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Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Protect vs Rubrik comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect is 2.2%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rubrik is 7.7%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Davilson  Aguiar - PeerSpot reviewer
Very cost-effective and well organized with good compression
It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company. A managerial user who wants more information beyond the operational technician should be able to access it. It could include greater transparency regarding the volume of data trafficked on the network, as well as the expectation of deduplication. A more practical strategy could come with a backup policy model as a suggestion for both large and small companies. A simple suggestion is to visually implement the backup time as far as your physical media.
Syed Habib - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
CarlosCastells - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to do backup, easy to deploy and scalable
I have experience with different solutions like Oracle, Veeam, andCommvault Cloud. Right now, we are testing a solution for Kubernetes. We are trying to replace it, so we just don't know yet. I don't really know if Rubrik is a good solution for this. We are testing Velero (Open Source) or Kasten K10, and I don't know Rubrik's view for this type of technology.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bacula is pretty stable."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"The software-defined ability to do data reduction through deduplication and compression, as well as being able to replicate data to a cloud container."
"I find the whole product useful. The backup archive client, snapshot, spectrum for virtual environments are beneficial features."
"Good user interface."
"It is more efficient than most traditional backup solutions."
"We do not lose data. That is why we are using this product and have a backup in place."
"I've had no problems with the stability of this solution."
"The most valuable features are compression and de-duplication."
"We like IBM Spectrum's versioning capabilities. It lets us specify how many versions of a file we want to keep and for how long. Also, the archive component of the software helps us a lot."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable features of Rubrik are the restoration and ease of use."
"Drives the back-end through a powerful, well-documented API."
"Instant recovery is a good feature."
"Management is so simple that anyone can check the backups and do restores when necessary."
"This is a centralized tool where we are able to schedule backups and perform monitoring."
"I haven't encountered any bugs or glitches using the solution."
"The solution is extremely stable. They've been phenomenal, especially for a young company."
 

Cons

"Bacula needs a graphical user interface because, for administrators, the command-line interface is okay, but for the average user it is not very easy."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Replication services would be nice. If these could be enhanced to be always on so multiple storage backup services could be added as a cluster pool. This would provide a better availability service."
"There is room for improvement in the service aspect."
"The software is very complicated. You have to do a lot of configurations to build a server, and you would need to backup and restore."
"The solution's ability to integrate with a cloud solution is one area that needs improvement."
"We would like to see bare-metal restorers."
"If IBM could provide a partial module, that would be great."
"I would like to see integration with Copy Data Management, which is an IBM product. Right now, these two products are siloed, so if these two become integrated, the product would become a bit of a powerhouse."
"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."
"Improving PowerShell integration would greatly simplify Rubrik management."
"I want to see more features regarding filtering in the Snapshot Window, as I need to be able to set a filter for specific dates and times. If I want to check an old backup, I must scroll through one or two years of backups to find what I'm looking for."
"The reporting in the dashboard and reporting for extractions both need improvement. I would suggest making them easier to understand and use, not just out-of-the-box. We should also be able to customize them."
"Rubrik needs to continue to listen to their customers and what they want/need, not just care about money and the bottom line."
"There is room for improvement through a further extension of their Office 365 backup platform. In addition, it's still a bit cost-prohibitive to backup NAS. Those would be the two primary areas for improvement."
"Rubrik is expensive."
"Initially, we encountered compatibility challenges with some of our technologies."
"The reporting, in particular the customization of reports, needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"One can go with either a PVU licensing model or a capacity based licensing model. Either solution does not block the usage, if over used."
"It's very complicated. Licensing is a pain."
"The license model that they have at IBM, which is due to volume, from a certain volume onward is not the right license model."
"Licensing can be either complicated or simple depending on what type of licensing you wish to use and what works best for your environment."
"At scale, the consumption license (per TB) is very 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."
"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."
"The solution is expensive."
"There are additional costs like maintenance, and there are some features on their central management piece that don't come with our licensing."
"The solution is expensive for small businesses."
"It is a great value, but its cost is still a bit high."
"Rubrik is an all inclusive price. No additional implementation costs or licencing."
"Rubrik is expensive, but due to its data management capabilities, customers can save a lot by reducing hardware and storage."
"We pay annually for the license for Rubrik. There are no additional costs. Initially, we needed to set it up, negotiate and finalize the offer."
"The cost was less than our previous provider, and this is a much better product."
"We pay yearly and it's based on the number of bricks."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Bacula Enterprise?
Bacula is more expensive than various other solutions. It’s almost completely commercial now. Products like Veeam sof...
What needs improvement with Bacula Enterprise?
Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability.
What is your primary use case for Bacula Enterprise?
The last scenario in which I used Bacula was for a customer who needed some open-source tool which could support encr...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?
It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible w...
Which would you choose - Rubrik or Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam Backup & Replication provides an easy-to-set-up solution to the issue of data storage and recovery. Setting...
What do you like most about Rubrik?
It's easy to manage and has an innovated solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rubrik?
Rubrik is considered expensive, with a price rating of three out of ten. Improvements in pricing and licensing would ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NASA, SwissCom, Navisite, Turner Studios, Bank Austria, Caixa Bank, SdV Plurimedia, Leibniz University Hannover, Zeta Global, Tricore, NetLog, Siemens, LocaWeb, wbsGo, itesys, Queens School of Computing, Escrypt.
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
Driscoll's, Red Hawk Casino, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Wabash National, Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Galliker Transport & Logistics
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Zerto, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.