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Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus comparison

Bacula Systems and IBM are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Bacula Systems is ranked #24 with an average rating of 10.0, while IBM is ranked #23 with an average rating of 7.8. Bacula Systems holds a 1.0% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Bacula Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of IBM users who would recommend it.
Bacula Enterprise
Read 10 Bacula Enterprise reviews
  • 1,062 Views
  • 907 Comparison Views
90% willing to recommend
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Read 30 IBM Spectrum Protect Plus reviews
  • 1,727 Views
  • 1,247 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Bacula Enterprise and IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are both prominent data backup and recovery solutions. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus offers more intuitive data protection features, making it a preferred choice for users who prioritize advanced functionalities.

Features: Bacula Enterprise offers customizable configuration options, robust backup performance, and flexible pricing. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides comprehensive and integrated data protection capabilities, advanced features, and intuitive management.

Room for Improvement: Bacula Enterprise could improve its management console, documentation, and user-friendly design. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could enhance stability, cloud platform integration, and overall performance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Bacula Enterprise is appreciated for its flexible deployment options but has a complex initial setup. It is known for responsive customer service. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus simplifies the deployment process and is noted for its supportive customer service team.

Pricing and ROI: Bacula Enterprise is known for cost-effectiveness and straightforward ROI realization. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, while potentially more expensive, is valued for its feature-rich offering, providing a quicker and more pronounced ROI.

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To learn more, read our detailed Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Report (Updated: April 2025).
Buyer's Guide
Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
April 2025
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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 (17th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

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

Featured Reviews

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.
Read full review
Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Has very good integration features and can quickly backup data and optimize storage
I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery. I would like them to add global deduplication. With deduplicate backups, deduplication will work only with the data of a certain machine or a certain backup set. Usually, the data is repeated across the data of the backup sets. However, if IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides a global deduplication option it will ultimately result in better storage savings.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"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 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."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"The support from IBM is very good."
"Reliability, recovery features, and stability are valuable to me."
"Virtual snapshots that offer incremental backups."
"The most valuable features of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are you have many possibilities on how to use it. We use it for backups and to create secondary and third copies. It is possible to pick up Kubernetes containers and use a different cloud provider if you need to start backups on the cloud."
"The initial setup of IBM Protect Plus is simple and not complex."
"The solution is scalable and can be fitted for any customer."
"We used to use the solution with tapes a few years ago. We've switched to discs, and it has gotten much faster."
"The solution integrates well with other tools."
More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pros
 

Cons

"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"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."
"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."
"There could be better integration with Spectrum Protect and Spectrum Protect Plus, it should be one solution."
"The solution only supports HyperV and VMware but doesn't support Nutanix."
"I would like integration into where the VMware guys can do their own restores."
"Instead of using the command prompt for troubleshooting and administering the backup, there should be an easy-to-use graphical user interface."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could improve security."
"The Gui interface and usability are not so friendly and easy."
"The one issue we are facing is related to file restores."
"Not particularly user friendly."
More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus cons
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."
"We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"Clients prefer to buy a perpetual license, but the majority opt for a yearly subscription."
"The price offering from IBM is coming down because it is based on number of VM machines. So, IBM is coming to the market to show the added value of the product."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"The price is perpetual, but the maintenance cost is annual. That is, we pay once for the product and pay annually for the maintenance and support. The price was much cheaper than what we would have had to pay for EMC or Veritas. The pricing is competitive, and I would rate it at four out of five."
"I rate the price of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus a one on a scale of one to ten, where one is extremely expensive, and ten is very cheap."
More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus pricing and cost advice
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
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.
See all answers
What needs improvement with Bacula Enterprise?
Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability.
See all answers
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...
See all answers
What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
It is probably based on the number of CPUs. They are fairly expensive.
See all answers
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
With ransomware protection and cyber protection, more improvement is possible. IBM provides these through a third party, so enhancement is needed. There's significant room for improvement. They are...
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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Compared 17% of the time
Veeam Data Platform vs Bacula Enterprise Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs Bacula Enterprise
Compared 12% of the time
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Bacula Enterprise Logo
Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Bacula Enterprise
Compared 4% of the time
QNAP Backup Solution vs Bacula Enterprise Logo
QNAP Backup Solution vs Bacula Enterprise
Compared 3% of the time
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IBM Spectrum Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Logo
IBM Spectrum Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Compared 57% of the time
Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Logo
Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Compared 10% of the time
Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Logo
Rubrik vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Compared 8% of the time
IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Logo
IBM Storage Protect vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Compared 8% of the time
Nutanix Mine Integrated Backup vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Logo
Nutanix Mine Integrated Backup vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Compared 6% of the time
More IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Backup and Recovery
April 2025
Bacula Enterprise reportDownload Bacula Enterprise product report
Buyer's Guide
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
April 2025
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus reportDownload IBM Spectrum Protect Plus product report
 

Overview

Bacula Enterprise is a highly scalable, especially robust and secure data backup and recovery software. Its unique low cost subscription model empowers data centers to truly escape data volume price traps. With a high degree of flexibility and customizability, Bacula offers native integration with a wide range of hypervisors, databases, file systems, cloud interfaces and containers. High numbers of enterprise organizations worldwide (incl. NASA, Bank of Austria, Swisscom or Sky PLC) have adopted Bacula Enterprise backup software in mission critical environments because of its advanced features and ability to handle high data volume at very low cost.

Bacula Systems

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a data protection and availability solution for virtual environments that can be deployed in minutes and protect your environment within an hour. It simplifies data protection, whether data is hosted in physical, virtual, software-defined or cloud environments. It can be implemented as a stand-alone solution or integrate with your IBM Spectrum Protect environment to off-load copies for long term storage and data governance with scale and efficiency.

IBM
 

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.
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Buyer's Guide
Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
April 2025
Free Report: Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
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