We compared Acronis Cyber Protect and IBM Spectrum Protect based on user reviews in five categories. We reviewed all of the data and you can find the conclusion below.
Features: Acronis Cyber Protect is lauded for its versatility, comprehensive malware protection, and effortless data retrieval. IBM Spectrum Protect is highly regarded for its ability to integrate with tape libraries and its customization options. Users also praised Spectrum Protect for its compatibility with various products, scalability, and stability. Cyber Protect could improve its ability to back up SQL databases, reduce resource usage, resolve conflicts, and improve management features. IBM Spectrum Protect could improve its integration with cloud services and make its interface more user-friendly.
Service and Support: Some users had positive things to say about Acronis customer service, while others were dissatisfied with delayed responses and limited real-time support options. IBM’s customer service is described as high quality, friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive. At the same time, some said the support process can be lengthy.
Ease of Deployment: Some users thought Cyber Protect was simple to deploy, but others considered it challenging. IBM Spectrum Protect's initial setup is challenging and demands skilled professionals to configure multiple parameters and features. This process can be time-consuming.
Pricing: Reviewers say Acronis Cyber Protect is affordable, but some noted that the pricing could be more transparent. IBM Spectrum Protect is considered expensive. The pricing model is complex, taking into account factors like processor type and volume.
ROI: Users say that Acronis Cyber Protect is a worthwhile investment, saving money while safeguarding critical data. Users have realized benefits from IBM Spectrum Protect’s data protection and retrieval. They appreciate its ability to reduce storage requirements with larger tape sizes.
Comparison Results: Acronis Cyber Protect is a versatile solution that saves customers money and enables easy data recovery. While reviews of Cyber Protect were generally positive, there were mixed reviews about support, pricing, and setup. Users also said it could improve its SQL support and management capabilities. IBM Spectrum Protect is a reliable, customizable solution that allows smooth integration with tape libraries. At the same time, some say that the user interface could be more intuitive and Spectrum Protect could integrate better with the cloud.
"The most valuable feature is the quick restoration. We can restore the data quickly."
"Stability is always good. I have used Acronis for 10 years now, if not more. I have never had a problem with availability, etc."
"The tool’s licensing and pricing are economical for SMB customers."
"Since the last version, everything has been improved."
"For me, the cost is a significant advantage."
"Acronis Backup is valuable if your data is affected by ransomware, you are able to get it back."
"The best thing about it is that we can back up pretty much everything we want to. We don't have to have multiple solutions. It can back up any physical or virtual server, including servers in Azure. It can back up SharePoint, OneDrive, and G Suite. Everything we need to back up can be backed up, and that's why we like it."
"It's always stable. It's very good, useful, and user-friendly."
"The feature that I have found the most valuable is that IBM Spectrum Protect is highly integrated with IBM ESS. In addition, it allows us to back up our virtual servers directly to take VM snapshots. It runs on Linux as well."
"We can freeze and start databases for consistent backups."
"It seems very scalable and robust. It can do what we require it to do."
"The most valuable feature is the backup speed."
"The fact that we can take the backup straight onto tape is the most valuable feature."
"Space efficient data reduction, using progressive incremental forever in combination with deduplication and compression."
"Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features."
"I have found that the most valuable feature is useful documentation and troubleshooting."
"We needed to have help from the vendor for implementation. The vendor used two personnel. We have system administrators and they do the server backups themself."
"Acronis Backup can improve on the virtualization backups because they are not as good as Veeam Backup."
"If there was a wizard that would lead you down a road, when creating a backup, that would probably be better than having to go online or call somebody to actually do a backup. It's not intuitive..."
"It would be nice if it could support more types of storage: EMC, HPE, Veeam, etc."
"I can't select a network location. I have to map a drive on the server, and then I have to select the mapped drive in order for it to put the backup out there."
"For smaller companies it's a little more challenging to maintain."
"One improvement that could be made is adding the option to download files in a PST format when doing a 365 or Google Cloud to cloud backup."
"We would always support better pricing."
"Its price can be better. It is very expensive. Its interface is very old and not user friendly. They can improve its interface. Their support can also be better. My clients are not very satisfied with the support because they are not really quick."
"If IBM could provide a partial module, that would be great."
"The most important feature which I wish to be added involves the GUI, the user interface."
"It is not easy to manage like other products in the market. It is okay only if you are command-line driven. Even though the operation center is there, it doesn't provide a single view of everything. You have to, for example, use TSMManager on top of it, which gives you a far better management capability, but it is a third-party product. Its management needs to be improved. There should be an HTML or graphical interface. It is a very difficult product. For example, you have a backup policy where you want a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly policy standard. It is an old kind of system where you have to keep retention for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly backups, which is very difficult in IBM Spectrum Protect. In other products, in a matter of five minutes, you can configure such a policy. In TSM, it takes you one, two, or three days because you need to configure a node for each of them. If you have 250 nodes, you have to configure each node for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly retention. If you have 1,000 nodes, it is going to take you ages just to configure and register the nodes. You need to configure the schedule and the CAD daemons or services, depending on whether it is a Unix or Windows OS. Unfortunately, it is a very long and drawn-out process. You have to stop and start the services for changes to take effect. This is a very difficult part of TSM in IBM Spectrum Protect. To configure a backup policy, I should be able to select the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly options in one screen and finish it. After that, everything should happen in the background. All the backup products in the market already do that, and they are very simple to manage. This particular part of this solution has really been a major pain area for us, and unfortunately, we could not find a workaround. There is nobody at IBM who can give us a way to configure all this easily through a GUI or even scripts."
"Our customers would like to see metadata replication, tearing to tape, and more cloud capabilities."
"Their support is lacking. I've talked to their developers and stuff in the last couple of weeks and they reassure me that some people have retired, and they're working on getting that bumped back up. But the support lacks a lot to be desired at this point."
"Integration with some applications in the healthcare field could be added, as that is a big part of our business."
"They need to reduce the complexity and make the learning curve easier."
Acronis Cyber Protect is ranked 9th in Backup and Recovery with 117 reviews while IBM Spectrum Protect is ranked 17th in Backup and Recovery with 146 reviews. Acronis Cyber Protect is rated 8.2, while IBM Spectrum Protect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Acronis Cyber Protect writes " Good backup solution but challenges with the stability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Spectrum Protect writes "Performance and recoveries are better, and customers are happier with performance". Acronis Cyber Protect is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Azure Backup and Commvault Cloud, whereas IBM Spectrum Protect is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, Commvault Cloud, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) and Cohesity DataProtect. See our Acronis Cyber Protect vs. IBM Spectrum Protect report.
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