Bacula Enterprise vs N-able Cove Data Protection comparison

Bacula Enterprise vs. N-able Cove Data Protection

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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

25th

Ranking in Cloud Backup

18th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

N-able Cove Data Protection

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

30th

Ranking in Cloud Backup

17th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

SaaS Backup (9th), MSP Backup (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Cloud Backup category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 2.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able Cove Data Protection is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Backup

Featured Reviews

Davilson Aguiar

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.

Read full review

Jack Henson

Owner at Henson Business Products

Allows us to back up workstations and servers, and saved us time when checking endpoints and the viability of backups

I have some issues with the agent failing on workstations. I've had to completely uninstall several of them, delete everything, and start over to get them to work. That's been the biggest source of my problems recently. The problem is that when we delete one, we lose the backup. Consequently, it means we're without a backup unless we have a local copy. When we delete the agent, there's the problem of how to go back and restore it. I haven't had to deal with it yet, because I haven't had a failure that occurred while I was doing that. I had a workstation that started failing, and we couldn't get the services to run. I don't know what caused it. I had to reinstall the agent, which didn't work. I had to go into the machine and delete everything and load another agent onto it. Once I did that, I was able to make it work, but 90% of the time I never have an issue. During the other 10% of the time when I have a problem, it's a mess. The ability to recover to a different workstation or a different data point is a little bit clumsy. It could use some work.

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

"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."

"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."

"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."

"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers."

"Bacula is pretty stable."

"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."

"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."

"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."

"It provides a single dashboard for all types of data protection, we monitor everything through a single dashboard. It simplifies everything overall. It allows us to see everything, whether passing or failing any issues, any problems through a single pane of glass that we don't have to click through or adjust as we go forward."

"The user interface is the most valuable. It gives us the ability to check everything. With more than 100 endpoints running that software, I like the ability to quickly check that everything is working correctly. That's one of the biggest selling points."

"We use a neat feature called VDR status, Virtual Disaster Recovery status. It only works on servers... It's automated. Once or twice a month it will virtually mount the backup and provide a screenshot and advise whether or not there have been any errors."

"N-able Cove Data Protection is user-friendly and straightforward, and the dashboard is clear."

"One of the bigger features and advantages of the solution is that it is easy to integrate with my RMM which is also N-able."

"The monitoring makes it very easy to check whether a backup has gone bad."

"The most valuables feature is the alerts and monitoring that catches the failed backups."

"The ease of use and the console are great."

More N-able Cove Data Protection pros

Cons

"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."

"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 initial setup could be a bit easier."

"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."

"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."

"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."

"There aren’t any challenges. Regarding the additional features, Cove is limited to disaster recovery with Azure. It would be great to make disaster recovery compatible with AWS."

"The reporting feature and functionality need improvement. We would like to see a little bit more detailed reporting that offers more CEO or C-level focused reporting options."

"N-able Cove Data Protection does not provide a lot of SaaS backup products, which is an area they can improve. Additionally, there are some limitations on the storage side, where I cannot have a lot of employees backing up their data."

"N-able Cove Data Protection for Microsoft 365 is an area with shortcomings that need improvement."

"There could be a possibility to create a local NAS backup for infrastructure."

"One area I don't like has to do with the agent that goes on the system... if a system stays offline for some length of time, say for a week or so, I may have to go back in and reinstall the agent to get it back in business. I don't know what's causing that."

"This solution is not very good for image restores, mainly just files. The solution also does not allow you to enable or disable backups. Sometimes, our users will connect via mobile device and it will use their data to perform the backup. If they were able to enable and disable the backup, they would not have this issue."

"We don't use the solution’s automated recovery testing because SolarWinds made me cross. When they released it, I went, "Oh, well, that's quite good." Because if you use the system, then it supposedly spins up, and on the portal, it gives you a screenshot of the booted device. So, I phoned up, and I said, "Oh, that's really quite cool. How much is that?" They said, "No, no, no. It's all included in your license." I went, "Okay then," and went and deployed it on about half the fleet. One of the options that our customers have is they can pay us a small amount every month for us to test the recovery just to prove that it's viable, and I thought, "Well, this will do that for us. Nice." Then, in the next invoice, we got a charge for it. While It was not a huge amount, I took offense at the fact that we were told that it would be a no extra cost option that was part of our license, but it turns out that it's chargeable. Therefore, we haven't used it since."

More N-able Cove Data Protection cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."

"We have a perpetual license."

"The pricing is affordable. N-able Cove Data Protection has a direct-to-cloud architecture, but it also allows saving backups locally without extra storage costs."

"There is no per node cost, at least not the way I am doing it. I am on bulk. New customers can be set up on a trial, where they can get things all squared away, then they can switch over to being a billed customer."

"Cove only takes the data you have on the physical server. I can back that up for long periods of time, and I don't accrue high charges to have the data in the cloud. It stays at one rate. This allows me to forecast payment for the next one or two years and show clients their estimated growth."

"The pricing, for now, is good. The package that they gave us recently is pretty good. It depends on how many clients you have, and you pay for certain terabytes per license. These terabytes, if not used, are pooled together."

"N-able Cove Data Protection is an averagely-priced product."

"The price isn't extreme, but I'd love to pay less."

"The pricing of SolarWinds seems to be fair compared to the rest of the industry."

"I believe that the price is very reasonable in comparison to other options. It is cheaper than both Redstor and Acronis and, since we are now using our own on-premise cloud, there is absolutely no comparison since we have unlimited storage rather than paying per gigabyte used for their onsite storage. We are currently able to backup fifty computers for the same price that we use to backup five computers."

More N-able Cove Data Protection pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Real Estate/Law Firm

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.

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 N-able Backup?

The initial setup of N-able Cove Data Protection was very easy.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for N-able Backup?

In terms of pricing, N-able Cove Data Protection is neither cheap nor expensive compared to other competitors.

What needs improvement with N-able Backup?

N-able Cove Data Protection does not provide a lot of SaaS backup products, which is an area they can improve. Additionally, there are some limitations on the storage side, where I cannot have a lo...

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Product Reports

Backup and Recovery

Download Bacula Enterprise product report

N-able Cove Data Protection

Download N-able Cove Data Protection product report

Also Known As

No data available

N-able Backup, SolarWinds Backup, SolarWinds MSP Backup & Recovery, SolarWinds MSP Backup

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

Cove Data Protection, from N-able, is a comprehensive solution designed to safeguard critical business data. It offers a range of features including backup and recovery, disaster recovery, and endpoint protection. With automated backups and flexible scheduling options, it ensures data is protected and easily recoverable.

The solution also includes advanced security measures such as encryption and ransomware detection to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. Cove Data Protection provides seamless integration with various platforms and offers centralized management for efficient monitoring and control.

With its user-friendly interface and robust capabilities, Cove Data Protection is an ideal choice for businesses seeking reliable data protection.

N-able

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.

Computer Depot, Leading Edge Computers, IT Logic Australia

Bacula Enterprise vs. N-able Cove Data Protection