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Bacula Enterprise vs Veritas NetBackup 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
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Backup (13th)
Veritas NetBackup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 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 Veritas NetBackup is 1.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Veritas NetBackup1.9%
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
Other97.1%
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…
SunilPanigrahi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Unified backups have protected virtual machines and applications and optimize storage efficiency
Regarding automated disaster recovery, we have not used Veritas NetBackup automated disaster recovery because according to the RFP terms and conditions, we are not supposed to have automated failover or failback, as we are a government entity and cannot violate the rules of the RFP. My feedback about granular recovery in Veritas NetBackup is that we have been doing verifications of the backed-up data to restore from point to point and time to time, focusing on file level or database level. When it comes to integration with cloud services, we have not started because we are a government entity and are not allowed to store any data in the cloud at this time. From security concerns regarding what I would improve about Veritas NetBackup, I think you need to look into this because we found only one encryption option available, which is not that very strong. When I initiate a backup from my laptop or server to the appliance or the tape media using Veritas NetBackup, the encryption channels are not strong, and there are not many options available. Whatever is there is by default and not changeable. We cannot modify any encryption facilities, and security is a big concern nowadays, so you need to look into that. Regarding the functionality part of Veritas NetBackup, I think this encryption feature should be stronger and integrated from point to point, not just at specific levels. When I initiate a backup, all the communication channels involved should be encrypted until it reaches the endpoint, meaning from client to server, server to client, and client device.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"It brought many advantages - such as the learning curve being very light."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"Bacula is pretty stable."
"It works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"It is easy to scale Bacula Enterprise even if your system is growing tremendously in data and servers."
"Best feature is its three-tier backup."
"There's a very nice central console for the administration of all of the instances."
"The solution is stable."
"It provides us with the versatility to back up everything we require which eliminates the need for a secondary backup solution."
"The VM portal and the CloudCatalyst are two of the solution's most valuable features."
"I have seen value delivered to customers I sold Veritas NetBackup to because they now have a reliable solution that they can always depend on, allowing CIOs to sleep better."
"It covers all kinds of different architectures. Plus, it's very user-friendly and it is very reliable"
"The product is stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"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."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"We would like to see an improvement in the functionality of the GUI."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"It could improve its interface or offer a specific screen for the manager of the company."
"I also think they could improve the reporting. They use a web-based software application OpsCenter for the reporting and I see that they haven't made any changes in years."
"Like the other enterprise solutions, Veritas NetBackup isn't easy to implement. It's a little bit hard compared to other solutions like Data Protector for HPE. You have to struggle to learn a lot of features that Veritas NetBackup offers to customers."
"The licensing costs could be more affordable."
"NetBackup is a very old product, and it is based on Linux, which is not user-friendly."
"The database integration could be better."
"The product could improve the user-friendliness and comfort of its environment, especially for those unfamiliar with it."
"Updates were not always consistent."
"The ease of use needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license."
"This is an open-source solution."
"When you compare NetBackup's software licensing system with Veeam's, which is simpler and based on instances (or how many physical machines or virtual machines you want to protect), NetBackup isn't that competitive for smaller scale companies. However, if you're running many large workloads, then NetBackup may be the better option."
"So far I can only say that the license structure could be looked at to be aligned as either capacity-based or traditional."
"It is very expensive. The licensing cost for this solution is on a yearly basis. It is approximately 50k. We will continue using it at least for the next year, but we are currently doing an analysis to switch to some other solution."
"The solution is expensive."
"Veritas NetBackup's pricing is a bit steep when compared to other tools. It is very costly, but service-wise and overall, the Veritas NetBackup is a good product."
"The pricing, of course, can always be better."
"When we consider the quality and value of Veritas NetBackup, it is worth the cost."
"The price is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
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 Business33
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise66
 

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 the best next generation backup tool?
Assuming you have an onprem ecosystem which runs the VMware, physical systems on Win, Linux and Unix and run both traditional DB's and nosql DB's like mongo, then Netbackup (NBU) will be the right ...
What do you like most about Veritas NetBackup?
The most valuable feature of cloud integration is the ability to send data outside of your location. This can be achieved by integrating cloud tier options or other object storage solutions.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veritas NetBackup?
Veritas NetBackup is quite expensive, and sometimes vendors do not suggest it and always recommend different other options, especially after certain points, which is a concern. As far as our core o...
 

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 NetBackup and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,927 professionals have used our research since 2012.