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Bacula Enterprise vs Dell Avamar 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

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 (16th)
Dell Avamar
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.0%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Solid backup tool with good scalability
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 it in their environment It was a very good project. The Bacula concept, topology, and networking…
Ayodeji  Oyewole - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable with good backups but has occasional failures
I use Dell Avamar primarily for backup and recovery The most valuable feature for me is the backup functionality. It gives large enterprises the comfort of knowing their workloads are being backed up. There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"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."
"Bacula is pretty stable."
"Its stability and deduplication capabilities are most valuable."
"Dell Avamar has a push upgrade feature that lets you simultaneously push updates to thousands of clients. I also found the self-service part of Dell Avamar helpful."
"The performance of Dell EMC Avamar is good."
"The product is very powerful and offers very good performance."
"It was very simple to deploy the solution to the client that you wanted to backup."
"Avamar's source side deduplication is very strong, it can easily back up remote sites' data, and not much bandwidth is required on the Avamar side."
"Avamar has long been the best in its class, but that's changing as new solutions emerge. However, Dell has traditionally been a leader in deduplication and compression. Avamar enabled us to shift data from on-premise local appliances to data centers and multi-tenant infrastructure. That's a powerful feature. because customers can back up to the cloud without upgrading o high-capacity links or congesting their backups."
"We have a lot of backups, and this tool helps us with the RMAN Backup."
 

Cons

"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"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."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"There are instances where backups fail on certain applications, which is an area that could be improved."
"Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better."
"This solution could improve by introducing daily verifications and another repository."
"The solution used to freeze sometimes while taking a snapshot backup."
"Avamar needs a greater emphasis on storage targets. If it's going to keep pace with the times, it needs more ability to leverage cloud storage."
"It would be helpful if there was cloud support."
"Setting up Avamar wasn't so easy, and we had a partner doing the installation for us. Though it was hard at first, it's getting better. The main difficulty was finding plugins for Oracle Database. It took some time to open a ticket with Dell, but everything was fine after that."
"When we used the solution, it was still new, and so the customer service/technical support was not the best."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
"Dell Avamar is a moderately priced solution."
"Licensing was generally on a per VM or terabyte basis. They changed their licensing model a couple of times and turned it into socket-based licensing, which is an improvement in their licensing model."
"Dell Avamar is expensive."
"Dell Avamar, including its virtual add-ons and cloud-based offerings, is cheaper than other solutions, but in the end, the price still depends on your use case. Price-wise, I'm rating Dell Avamar as six out of ten."
"I'm not sure, but perhaps the pricing could be done better at the moment."
"The solution is costly."
"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."
"This solution is less expensive than Veeam for us, although it depends on the customer because we get a great discount."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
11%
Computer Software 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 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...
What's the difference between Dell EMC Avamar and Dell EMC NetWorker?
From the very beginning, Dell EMC NetWorker considers users and those who might potentially become users. In terms of both pricing and setup, this product offers an experience that is significantly...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Avamar
 

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.
Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.