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Veritas Backup Exec 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

Veritas Backup Exec
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Veritas NetBackup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Veritas Backup Exec is 1.8%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veritas NetBackup is 3.8%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Q&A Highlights

MP
Jan 23, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Wesam Qashou - PeerSpot reviewer
A mature backup solution, with many features, and great support
Veritas NetBackup is the first line of defense when disaster strikes. Before performing disaster recovery, we must have a good backup of our image that is also protected from ransomware. This way, we have a golden image that is resilient to ransomware attacks. We saw the benefits of Veritas NetBackup within the first three months.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is easy to set up and use for daily processes and a good solution for preserving crucial data."
"Good open file option feature, SQL agent, and EM agent."
"The solution is very scalable. Whenever we grew, it was just a matter of adding new licenses, so it's easy to grow."
"The product makes it easy to restore data."
"Its reliability and the fact that we have all the skills that we need for Veritas Backup Exec are the most valuable."
"It is one of the most stable backup solutions."
"The most valuable feature of Veritas Backup Exec is the ease of use."
"We have virtual infrastructure, so restoring virtual machine systems from backups is also very easy."
"The backup and restore features work very well."
"It covers all kinds of different architectures. Plus, it's very user-friendly and it is very reliable"
"Could be used for both of Physical and Virtual Environments."
"It is pretty stable. We have one dedicated technician that is taking care of all the data protect. Typically, we have an issue once a month, if that. Or once every two months."
"I like that it's enterprise-capable. It can handle multiple operating systems. It can handle multiple database types. It can handle a lot of different backup use cases. It's flexible."
"Veritas NetBackup is very user-friendly and has some good quick recovery features."
"The simulation engine is highly valuable as it allows us to simulate what a failure would be like and generate reports."
"The most valuable feature of Veritas NetBackup is the protection policies or protection module."
 

Cons

"There's one common issue with tape backups: the tape might have some space left, but Backup Exec says it's not writable and needs replacement. We've encountered this with multiple clients, so it doesn't seem environment-specific. It's likely related to the software. We usually just format the tape and use it again without much investigation."
"This solution does not support image-level backup of a physical server."
"The integration with SaaS applications like Office 365 needs to be improved."
"Maybe they could improve reporting capabilities and predictions."
"The pricing is an area of improvement and the mode of marketing it."
"If you keep it for too long and the catalog gets really big, the application tends to move slowly."
"Veritas Backup Exec should improve by having a user portal that customers can use."
"The one thing which could be improved, which we have informed Veritas about, is the ability to plug in to the cloud. Meaning, instead of using local storage if we're backing up a small user or end user, we want to be able to make it so they can direct the backups directly to the cloud. It can't be done at the moment. We can only back up to the storage then replicate to the cloud, but we cannot use the cloud as a source of storage."
"NetBackup is a very old product, and it is based on Linux, which is not user-friendly."
"It would be extremely helpful if the solution offered near-zero recovery time for SQL."
"I would like to have support enabled for cloud backups."
"It should be able to integrate with the cloud. If we leverage a cloud in the future for backup, there should be very fast help and more options for customers to choose from."
"The most common problem is the backup failures over the weekend. We have to troubleshoot and sometimes do restores and then we have trouble doing some of the restores."
"The solution is not easy to use. You need to train yourself step by step because it is complex, but it is a good solution. Its pricing could be cheaper."
"Licensing costs are quite high."
"There is room for improvement in the implementation of Power servers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Veritas licensing is somewhat expensive. They have to decrease the price."
"It is not an expensive product."
"I would like to see a better licensing model. They changed it and it's just horrendous."
"The solution costs $700 per agent and is expensive compared to other products that offer better stability."
"I rate the price of Veritas Backup Exec a four out of five."
"The price of this solution is a bit high."
"We are satisfied with the price of this solution."
"Price-wise, most of the backup products are similarly priced, and NetBackup is the same."
"Veritas NetBackup is more expensive than Cohesity and Rubrik, but it is comparable in price to Commvault, IBM, and Dell."
"If you have a complex environment with dozens of different servers and apps, I recommend you look for TB licensing."
"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 price is fair."
"So far I can only say that the license structure could be looked at to be aligned as either capacity-based or traditional."
"If you want to have more scalability you have to purchase more licenses. The license is annually and there are a lot of different licensing depending on the number of terabytes needed. It is not based on per-user, core, or servers. You can backup anything you want using the purchased terabyte space."
"Pricing is expensive, so it could be lower."
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Answers from the Community

MP
Jan 23, 2020
Jan 23, 2020
Both solutions are perfect and great names in data protection. If you have a small or medium setup then go with Backup Exec and if you have a big setup with the latest workload then go with Net Backup. You can get a TB license for all servers which you want to protect.
2 out of 9 answers
it_user762030 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 20, 2020
We have just recently migrated our backups off of Netbackup due to the cost. I do not remember the licensing, but the whole product was getting too expensive for not only the product but for the management of the product. We had 6 different pieces in the environment due to some configuration designs. So we have moved to a product that we pay so much for the hardware and then a license for the amount of data we ingest through that product. It is one environment management that can handle a large amount of Data Protection.
Bckupdataad67 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 20, 2020
The proper question is not Backupexec or Netbackup but what kind of protection you want to have? We had backup exec for more than 4 years and I can assure you, as a backup administrator, that I had some really hard days related to the proper coverage of servers, applications, and data. Netbackup is the proper choice if you want a serious protection infrastructure but you have to consider the following key facts: -What type of environment do you want to protect? Netbackup works perfectly with VMWare and with mixed environments. I'm not saying that it will not work with other providers but the integration with VMware is one of the greatest pros of this product. -Is the backup time window enough to cover all your resources? With Backupexec I was struggling to have all backup jobs complete in a time frame of 13 hours. With Netbackup and especially in conjunction with their Appliances I was able to add more and more jobs for the very same time frame. -What is your frontend volume? With Netbackup the best solution is to have a Frontend Capacity license. With this license type, there's no need to buy extra licenses for SQL, SharePoint, Exchange, Oracle, etc. It's an all-inclusive license. Furthermore, with the new version 8.2 you don't even have to install agents on servers! The prices may vary but I guess for i.e 20TB capacity the price will be somewhere between 80000 to 100000 euros (1-year maintenance included and assuming a feasible discount). You don't have to pay for an appliance but if you afford it it's highly recommended in order to achieve the best performance and other technologies (i.e AIR, deduplication ratio, etc). I don't really know what is the current status of Backupexec in terms of version, prices, features etc. As a product it's absolutely not comparable to Netbackup On the other hand we have left it behind for good.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veritas Backup Exec?
The price is one of the best. When I compare it with others, it is twice or three times cheaper, however, the functionality is the same.
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?
The product is cost-effective, and I would rate its pricing as an eight out of ten. The pricing model is based on the amount of data transferred, making it manageable for us.
 

Also Known As

Backup Exec, Symantec Backup Exec
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Beta Offshore
Beta Offshore
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