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Bacula Enterprise vs Veritas Backup Exec 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
25th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (12th)
Veritas Backup Exec
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas Backup Exec is 1.6%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Veritas Backup Exec1.6%
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
Other97.4%
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

GiovanniRamirez - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Pawel Augustyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplified interface with good performance but needs monitoring
I need to use PowerStore and Veritas Backup Exec. It is a direct backup to types, and it is supported by my backup. It offers good performance and stability, and it works properly. I am happy with this program. It is still working on aligning with security requirements and data encryption for Amazon or ATAC. It has a lot of functions and security measures, which ensure our backups are secure.

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."
"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 very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"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."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"The interface for this solution is excellent, and it is easy to restore files compared to other solutions."
"Compression is the most valuable feature."
"This solution has a very good technical support department that is very responsive."
"One of the valuable features is the instant recovery for VMs. It reduces the RTO (Recovery Time Objective) drastically."
"It is easy to set up and use for daily processes and a good solution for preserving crucial data."
"We are satisfied with the stability of the product."
"The backup potential of the solution is very good. It's protected us in the past very well and allowed us to get up and running after an attack with minimal loss."
"We have virtual infrastructure, so restoring virtual machine systems from backups is also very easy."
 

Cons

"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"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."
"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."
"Initial setup is a bit complex and needs some expertise for troubleshooting when something goes wrong."
"The deduplication feature can be improved."
"The scalability could be improved even though the solution is targeted to small customers."
"There are some issues with the Backup Exec Library and the random picking of tapes."
"The licensing packet is confusing. If Veritas could do a better job of clarifying it, that would be helpful."
"In the future, their console should not be complicated."
"It is currently missing the dynamic backup feature for virtual machines, which is available in NetWorker. I can create politics in NetWorker to add virtual machines with specific tags, but I cannot do this in Backup Exec, which is a minus point for me. Currently, a user has to send a request to the Backup administrator to add a machine to the backup, but I should be able to create rules to automatically add a new machine to the backup. This kind of functionality is very important in current times, especially when we are using cloud solutions. I should be able to create more than one stream in a policy and specify how many streams I want to run in parallel in one policy. Currently, I have to manually create more policies to backup more than one virtual machine at the same time. Their support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The solution is too heavy and complex with 1,000 menus and options that make it messy rather than lightweight."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"It is affordable, but I hope that the price will come down a lot because of other competitors. It is a good price for the customer, but sometimes, the competition provides a much lower price. There are two ways to license it. You can license it per instance or per terabytes of data that we are mocking up. It is enough because it is not so complex. It is good when you're working with customers."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Its price is a bit high. There is only the standard fee. There is no additional fee."
"Depending on the scenario, it can cost less than half of the price of other methods."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"It has a good price-value ratio. Its price-value ratio is better than Veeam."
"The product is affordable."
"The price is reasonable for the features it offers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
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 Business35
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
How do the backup solutions of Veeam and Veritas compare?
Technically, Veeam is best for hyper-v & VMWare replications, snapshots, HA failover, also support for file system backups inside VMs., support for tape library & FC too. But Veritas Netbac...
What do you like most about Veritas Backup Exec?
The most important feature is the variety of backup applications it supports, including ERP systems and most other programs, such as Microsoft.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Backup Exec, Symantec Backup Exec
 

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.
Beta Offshore
Find out what your peers are saying about Bacula Enterprise vs. Veritas Backup Exec and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.