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Bacula Enterprise vs Dell NetWorker 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
22nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (18th)
Dell NetWorker
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell NetWorker is 1.3%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell NetWorker1.3%
Bacula Enterprise1.1%
Other97.6%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Davilson  Aguiar - PeerSpot reviewer
Analista Tecnologia Banco de Dados at Centro de Gestão da Tecnologia da Informação
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.
RaedHassan - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Specialist Backup/Storage at National Bank of Kuwait
Has supported flexible multi-platform backups and improved over time
Regarding the effectiveness of Dell NetWorker in terms of role-based access controls, I have experience with it, but I find it somewhat lacking in flexibility as it offers limited features, and I would rate it around seven out of ten. It is not that there is something wrong with the role-based access controls in Dell NetWorker, but it lacks many permissions or roles to assign, providing options only for administrator or user. To improve Dell NetWorker for the next release, I recommend enhancing flexibility in the policy, allowing selection of multiple options within the same policy, and addressing issues like the DNS lookup dependency to make it more controllable from Dell NetWorker itself rather than relying on other applications. Looking forward, I would like to see improved policy features and a more enhanced GUI, as it is still slow.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"Bacula is pretty stable."
"Technical support is excellent in my opinion."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers."
"The solution has had a tremendous impact on our public company, as we are now cost-effective and even better on performance with our restorations."
"The most valuable feature is its ease of use; it works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"The support is outstanding and world-class."
"The support for legacy products is very good."
"The solution has minimized the recovery time objective, and the recovery point objective, the RTO and RPO. Most customers are looking for to minimize downtime. The solution has helped ensure this."
"Technical support is good."
"The initial setup is very easy. It's incredibly fast."
"When it was required that data had to be restored for our customer, it was accomplished successfully and this has kept our end users satisfied."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature is NetWorker's integration with the data domain that transfers the data directly into the Dell appliance, so the data doesn't need to pass through the network."
"This solution might be a bit complex for an end-user but it's a great solution for a technical person."
 

Cons

"Relying solely on a desktop is a bit frustrating as its GUI isn't exactly responsive."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"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."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"The user interface needs some work. It would be beneficial to have a single user interface for all of the features."
"he API side of the solution has certain shortcomings."
"It has not improved functionality for us. At least the unsupported version we are on is difficult to administer."
"Reporting templates could be easier to understand and more comprehensive."
"We pretend to start image backups from VMware, but we are also working with Xen and RHEV, and this product doesn't support those platforms."
"They need to take off the tape and allow us to use different repositories in order to keep the data for five to 10 years."
"There are too many reboots and the software requires constant updating - just like Windows. I don't like that so I feel that it isn't very stable."
"In older versions, the graphical user interface isn't so good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
"The pricing of this solution is very good."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The pricing for the telecom, government, and banking sectors is relatively affordable."
"The price is a little on the high side, but it's reliable and provides a good service."
"Low cost is key."
"It is inexpensive compared to new products."
"We do need to purchase a license, but sometimes, it comes as a part of the Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS). It has a capacity-based licensing."
"We use a license without a time term. We just need to buy additional support when needed."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
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 Business24
Midsize Enterprise33
Large Enterprise38
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell NetWorker?
Regarding the pricing of Dell NetWorker, it depends on the deal or negotiation we have with the vendor, making it reasonable, although I cannot make a definitive decision without knowing the specif...
What needs improvement with Dell NetWorker?
Regarding the effectiveness of Dell NetWorker in terms of role-based access controls, I have experience with it, but I find it somewhat lacking in flexibility as it offers limited features, and I w...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NetWorker
 

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.
Republic Bank, Westgate Resorts, Macquire Cloud Services, Shriners, Panatonni, Qatar Islamic Bank, Eurosport
Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell NetWorker and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.