IBM Spectrum Protect vs Zerto comparison

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IBM Spectrum Protect

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Zerto are leading data protection solutions. While IBM Spectrum Protect offers robust features for large-scale data environments, Zerto's superior data recovery capabilities make it a preferred choice for rapid failover solutions.

Features: IBM Spectrum Protect provides scalability, comprehensive data management, and robust support for vast data environments. Zerto offers simplicity, seamless cloud platform integration, and effective disaster recovery. Both solutions have distinct strengths in their respective features.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest IBM Spectrum Protect could benefit from a more straightforward configuration process, a more intuitive design, and enhanced usability. Zerto users seek expanded data protection options, better reporting tools, and improvements in data protection breadth.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect's deployment is complex and resource-intensive, though customer service is highly rated. Zerto is praised for quick and easy deployment, though customer service receives mixed reviews.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect involves significant initial setup costs but offers substantial ROI for large enterprises with extensive data protection needs. Zerto also requires a notable investment but is considered worth the cost due to effective disaster recovery, offering compelling ROI with timely recovery options.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Zerto Report (Updated: January 2025).

IBM Spectrum Protect vs. Zerto

January 2025

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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 Spectrum Protect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

16th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

149

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 IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, down from 2.5% 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

Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking

It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

Read full review

Shri Sharan

Solutions architect at Kyndryl

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It helps our customers protect their data, especially with stuff like ransomware, compliance, and regulatory requirements."

"The main feature of this product is a flexible architecture and functionality that allows you to solve problems of any complexity and scale. Most importantly, it is not just a product that simply makes a backup, but it restores and saves a large number of services in critical situations. By the way, it works fine with different types of clouds, supports S3."

"The solution is not complex, it's very easy to configure agents or VM backup and restore. Upgrades from one version to another are very fast and the product is very stable."

"The file-restoring feature is the most valuable."

"It integrates well with Spectrum Scale."

"Every time customers make a change or we have made a change, then they use the product to do a cloning and refreshing. They are happy that they get good performance something changes."

"From a tech perspective, utilizing deduplication is one of the most valuable features."

"We have a very good team of administrators who know the product perfectly and are able to manage it on a day-to-day basis."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

"It is cost-effective and stable. It protects virtual machines, and there is a fast recovery time."

"I give Zerto's stability a nine out of ten."

"Failover using Zerto is simply a one-button click, and it does everything else in restoring the VMs at a different datacenter (recovery site)."

"Zerto is essential for protecting critical workloads. We don't protect all of our VMs, but some need to be recovered in a timely manner. The recovery time is almost immediate."

"We have seen ROI. The biggest way that we have seen it is in avoided downtime. We have had outages before, and we count downtime in terms of dollars spent. We have cut that down so dramatically, which provides us a very quick ROI. We have drastically reduced the amount of time it takes us to recover workloads, from an average of two hours to an average of 10 minutes."

"The quickness and efficiency of creating snapshots, on a real-time basis, is one of the most valuable features. Whenever changes are made on a server, Zerto starts taking snapshots right away and replicating them to the DR site. It's very effective and very quick."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of upgrades."

"We are in the process of switching over our production data center and Zerto has been a true time-saver that has cost us zero downtime."

More Zerto pros

Cons

"This product should be more user-friendly for newcomers."

"They do not have a unified GUI, they only work on CLI and operations center, which is really complicated for the installation and configuration."

"In terms of features, they've got it all covered. The features they have are quite good. The only downside to it is that it is for an enterprise or big organization. In my opinion, it is not for a small business."

"The solution could be more user-friendly and provide better monitoring. The monitoring should be improved first since it is a higher priority."

"The version that we had when I first started made it look really bad. We are talking about commands that should have run in two seconds, but instead took four to eight hours. Other components were sluggish."

"There is room for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect, especially regarding its support for virtual environment backups."

"Integration with Windows environments needs improvement. It should be more "assisted", both at the application and database level. It remains a product that fits better in Unix/Linux environments than in Windows environments, given its configuration procedures."

"The initial setup is complex."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

"There are still some pieces in testing that aren't automated. There are still some built-in scripts or workflows I wish Zerto would do out-of-the-box, versus having to PowerShell or have a vendor create it, or create it myself."

"The onset of configuring an environment in the cloud is difficult and could be easier to do."

"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."

"Their offsite backup is a bit clunky, but it will probably improve."

"With the VPG (virtual protected group) it would be nice if you could pick individuals in the grouping instead of having to failover the whole group."

"This solution could be improved if it met all the requirements that we look for including supporting multiple operating systems. We would prefer to use one solution for DR and backup."

"They just came out with improvements for ransomware protection last week. I haven't used them yet but, overall, security and preventing ransomware is really a hot topic these days. I would like to see it detect when the ransomware occurs and provide more information on it."

"The problem with the backup product is that it's not very mature and you really need a specific use case to be able to use it effectively. It's hard to explain to our customers, especially our large customers, that the use case is so limited."

More Zerto cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little expensive for our current employer, so they want to move to a cheaper solution."

"The licensing fees are on a yearly basis, which for us it is about R400,000 (approximately $27,000 USD)."

"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."

"Use capacity licensing. It's easier and cheaper."

"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."

"Customers need to pay for licensing in order to use IBM Spectrum Protect. The customers that have been using it for a long time are okay and happy with it. From a cost point of view, it's better for them to renew their licenses than to go through the difficult process of changing a backup product in their environment, and migrate from one product to another."

"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."

"Spectrum Protect is not a cheap option."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is top tier but offers good value."

"Zerto's price seems fair. It's competitive."

"Zerto is expensive but offers many features that make it competitive."

"The solution is expensive, but it's worth the price."

"The product's pricing is the one area where it is less competitive."

"The solution is very cost-effective and very easy to set-up but does not compromise on features."

"Pricing is one area where there could be 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. Or it could be a model based on the amount of storage space you're protecting."

"Price-wise, Zerto is fairly reasonable and I can't complain about it when we compare it against Oracle and SAP licensing."

More Zerto pricing and cost advice

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it_user159711

Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

22%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?

For my company, the tool is affordable and reasonable, but most people don't know that. People only see one major price for the tool, which runs into millions, so they would always say that it is a...

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

The technical team's service depends on where the support service is located. Some products are not included in IBM itself, but external companies are developing some solutions for IBM. I think the...

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.

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

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Compared 18% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 17% of the time

VMware Live Recovery vs Zerto

Compared 16% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Zerto

Compared 9% of the time

Rubrik vs Zerto

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Disaster Recovery as a Service vs Zerto

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

IBM Spectrum Protect

January 2025

Download Zerto product report

December 2024

Also Known As

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

Zerto Virtual Replication

Learn More

IBM

Overview

IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.

Zerto is used for disaster recovery, business continuity, data migration, and ransomware recovery, providing continuous data protection and near real-time replication. Valued for ease of use, efficient failover processes, and versatile integration, it enhances organizational efficiency, reduces errors, and boosts productivity.

Sample Customers

CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology

United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies