Bacula Enterprise vs Dell Avamar comparison

Bacula Systems and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the Backup and Recovery category. Bacula Systems is ranked #25 with an average rating of 10.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.2. Bacula Systems holds a 0.9% mindshare in BRS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Bacula Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Bacula Enterprise

Read 10 Bacula Enterprise reviews

1,044 Views
904 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Dell Avamar

Read 89 Dell Avamar reviews

6,818 Views
4,993 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Bacula Enterprise

Dell Avamar

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Dell Avamar and Bacula Enterprise compete in the data backup and recovery market. Bacula Enterprise seems to hold the upper hand due to its flexibility and customization options according to user feedback.

Features: Dell Avamar is recognized for its data deduplication capabilities, efficient backup processes, and user-friendly interface. Bacula Enterprise stands out for its flexibility, extensive customization options, and robust features suitable for complex environments.

Room for Improvement: Dell Avamar could enhance its scalability, support for diverse environments, and user interface. Bacula Enterprise could improve its configuration process, documentation, and ease of use, particularly for new users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Dell Avamar has a straightforward deployment process, but customer service feedback is mixed. Bacula Enterprise's deployment can be more complex due to its flexibility, but users rate its customer service more favorably.

Pricing and ROI: Dell Avamar has a higher upfront cost, with some users questioning its ROI. Bacula Enterprise is also not inexpensive, but users perceive it to deliver better long-term value due to its comprehensive features and resultant ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar

March 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

25th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (18th)

Dell Avamar

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Deduplication Software (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell Avamar is 3.5%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Backup and Recovery

Featured Reviews

GiovanniRamirez

Senior IT Consultant at Xerif

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…

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Rahul Sarangdhar

Senior Specialist at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Works excellently for on-prem backup but not the best for Azure backups

Avamar is not the best tool when it comes to taking Azure backups. Like Commvault, if Avamar can support VM-level backups for the cloud, that would make it a bit better. There is another Dell EMC tool called NetWorker, which is a bit centralized tool. If you deploy a storage node locally, you can use the same UI tool for central management, but in the case of Avamar, it needs to be deployed individually on a site, irrespective of whether it's small or big. So, if I have 10 sites, I have to manage 10 Avamar. That's a bit of a headache. The Dell EMC solution professionals who connect with the clients should suggest NetWorker to clients with multiple sites rather than Avamar. That's because NetWorker gives more centralized control, but they keep recommending Avamar, which isn't the best practice. There are no free or cheaper training plans. Unless your company is a partner with Dell, you don't get the student guide training, etc. Their administrator guide does not have all the information required for a new person. It doesn't cover the basics. The student guide is good, but it's not free. If you are a partner, only then it's free. Otherwise, there is a cost of $2,000 to $3,000. For people who are new to Avamar, there should be some resources to enable them to study on their own at least 50% of the basics. If I want to study Commvault, I get so many documents and resources to study, but in the case of Dell EMC products, there aren't any free resources. Only if you're a partner, the resources are available for you to learn. The user manuals and administrator guides are just for deployment. They aren't good for learning the basics for a fresher.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

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

"Bacula is pretty stable."

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

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

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

"The setup is very easy."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"The performance of Dell EMC Avamar is good."

"I always recommend Dell Avamar to our enterprise customers because the product is costly, and enterprise customers can afford it."

"The entire system operates seamlessly, with minimal hands-on involvement, allowing us to focus on monitoring rather than constant adjustments or deployments, as seen in larger, more dynamic environments."

"We sell Avamar with Data Domain. Data Domain and Avamar work really well together and their compression ratios are very high compared to Veeam, Commvault, and all the other backup software on the market."

"Dell EMC Avamar has many valuable features. It's very stable and it's easy to manage."

"All the features in the system are highly valuable."

More Dell Avamar pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."

"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."

"When you get down to doing certain things, such as somebody wants a particular file restored, the process by which you do that is stupid. You kind of have to know exactly where to look for in order to find it. Even on older backup products that I've used, I didn't have that kind of problem. If we were looking for a file with a particular kind of a name, the solution would find that file anywhere irrespective of where it resides within the backup system. So, we didn't have to know the name of the specific server, the specific timeframe, almost all the characters of the file name, and all kinds of data in order to find a file. In Avamar, we got to know these details. We've gone around and around with them on that, and their attitude seems to be that it is working just fine. There is nothing for them to improve. The organizational system of other products that I'm working with, such as Zerto and Cohesity, seems to be centered around the tasks that you would most commonly do and want to do, as opposed to we've laid it out in a really neat technical hierarchy."

"Avamar is still competitive because of the way we have deployed it, but we need to diversify and shift away from specific technologies. In addition to hypervisors, virtual machines, and bare metal servers, our customers need protection for Microsoft 365, SaaS, and the public cloud, so we need other technologies in the business to cater to those customers' needs. Those are the enhancements we would want from the Avamar platform, but that's not likely to happen. Dell has PowerProtect and Apex backup services. There are other Dell solutions that we'll use to fulfill our customers' requirements."

"Avamar cannot back up Nutanix as a virtual solution."

"It would be better if we could integrate easily with other platforms."

"If you don't have DPA, the reporting features are not as user-friendly, so reporting is something that they can improve on."

"Setup and deployment of this solution is complex and requires expert engineers."

"Interfaces need to be improved."

"Backup image browse times should be faster."

More Dell Avamar cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."

"We have a perpetual license."

"It's a very high-end solution and comparable to Rubrik and Cohesity."

"It is expensive. Its cost is the main thing."

"It was very expensive before, but after integrating it with Dell EMC Avamar Data Protection suite licensing, we are getting better discounts."

"There are licensing costs for Dell EMC Avamar and it is paid annually."

"It is very expensive. It's a trust based licensing. So that's an ethical challenge."

"The cost is high."

"It was approximately $70-80,000 when it was under support, but right now EMC has not been supporting this product for two years."

"Dell EMC needs to lower Avamar's price and add more features to stay competitive."

More Dell Avamar pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

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.

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What needs improvement with Bacula Enterprise?

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

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What is your primary use case for Bacula Enterprise?

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell EMC Avamar?

I don't currently have detailed knowledge about the pricing, however, it is geared towards enterprise businesses and might be on the higher side.

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell Avamar?

Easy to configure and highly reliable for backup.

See all answers

Comparisons

Bareos vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 52% of the time

UrBackup vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 18% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

Veritas NetBackup vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 3% of the time

More Bacula Enterprise Competitors

Dell PowerProtect Data Manager vs Dell Avamar

Compared 34% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Dell Avamar

Compared 15% of the time

Dell NetWorker vs Dell Avamar

Compared 11% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

Rubrik vs Dell Avamar

Compared 6% of the time

More Dell Avamar Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Backup and Recovery

March 2025

Download Bacula Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell Avamar

March 2025

Download Dell Avamar product report

Also Known As

No data available

Avamar

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

Dell Avamar data protection software delivers flexible and efficient backup and recovery operations that can scale from daily backup protection for endpoints to high-performance protection for large enterprises with diverse applications and workloads. With application consistent recovery, automation and fast backup and restores, Avamar can help you meet your SLAs and optimize your backup and recovery processes

If you are deploying all or part of your backup environment to the cloud, Avamar enables you to make the most of your cloud investment, enabling replication, disaster recovery and long-term retention for customers using AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.

Avamar is available as part of Dell Data Protection Suite, which offers comprehensive data protection software applications and tools. Avamar is delivered as software and as a virtual edition.

Dell Technologies

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.

Dodge County, St Laurence's College, FieldCore (a GE Company), Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Getronics, Lewisville Independent School District, EnvisionRxOptions, Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions

Buyer's Guide

Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar

March 2025

Free Report: Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar

Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. Dell Avamar and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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