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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
28th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (19th)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Deduplication Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is 2.0%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager2.0%
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
Other97.0%
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.
Pranav Telang - PeerSpot reviewer
DGM at Airtel Digital
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

"The solution has had a tremendous impact on our public company, as we are now cost-effective and even better on performance with our restorations."
"The support is outstanding and world-class."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"We have been using it for several years and we are very satisfied with how easy it is to configure and set up and run backups."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"The most valuable feature is the support for Linux servers."
"Technical support is excellent in my opinion."
"I would say flexibility is the most important feature of the product. The performance and speed are the best on the market."
"The major benefit I have seen from using Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is that the backup window is significantly reduced, resulting in substantially faster backup times than other backup solutions while also providing data reduction and longer retention policies that exceed what standard backup solutions offer."
"So far all of the features have been good."
"Dell PowerProtect Data Manager works only with Data Domain in the backend, and both products work very well together as a very powerful solution."
"The management part of Dell PowerProtect Data Manager has improved significantly."
"With this product, you can get data from most operating systems on the first attempt because NetWorker as a part of PowerProtect is efficient and is maybe the fastest backup software that I know of."
"It's the perfect solution for virtual and container directives. The data reduction feature works well, and we haven't had any issues."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
 

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."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"Relying solely on a desktop is a bit frustrating as its GUI isn't exactly responsive."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"The interface needs to be easier for adding new devices to be managed."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."
"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."
"As a new product, there are some things that still need to improve a bit as it matures."
"Regarding the pricing aspect, setup cost, and licensing, in comparison to others such as StoreOnce or ExaGrid, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is a little costlier than other solutions."
"A lot of improvement is required in Dell's first level of support."
"PowerProtect Data Manager is missing a feature for takeout, which means I cannot store backup data off-site within the software. This is a limitation for organizations that require off-site solutions."
"They should include a feature similar to S3 bucket."
"Based on my use cases with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, I would like to see alerts improved, as streamlining the alerts could help."
"The tape-out support and tight integration with Data Domain are advantages, but they can be treated as disadvantages because Dell PowerProtect Data Manager only supports Data Domain as a backup target."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

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 Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
Regarding the price, I think it is reasonable and competitive. While it does not come to my head, the support for licensing and getting the license file for implementation is okay, but I am still n...
What needs improvement with Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
About the recovery orchestration feature, sometimes we have a struggle, but we have no problem right now. We can use it, and we are using this feature. It is working correctly. Improving Dell Power...
What is your primary use case for Dell PowerProtect Data Manager?
In Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, we are using it for retention policies. The retention lock policy is a very important feature for us. We have also achieved a reduction policy of about sixty-five...
 

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: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.