
"I would like to have more flexibility in terms of reporting details about the backup."
"Maybe in the future, they could do something better with the user interface and the performance, but so far it's a really good, efficient solution."
"It is not always easy to update this solution to the newer version, so the update process needs to be improved."
"I would like to have a more automated installation process."
"There are not many options available for AIX backup. They provide the agent for AIX, but it could be more mature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
"Its licensing is complex, and its price is not really reasonable. It is on the expensive side. IBM, in general, is slightly expensive, but with IBM Spectrum for the virtual environment, they are looking into the aspect of helping customers with the cost and providing a cost-effective solution."
"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"It is expensive."
"We have capacity licensing. We use the front end. The capacity licensing is pretty okay on the licensing price. I used to use the old PVU-based licensing in the early environment, but now we use capacity-based licensing."
"Licensing IBM Spectrum Protect can be somewhat confusing for new users due to the options available, such as licensing on a capacity or per server basis."
"We have the Community Edition and I believe we bought a license for 200 instances. Veeam Agent is mainly used for our branch offices. Those only have one or two Hyper-V servers, so it's covered with the Community Edition. Basically, it's free. I remember Veeam 7.0 or 8.0 wasn't free, but the Community Edition is."
"We purchased a three-year license, and I think that the prices are ok."
"We are on an annual license to use Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows. There are not any additional fees to use the solution."
"We have a license package."
"The pricing is good."
"The cost for its licenses is reasonable and as per industry standards."
"We pay for a three-year subscription to use Veeam Agent."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Photography Company
22%
Performing Arts
19%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing model is not quite standard. We do not buy IBM Storage Protect direct from IBM. We ...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy ...
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Also Known As

IBM Spectrum Discover
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CEMEX
ContinuitySA, Landmark Information Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: January 2026.
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