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Bacula Enterprise vs IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 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 (14th)
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
51st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus1.1%
Other97.9%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
AS
IT Specialist at Saudi Business Machines - SBM
Has provided straightforward backup and rapid deployment for diverse environments
There is reporting in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, but I'm not very familiar with this area. I always concentrated on getting the customer to do the backup, restore, and related tasks, but there is reporting. IBM has made a decision to withdraw the product and replace it with IBM Data Protect. The correct direction is Data Protect, which includes ransomware detection. With IBM Data Protect, you can add more servers for backup. It's scalable, which is a key feature over Storage Protect and Storage Protect Plus, even more capable than Veritas, because Veritas has an option to make different media servers. You can scale the backup process regardless of the load of the customer. This speeds up the backup and restore process for a complete data center, which cannot be done with any other product. I rate IBM Spectrum Protect Plus 9 out of 10.

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."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"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 most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Reliability, recovery features, and stability are valuable to me."
"The solution is scalable and can be fitted for any customer."
"Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors."
"The solution's stability is high because it is derived from Spectrum Protect."
"There is protection against disasters with good, fast, reliable recovery options."
"Using this tool, we can easily backup and restore or recover the data for PCs and mobiles in case of system crashes."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"The tool needs to increase the number of threats."
"The replication feature is not available."
"Rooms for improvement in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus are installation and configuration because those were difficult. They should try their best to improve those areas. In the next release of the product, better implementation and administration are what we're expecting."
"The solution should allow for backup of iOS snapshots."
"The solution only supports HyperV and VMware but doesn't support Nutanix."
"I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery."
"The backup support for IBM Power Virtualization needs to be added."
"The administration needs to be improved and made simpler to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"The licensing model of Spectrum Protect Plus is more efficient and cheaper compared to the original."
"Clients prefer to buy a perpetual license, but the majority opt for a yearly subscription."
"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"Depends on the licensing options that you choose."
"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."
"If you need to extend it, it can be extended acting like a normal Spectrum Protect with a long archive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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 Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

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 IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
Pricing is good; it is reasonable and more reasonable than any other vendors.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is very simple to deploy for us, but for more clients or competitors, the solution is hard to deploy and to integrate. For our team, deployment of IBM Spectrum Protect Plu...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We are an IT integrator and we need to have a good vision of all recovery and backup recovery solutions. Most frequently, we use Veeam Backup. We use Cohesity. For some old workloads, we use IBM TS...
 

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.
PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.