Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Protect 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 #14 with an average rating of 7.3. Bacula Systems holds a 1.0% mindshare in BRS, compared to IBM’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Bacula Systems users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 86% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Bacula Enterprise

Read 10 Bacula Enterprise reviews

1,067 Views
822 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Protect

Read 149 IBM Spectrum Protect reviews

3,421 Views
2,509 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Bacula Enterprise

IBM Spectrum Protect

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

IBM Spectrum Protect and Bacula Enterprise compete in the data protection category. Based on user reviews, IBM Spectrum Protect is favored for deployment and customer service, while Bacula Enterprise is preferred for pricing and feature robustness.

Features: Users praise IBM Spectrum Protect for its comprehensive data backup and recovery features, scalability, and reliability. Bacula Enterprise stands out for its flexible and customizable backup solutions, extensive platform support, and advanced scheduling capabilities.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Protect users mention improvements needed in documentation quality, system setup complexity, and a steep initial learning curve. Bacula Enterprise users point to the need for enhanced technical support, better integration capabilities, and more effective user support structures.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Protect users commend the straightforward deployment process and professional customer service. Bacula Enterprise users report a more technical deployment requiring specialized knowledge but value its extensive documentation. Customer service received mixed reviews for Bacula Enterprise.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Protect users find it pricier with a slower ROI due to higher initial setup costs. Bacula Enterprise offers cost-effectiveness and faster ROI, seen as a budget-friendly option with competitive features. Despite higher costs, IBM's feature set and support merit consideration for more extensive enterprise needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

June 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

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Backup (16th)

IBM Spectrum Protect

Ranking in Backup and Recovery

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

149

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 is 2.2%, up from 2.2% 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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Syed Habib

Head of Infrastructure Security (S.A.V.P) at EXIM Bank Ltd

Manageable and comprehensive and integrates robust backup features for core banking

It's adequate for my core banking, however, I am looking for another solution for all systems. It is not compatible with other operating systems like Windows or Linux, and lacks a consolidated dashboard from Browser Spectrum. This is why I am searching for another solution. The product also lacks any centralized graphical user interface (GUI), such as Jarek Pod, and I am limited to using a console-based text user interface, which my local partner handles completely.

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 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."

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

"Bacula is pretty stable."

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

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

"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."

"Traditional storage works perfectly with it."

"We can scale. Today, we have an average backup volume of 100TB a day."

"All other products contain the same features, but when I'm backing up an IBM Power server I feel more comfortable with IBM Spectrum Protect because it's the same vendor."

"One of the features which is most interesting in Spectrum Protect is the ability to scale out to great environments. This is something that not many vendors have on the market."

"Everyone wants a full backup. It gives them safety and peace of mind, like an insurance policy for that rainy day when they may need to restore a system."

"Support of the IBM X platform and the backup data replication to DR are the most valuable features."

"Its incremental forever approach is valuable, so we don't have to load tapes to do a restore."

"A robust tool which allows us to backup pretty much any environment, virtual or physical."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pros

Cons

"We are looking for a unique interface that can rule both enterprise and open source editions. Such a thing does not yet exist."

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

"The initial setup could be a bit easier."

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

"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."

"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."

"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."

"When it comes to virtualization in IBM it's not perfect."

"For Spectrum Protect Plus, I would like to see more enhanced reporting features and integration with Spectrum Protect."

"In the next version of the solution, I would like to see cloud support."

"Although I am not a technical user, I would say the cloud integration features could be improved."

"The product should be improved to save more space."

"Its management part can be better and simplified. It is kind of a beast as compared to Commvault or Veeam, but they are more user-friendly. They are also easier to learn, whereas Spectrum Protect definitely takes time. They should simplify it. Our teams are pretty comfortable with it because we have been using it for a long time, but from the perspective of a new user who is evaluating or using this solution, it is definitely more complex in terms of manageability. Its monitoring could be improved so that it can even monitor the jobs that are scheduled by external schedulers. There are situations where a database team might decide to use their own schedulers, but currently, Spectrum Protect is not able to catch those jobs in the Operation Manager console."

"The solution should improve the ability to monitor backup failure."

"It could use single store. The ability to mark an archive from my backup for long-term retention."

More IBM Spectrum Protect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."

"This is an open-source solution."

"Technical support is pretty good. It is doing fine, but you pay for it."

"The solution has a capacity based licensing, front and back-end license."

"The solution is expensive."

"It is very scalable, but the downside is that it costs money."

"Going to IBM Tech University Conference saved me from making a major purchase of the wrong thing, which was very helpful."

"Regarding retro-compatibility of the product between versions, your data is always available and the ROI is unquestionable."

"IBM provides an open license policy, which is more like a gentlemen's agreement."

"Its licensing is complicated. It goes by CPUs, and it is pretty expensive as well."

More IBM Spectrum Protect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Educational Organization

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?

See all answers

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect?

IBM Spectrum Protect is stable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect?

It's expensive. I acknowledge the cost associated with it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect?

One point for improvement for IBM Spectrum Protect is security, as IBM has not been investing as much as in the past. There is a need for additional layers of security to fill the gaps, which is wh...

See all answers

Comparisons

Bareos vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 48% of the time

UrBackup vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 16% of the time

Veeam Data Platform vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 4% of the time

HPE StoreOnce vs Bacula Enterprise

Compared 1% of the time

More Bacula Enterprise Competitors

Veeam Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 15% of the time

Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain) vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 12% of the time

Commvault Cloud vs IBM Spectrum Protect

Compared 10% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Protect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Backup and Recovery

June 2025

Download Bacula Enterprise product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Spectrum Protect

June 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Protect product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM TSM, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

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 (Tivoli Storage Manager) is a data protection platform that gives enterprises a single point of control and administration for backup and recovery. It is the flagship product in the IBM Spectrum Protect (Tivoli Storage Manager) family. It enables reliable, cost effective backups and fast recovery for virtual, physical and cloud environments of all sizes.

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.

CERN, Einstein Healthcare, Nyherji, Allianz Australia, TZM, ABT Online, NCT, Kindred Healthcare Inc., Cobalt Iron, TransGrid, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Cash America, Piedmont Healthcare, RWGV, Arkansas Tech University, British Columbia Institute of Technology

Buyer's Guide

Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

June 2025

Free Report: Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect

Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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