Dell Networker vs. Unitrends

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dell Networker
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Dell NetWorker is an enterprise-level data protection software product that unifies and automates backup to tape, disk-based, and flash-based storage media across physical and virtual environments for granular and disaster recovery.N/A
Unitrends
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
The Unitrends Recovery Series Backup Appliances are hardware developed for data backup and management. They cover enterprise backup, ransomware detection, recovery assurance, proactive monitoring, and cloud continuity into a single platform for organizations of all sizes.N/A
Pricing
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Considered Both Products
Dell Networker
Chose Dell Networker
EMC and Unitrends are equal at the file level and SQL backups. What makes Unitrends the better product is the ability to backup VMs as a whole. They both have the ability to email reports about failures and hardware issues. Unitrends has superior support and knowledge base and …
Unitrends
Chose Unitrends
Veeam seems like a decent product which may cost a little more, Dell EMC Networker is a good product, but the interface is very clunky and difficult to navigate, while also being a much more expensive solution. I believe they are all good products. Based on reviews, …
Chose Unitrends
My biggest issue [is that I] wanted to get off Tapes and [I] looked [at] B2D Appliances Unitrends; [it] was one of the few that checked all the boxes.

Chose Unitrends
All are valid solutions but they all have their issues. Our target was single product that would provide storage, backup and replication. Only Cohesity could manage these however they did not support all of our workloads at the time of eval nor did they support output to …
Chose Unitrends
As mentioned previously, Networker was awful, needing a lot of moving pieces to be in sync for it to work properly. Unitrends is all in one (one appliance, one replication point, and one set of agents), and anything not in the all in one package (such as the agents), is easy …
Chose Unitrends
Veeam (too expensive), Networker (we use it now also - too difficult to use, expensive trainings), Avamar/EMC (extremely expensive).
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Data Center Backup
Comparison of Data Center Backup features of Product A and Product B
Dell Networker
5.0
11 Ratings
47% below category average
Unitrends
7.8
359 Ratings
4% below category average
Universal recovery5.29 Ratings7.3301 Ratings
Instant recovery6.011 Ratings8.0289 Ratings
Recovery verification6.09 Ratings8.0287 Ratings
Business application protection4.59 Ratings6.6261 Ratings
Multiple backup destinations3.010 Ratings7.9267 Ratings
Incremental backup identification4.811 Ratings8.2337 Ratings
Backup to the cloud5.26 Ratings7.3212 Ratings
Deduplication and file compression6.910 Ratings7.2325 Ratings
Snapshots6.09 Ratings8.0242 Ratings
Flexible deployment2.79 Ratings8.15 Ratings
Management dashboard4.59 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Platform support3.99 Ratings9.05 Ratings
Retention options4.79 Ratings8.15 Ratings
Encryption7.27 Ratings8.14 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Small Businesses
Veeam Data Platform
Veeam Data Platform
Score 9.0 out of 10
Veeam Data Platform
Veeam Data Platform
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.7 out of 10
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.7 out of 10
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(11 ratings)
8.0
(371 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.0
(1 ratings)
8.9
(25 ratings)
Usability
3.0
(2 ratings)
8.2
(14 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
6.2
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
5.6
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
6.3
(3 ratings)
7.9
(23 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.0
(1 ratings)
8.7
(12 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.1
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
3.8
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Dell NetworkerUnitrends
Likelihood to Recommend
Dell Technologies
For users with a basic backup system that does not provide advanced data protection this is a life saver in the age we live in where hackers are looking to encrypt and ruin your important backups. I would recommend [Dell EMC Networker] based on its features, price, and ease of use. If you have a similar product already it does not offer many unique features however.
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Kaseya
We have a traditional stack and pretty typical needs as a manufacturer. I have used and evaluated everything out there, but the Unitrends solution fits very well and was competitively priced. I would think if it fits us, it could fit anyone like us with a similar stack.
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Pros
Dell Technologies
  • Seamlessly integrates with DataDomain
  • Seamlessly integrates with vmWare for extremely fast VM backups
  • Provides agent-based integration for a very wide array of applications-aware backups, including but not limited to: Microsoft SQL/Exchange/Sharepoint, Meditech, Oracle, DB2, Informix, SAP
  • Integrates with a wide family of NAS solutions for NDMP backups
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Kaseya
  • It has fully automated and customizable dashboards that can run with less administrative attention.
  • It should be able to run on virtual machines or be deployed as a virtual machine within MS Azure or AWS.
  • It's AI-based ransomware detection helps to understand data characteristics and alerts for ransomware attacks.
Read full review
Cons
Dell Technologies
  • The GUI is horrible. Giant windows that don't size properly, confusing terminology, multiple clicks to get things done, it's just a disorganized mess. I can't put this in front of my junior techs because it requires some background in DR software to fully comprehend, and even then it's not easy. It feels very much like this was tacked on to a command-line based product as an afterthought.
  • Better management features. It's difficult to integrate with Active Directory, for one. You'll need a Dell EMC tech to help you. Items can't be renamed and have to be recreated. Options are buried in multiple GUI tabs and often are just command line strings in a free-text field. Diagnosing failed jobs and workflows is cumbersome and the errors are often cryptic without some experience. Design it well and pray for uptime, because you need this to work when disaster requires it to.
  • Poor reporting features for an enterprise class product. You can't schedule any type of simple summary (an audit requirement for us) in the base product. To do this requires the additional cost of Data Protection Advisor, which is also horribly designed and impossible to get working quickly.
  • Post-sales contact is non-existent. We've been through a few reps and the project team dropped us at one point with a half-finished implementation when the original sales guy moved on. We only got the the promised product implementation by telling Dell that we weren't paying the bill until they delivered what they promised and were contractually obligated to.
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Kaseya
  • Errors on backup jobs could be more clearly explained. As the administrator of the device for my company, I often don't know what caused an error, and can't tell from the error information what happened or caused the error.
  • Updates of the devices should have an automatic option. It takes to much time to do an update to the devices if updates haven't been maintained.
  • Shutdown and restarting the device should be available from the main UI screen to eliminate some time when doing updates or if you're doing some maintenance on the device.
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Likelihood to Renew
Dell Technologies
There are three reasons for not renewing our use of NetWorker: 1) the rising and extremely high cost of support and proprietary hardware needed for deduplication, 2) the complete unreliability of the product (we couldn't recover from a true disaster if we wanted to), and 3) the horrible support from EMC for the product
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Kaseya
We have grown very attached to the Unitrends appliances and their use for recovery and other file restoration needs as well as data archival, data replication to other appliance and data migration to other servers or long term storage requirements. The appliances work well and the support for them is very good as well.
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Usability
Dell Technologies
NetWorker has the clunkiest interface and unfriendliest CLI with which I have ever had to work. I spent three years hating this application because it took ALL of my time just to keep it running. Even then, I had no confidence in our ability to recover from a disaster because of its unreliability.
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Kaseya
I have never used such an easy product that is stable and scalable like Unitrends. I have been running backups for MANY years. On premise, tape, disk, cloud, you name it. Unitrends is very flexible, stable and has incredible reporting features. It's nice when management requests a report and it takes you 5 minutes to run it and dump it to PDF. How can you beat that?
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Reliability and Availability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Kaseya
The appliances have been there when we need them and have rarely if ever gone down. Hardware issues have been resolved quickly.
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Performance
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Kaseya
The hardware is adequate and speedy. The user interface responds quickly. Backups complete quickly.
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Support Rating
Dell Technologies
The support team has always been good, and there is never an issue that can't be resolved. The techs are competent and know the product. The slightly less than perfect rating I'm giving is because Support shouldn't carry the burden themselves. We hear from Dell sales people all the time, but they never call and ask about this product, nor do they offer to upsell it or make it better. That lack of sales support and coherence hurts the overall rating a bit. When I spend my company's money on your product, I expect you to at least ACT like you care, if not actually care for real. It influences my opinion and future purchasing habits.
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Kaseya
They're incredible, attentive, thorough. They make sure my issue is resolved and follow up. I'm usually behind on giving them a reply or an update. They have always gone above and beyond for me, and I'll continue to do the same for them.
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Online Training
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Kaseya
It was sufficient to get started. It was not super deep. We called support often to get going.
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Implementation Rating
Dell Technologies
How can anyone build a house without a blueprint? NetWorker was ramrodded into place here without a design or implementation plan. The result was a setup that was doomed from the start and never worked reliable over the full three years of our contract obligation.
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Kaseya
The Unitrends employees involved in the installation were very friendly and knowledgeable. A certain degree of hiccups can be expected during any installation but never shook my confidence because of the friendly and knowledgeable team that was assigned to my project.
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Alternatives Considered
Dell Technologies
EMC and Unitrends are equal at the file level and SQL backups. What makes Unitrends the better product is the ability to backup VMs as a whole. They both have the ability to email reports about failures and hardware issues. Unitrends has superior support and knowledge base and support is available 24/7.
Read full review
Kaseya
Symantec Backup Exec was the primary tool used for backups for years. We also used Veeam for some Office 365/Exchange backups. Unitrends once configured and set up works very well against the competition. Backup Exec interface was more user friendly. The search tool for exploring backups was much better than Unitrends as well. Unitrends is much faster if you need to restore an entire VM or large file folders. Also once you have Unitrends all set up, it is very low maintenance, it just works. If something fails 9/10 it will correct itself on the next backup that is scheduled to run
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Scalability
Dell Technologies
No answers on this topic
Kaseya
Once you exceed the capacity of the appliances, you have to forklift a new appliance. This is very expensive.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Dell Technologies
  • When you get into the deep dive of features there is quite a learning curve for those options so it's a lot to learn.
  • Restores and restore verification is very fast so you save some time there.
  • Costs are fairly high so an ROI may take some time vs a standard backup software.
Read full review
Kaseya
  • It has saved some deleted file server data for our business department.
  • We have lost some reports for the business department due to an overlooked setting that make the backup reports look great, but the server was not being backed up in reality.
  • Less anxiety for the IT department, we have backup plan and that is worth a lot to us.
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ScreenShots