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Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Storage Protect 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)
IBM Storage Protect
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
40th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 Storage Protect is 0.4%, up from 0.1% 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…
Maik Zutz - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable enterprise solution for backup and restore
New workloads are not good for storage protect like container or virtual machines. IBM acknowledges that users and partners with companies do it better and integrate it into the product. It takes too much time to implement it in old Storage Protect. It have features for big databases and big data environments. Although, the product seems to be old fashioned, but it is stable, robust and works for the most use cases where a lot of data is to be protected. It could be easier to manage client data. You have to use configuration. It is not on modern architecture. They should change it on the client area. You can achieve a better environment using Protect. IBM tapes serves as an air gap, consumes less energy, and provides a resilient, stable environment with fewer infrastructure and environmental costs. Intergrating it can help store large amounts of data more cheaper than on disk.

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."
"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."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"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."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future."
"The tool's backup engine is very powerful. Previously, our client finished backup with HPE product in 48 hours. IBM Storage Protect completes backup in 8 hours."
"Overall, my experience with the solution is very positive, and I rate it a 9 out of 10."
 

Cons

"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"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."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"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."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"The product should improve its GUI. It should also support Windows clustering."
"The solution is expensive."
"Some features are outdated as the product does not use the latest technologies. The graphical user interface, known as the operation center, is not very well designed. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect does not work well with virtual environments such as VMware and Hyper-V."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
"IBM Storage Protect is not expensive and fits the needs of all business types. The licensing is based on a capacity-based model. You can take a license for one, two, or three terabytes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 IBM Storage Protect?
The best point about IBM Storage Protect is that it can use IBM tape environments, which we still use and will continue to use in the future.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Storage Protect?
IBM Storage Protect is generally an expensive tool. However, with good contracts with IBM or its partners, the cost might not be so high. New customers can expect very high prices.
What needs improvement with IBM Storage Protect?
Some features are outdated as the product does not use the latest technologies. The graphical user interface, known as the operation center, is not very well designed. Additionally, IBM Storage Pro...
 

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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Storage Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.