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Bacula Enterprise vs Dell PowerProtect Data Manager 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 PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.4%
Bacula Enterprise1.1%
Other96.5%
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.
reviewer2767527 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized backups have simplified hybrid protection and improved ransomware recovery and compliance
The majorly needed improvement is that the product should easily simplify the upgrade and installation process. Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues. Sometimes it is not a P1 for Dell, but it is P1 for the customer, and the support needs to be very mature. That is a major drawback I see. Otherwise, the product is quite well. This is an enterprise solution and a bit costlier, but it is a solution where people should be looking into if they want to go into one single umbrella and have the centralized backup solution, which integrates with the cloud and can manage their cloud workload as well as the on-premises workload, and can be managed with one dashboard. In that way, it makes their backup management easier and they can get detected anomalies as soon as possible. This is one of the solutions I would recommend. However, if it is a very small company, they really need to think about the cost, as it is very costlier for them. But as an enterprise solution and a mid-enterprise solution, this is the solution where companies think their data is very critical, in sectors such as financial, banking, and health. This kind of sector should go with that solution because it always gives the compliances of HIPAA, GDPR, and all those things that are really required for them. From management perspectives and consolidation solution perspective, the integration is quite easy. With respect to the backup administrator and everything, it is quite straightforward. There are some layers that need to be improved and should have the internal feature instead of creating the additional VMs for the NAS backup. It should be internal and directly have the agent base or something that can communicate easily with Dell storage. If it is third-party, I would understand, but it should be able to communicate. The benefit of it is that it is easily understood and you can do knowledge transfer with a lot of documents available. The drawback of it is that when it comes to the installation, Dell always takes a lot of time for all these things with third-party involvement in between Dell and the customer. Support is the major part of it. People need to understand that when a customer raises their ticket for P1, they should treat it as a P1. Instead of by their book being P3 or P2, sometimes they only treat it as such when the complete backup server is down. However, for the customer, if it is not happening with the critical system of backup, then it is a P1 for them. From Dell support, they do not treat it as a P1, or they treat it as a P3 or P2. That kind of understanding and some agreements need to be done between the customer and Dell. It is a costlier solution. Comparatively, other backup solutions make this one of the costlier solutions. However, someone who has their enterprise data or needs protection in a good way can go for it. I could say it is a mid-enterprise or enterprise level solution. Otherwise, people do have the same solution but with differentiated features. However, it is costlier compared to the other.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is excellent in my opinion."
"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"Bacula is pretty stable."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the support for Linux servers."
"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."
"I love that it has an interactive GUI, and it is not complicated to use."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"I would recommend Dell PowerProtect Data Manager to other organizations because it is cost-effective and delivers good performance compared to alternative solutions."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a comprehensive backup software that integrates with Dell backup storage to enhance data protection."
"I would recommend it, as it's stable and you don't have downtimes, even with upgrades."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager helps to reduce the amount of data being transferred and stored."
"It's the perfect solution for virtual and container directives. The data reduction feature works well, and we haven't had any issues."
"So far all of the features have been good."
 

Cons

"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."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"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."
"The interface needs to be easier for adding new devices to be managed."
"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."
"Management is difficult and it is hard to determine when things aren't working properly."
"Regarding the pricing aspect of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not very happy with that; compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly, and there are definitely areas for improvement."
"The interface is too complex."
"A lot of improvement is required in Dell's first level of support."
"The main issue that needs improvement is the support system. When I raise a ticket, it sometimes takes a while to get a response."
"Sometimes Dell support should be more active. They take time for P1 issues."
"The marketing strategy is lagging behind competitors such as CommVault. Dell needs to improve its market presence and communication with customers and solution providers."
"The technical support is okay but they can work on the response time. The last time we had an issue it took a while to receive the proper support."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
"The solution is more affordable than other vendors."
"We offer monthly or yearly subscriptions. The price could be cheaper."
"The price of Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager is reasonable."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is not an expensive solution."
"The licensing costs and pricing model are based on capacity and the license is easy to upgrade."
"The product is offered at a very competitive price in the market."
"The solution is not less expensive than competitors but pricing deals are available."
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Top Industries

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

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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

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 do you like most about Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
One notable feature is its robust backup support for Kubernetes and container environments. Additionally, PPDM stands out for its ease of deployment and management compared to other backup solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Regarding the pricing aspect of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I am not very happy with that; compared to some other products, it is a bit more costly, and there are definitely areas for improvement.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
I apologize, but I'm not in a position to answer what areas of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager I would like to see improved or enhanced. There is still a lot of features that we haven't tried yet. I...
 

Also Known As

No data available
PowerProtect, Dell EMC PowerProtect
 

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.
National Bank of Greece, USC Australia, PCS Publishing, Dell Digital IT, Rushmore Electric, Melanson Health, Arrow Electronics
Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.