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Azure Backup vs Bacula Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

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

Azure Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Bacula Enterprise
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
24th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Azure Backup is 3.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Achieve cost savings and efficiency with high-level restore capabilities
I use Azure Backup mainly for backing up virtual machines The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore. Additionally, it has a good impact on our cost savings and operational efficiency as it is a low-cost solution. The area that I believe needs improvement in…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The daily backups have become easier since we no longer need to handle large backups. The use of Azure Backup as a service has proven reliable and simplified our daily operations. Previously, we relied on LTO backups for data retention, but after migrating to the cloud and adopting Azure Backup, the delivery process has become smoother."
"The tool has a lot of features."
"Our client’s infrastructure is protected by the tool."
"The feature I find most effective in Azure Backup is the high-level restore."
"The fact that Azure Backup is integrated is one of its biggest advantages."
"When it comes to Azure Backup, the advantage is that it's native and it's very easy to configure. We don't require a separate tool or manage something on a separate server. At the backend, it's managed by Microsoft itself, and we don't need to manage it."
"The most valuable features are the timely backup facility, allowing scheduling of backups, and the speed at which backups occur."
"It's stable."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"Bacula is pretty stable."
"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."
"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more automation, integration, and security. The price could be better."
"I once tried restoring a Linux environment, and the size of the Linux VM or the data disk was really huge. It took a really long time to restore the environment and send the data from the storage to the disk. It took around 25 to 30 minutes, which was much longer than I anticipated. They can improve the duration of such restore operations. In the next release, it would also be good if they could reduce the duration for transferring the data from their storage to the actual storage while creating a virtual machine. They can reduce the duration or increase the data transfer rate."
"I would like to see better integration with more products, and more services."
"The reporting functionality of Azure Backup needs improvement."
"The length of time it takes to restore is our main source of frustration. It would be beneficial to shorten the time it takes."
"It still does not have a lot of customization, especially if your workloads are not in Azure."
"Technical support is in need of improvement."
"To make it a ten, it should have the ability to extend the retention and to perform a copy of the data outside of the subscription - with no additional costs."
"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."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is incredibly cost-effective and offers fixed pricing, with no additional fees for the licensing."
"It's around $10 to $15 per month per virtual machine, along with something extra based on the size of the data."
"Price-wise, it's similar to AWS."
"We are paying about $100,000 USD per year, just for a couple of servers."
"Azure Backup can be expensive if you are not vigilant about your storage steering."
"We do not have any additional costs for Azure Backup."
"Customers prefer Azure Backup because it has a pay-as-you-go model, and they won't have to pay an upfront amount at the initial level."
"The price is pretty good, maybe $30 for a machine, I can't complain."
"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Azure Backup differ from Veeam Backup & Replication?
Veeam has a version for Azure but there are organizations, like ours, that are considering moving to an Azure environment and wonder if Azure Backup is better than Veeam Backup and Replication (Vee...
What do you like most about Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is easy to configure and restore.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Backup?
Azure Backup is expensive relative to the value we get from it. I do not have specific details about the licensing cost as it falls under another department.
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 software are much more expensive.
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 encryption at that time. We managed to convince the customer to use Bacula to deploy...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Russell Reynolds Associates, Somerset County Council, Kardem, PCL Construction
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Backup vs. Bacula Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,491 professionals have used our research since 2012.