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Bacula Enterprise vs Dell Avamar vs IBM Storage Protect 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 February 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Avamar is 1.9%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Storage Protect is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Dell Avamar1.9%
IBM Storage Protect1.8%
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
Other95.3%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Consultant at Xerif
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…
SamuelThomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Key Information Technology L.L.C.
Have supported critical environments despite room for improvement in legacy backup options
It is very efficient in cyber resilience. Deduplication, automation, and everything is very efficient. It is multi-cloud enabled and has broad protections. The software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery options through its cyber resiliency features. Dell PowerProtect Manager provides insights in managing backup processes. Its encryption mechanisms are very efficient, helping to secure sensitive data. Its integration with Dell EMC Data Domain is very good. It is easy to integrate with Data Domain. Multi-cloud options are enabled, and backup in cloud options exist in Dell Avamar.
reviewer2787573 - PeerSpot reviewer
Interim Head of Infrastructure at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Backup coverage has supported immutable protection and now needs a more modern, intuitive interface
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in setting up and complex to manage. The new software, such as Rubrik, is very easy to use and more relatable to younger engineers because its interface design is more similar to Office 365 and the newer controls and labels that we are accustomed to. The difficulty that we now have with IBM Storage Protect is that for this day and age, compared to other products that are out there, it seems complex. If we look back 15 years ago, all enterprise class backup software was complex, so IBM was not any different. However, many of these older systems, such as Commvault, still have the same complaint that they are very complex because they have tried to keep that same interface and the same way it works. This suits them, but it probably needed a complete overhaul to bring it into the ease of use that we have with modern software. However, that upgrade has not been done. IBM Storage Protect has not been upgraded into a modern platform. It still looks a legacy platform.

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."
"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"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 solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"The product is very powerful and offers very good performance."
"The stability is okay."
"It's stable and offers good performance."
"The most valuable feature of Avamar would have to be the way it works over needing very little bandwidth to move data across a WAN or LAN."
"The data reduction feature and the ease of enabling a server in a DR location are the most valuable."
"I like Dell EMC Avamar's compression of data."
"The installation process is pretty straightforward."
"The solution scales well."
"Traditional archiving. One of our revenue streams involves maintaining archives of our customers' data for very long periods of time."
"Scalability is pretty much unlimited."
"The best functional system I utilize is integrated with the data domain and DIGS backup solution, which makes it easily manageable and comprehensive."
"The amount of data that it protects with very little storage by doing incremental forever is one of its most valuable features."
"Instead of taking three different backups of your systems, you're taking only one. You're able to crack that open and get what you need. The incident recovery, where it creates the VM and then you're running it, technically you're running it on Spectrum Protect. But then in the background, it's doing the storage motion and moving it off the Spectrum Protect back to your VMware environment. The users don't know the difference."
"SPIR is Instant Recovery for Spectrum Protect. It sends snapshots using space efficiently and blocking backups to the Spectrum Protect server. It provisions the snapshot from the backup server to the same or new server near instantly."
"Spectrum Protect's best feature is that I can use it practically anywhere, on any platform, and for any servers or clients."
"Good user interface."
 

Cons

"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"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."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"Avamar is dependent on the hardware. It can't be implemented with ordinary storage. It can only be implemented with an EMC product. We want to have a backup solution that allows us to use independent storage and other hardware. It would be good if they can simplify its technology and make it possible to implement it with another storage. This is probably not possible because Avamar is an EMC product, and EMC would like to sell its own products."
"Its ability to back up very large objects can be improved. In terms of new features, they can include the ability to use cloud services, like S3, more natively."
"The solution used to freeze sometimes while taking a snapshot backup."
"Backup image browse times should be faster."
"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."
"The configuration and expansion aspects of the solution need improvement. They're complicated and don't really integrate well."
"The interface could be more helpful for people."
"It lacks support for certain plugins, like SAP HANA, for example."
"We are having a balance issue between the reclamation and the backup function. It has to take the space back from the tapes before it can record to those tapes, but sometimes those two processes are overlapping."
"IBM Spectrum Protect is not a very user-friendly tool."
"Ease of use."
"The product’s recovery process in terms of agent installation needs improvement"
"Sometimes we experience trouble with the backup transfer of the control files."
"My customers are not always happy with the Level 1 support. Sometimes, it just takes too long for the response to come, which is probably something that needs to be addressed."
"Easier configuration of some of the products, e.g., VE comes to mind."
"It needs better connectivity with other non-IBM application hardware and non-IBM platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"Regarding pricing, I would say Avamar is slightly expensive compared to its functionalities. It's not high-priced or low-priced but somewhere in between."
"It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing."
"It is expensive. The maintenance comes with it for five years. So, you buy the whole thing for five years, and your maintenance is included with it, but it's a big chunk of change upfront. We like capital expenses because we can CapEx them. We pay once every five years, so we spend a big chunk of change. You'd have to divide that out by the five years to come up with how much it costs. It's just about three-quarters of a million dollars for five years."
"It might not be beneficial to smaller businesses due to its high cost."
"I rate the pricing a seven out of ten because it is expensive."
"It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity."
"The current pricing is generally satisfactory."
"Dell Avamar is expensive."
"We pay for a terabyte license to support our backend usage."
"We have been at our size for a few years. We are not really looking to battle the licensing costs, as this is our primary system."
"The licensing is varied. If we have small environments (not many TB being managed) it is best to license by PVUs (depending on the number of cores of the machine). If we manage many TBs we look at licensing by capacity which allows us to use all the agents of the product."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive and there is only a standard licensing fee."
"The different license models can give good benefits to the end customer."
"The product is low cost. It is very cool when we design it to using licensing based on post capacity."
"The price of IBM Spectrum Protect is expensive. However, there are a few packages and it is unclear because, for the entry suite they have both options, which are the back-end storage capacity and the front-end storage capacity."
"Spectrum Protect is not expensive, and it is simple to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise48
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise95
 

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'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...
What do you like most about Dell Avamar?
Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.
What do you like most about IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will contin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
I do not know the current licensing cost for IBM Storage Protect and how we get our support because our licensing mod...
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is from a previous generation of backup software. In those days, backup software was complex in s...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Avamar
IBM Spectrum Discover
 

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
CEMEX
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Commvault and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.