What users are saying about
Top Rated
25 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 9.7 out of 100
Based on 25 reviews and ratings
106 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 6.7 out of 100
Based on 106 reviews and ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise is not the easiest backup software to work with--you are expected to be competent at the command line and editing complex configuration files, even if you mostly use the web GUI for day-to-day operations. However, study is rewarded--you can do many very complex things. Easy things may not always be easy, but very hard things are possible (unlike many competitors that make easy things easy and hard things impossible).
I would not recommend Bacula to someone who just wants a quick plug and play solution; but in my opinion your backups and disaster recovery system shouldn't be plug and play - that's a great way to feel good about a solution that won't actually work for you when it's needed!
Director of IT, McLean Imaging Center
McLean HospitalHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees
Veritas Backup Exec
My rating would have been higher a few years ago, but nagging problems, primarily noticed since the switch back to Veritas, has increased my dissatisfaction. It is still a solid product for the SMB market. It is a wide variety of options that will fit into just about any scenario that you can think of. Licensing complexity continues to be a issue. It offers solid performance, reasonably good support and a decent interface once you are used to it
Network Engineer
EPMG-Emergency Physicians Medical GroupHospital & Health Care, 501-1000 employees
Feature Rating Comparison
Data Center Backup
Bacula Enterprise
9.5
Veritas Backup Exec
6.6
Universal recovery
Bacula Enterprise
9.1
Veritas Backup Exec
7.7
Live recovery
Bacula Enterprise
9.8
Veritas Backup Exec
8.2
Recovery verification
Bacula Enterprise
9.8
Veritas Backup Exec
8.5
Business application protection
Bacula Enterprise
8.2
Veritas Backup Exec
8.2
Multiple backup destinations
Bacula Enterprise
10.0
Veritas Backup Exec
8.3
Incremental backup identification
Bacula Enterprise
10.0
Veritas Backup Exec
5.4
Backup to the cloud
Bacula Enterprise
9.7
Veritas Backup Exec
7.0
Deduplication and file compression
Bacula Enterprise
10.0
Veritas Backup Exec
4.2
Snapshots
Bacula Enterprise
8.7
Veritas Backup Exec
4.0
Flexible deployment
Bacula Enterprise
8.9
Veritas Backup Exec
7.7
Management dashboard
Bacula Enterprise
9.5
Veritas Backup Exec
5.1
Platform support
Bacula Enterprise
10.0
Veritas Backup Exec
5.0
Retention options
Bacula Enterprise
10.0
Veritas Backup Exec
5.3
Encryption
Bacula Enterprise
9.4
Veritas Backup Exec
8.0
Pros
Bacula Enterprise
- The support services provided by Bacula Systems are superb. They usually respond extremely quickly and have clear and useful answers upfront, which is a welcome change. Their support enabled us to get Bacula Enterprise up and running quickly and well configured, in a relatively short period of time. In addition, they also offer proactive support on a yearly basis. This involves sending an automatically generated report on your system configuration and status from which they provide advice on any issues or configuration problems that they find. I haven't seen this level of proactive support from another company.
- The configuration is extremely powerful and flexible. If you're used to dealing with text-based configuration files then you'll find this system familiar. It also fits well with configuration management tools - in our case, Puppet - allowing the configuration across the whole system to be managed centrally. The flexibility of the system allowed us to have backups running exactly when and how we wanted, performing staging to tape via disk, and with various admin, tasks to automate the handling of tapes within our tape library.
- The command-line console tool allows all operations to be done from the command line. In an emergency situation, or stuck in a datacentre with only a dumb console, being able to do everything via the command line is an important feature to have.
- Bweb is an optional extra that provides a web-based interface for both management and configuration. If you don't want to edit text files and use the command line console tool then Bweb is the best interface to use. We don't use it for configuration (favoring external tools for managing the text-based configuration), but we do use it to monitor backups and perform restores. It provides an excellent overview of what's happening with the system.
- The manuals, whitepapers, and additional documentation cover everything in detail. The whitepapers give a good overview of the installation, concepts, and specific scenarios, whilst the manuals cover in more depth how specific areas work and how the configuration is handled. It's very easy to find out what a particular option means and does.
- The software can run on and is supported on, a wide variety of operating systems, including Ubuntu which is what we use. This is a level of flexibility that was important to us after being tied to RHEL for our previous backup system.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employeesVeritas Backup Exec
- The license/agent deployment feature in Backup Exec facilitates effective and speedy population within your data center.
- Veritas Backup Exec's feature rich job creation is intuitive and simplifies backup strategies.
- Customizable views in the Administrator console allow you to view your backup environment to maximize visibility.
Division Network Support Specialist
The Salvation ArmyNon-Profit Organization Management, 501-1000 employees
Cons
Bacula Enterprise
- Takes a while to get used to the software. It's not something that you can just install and work away with. You need to figure it out first. We did get a free training course when we purchased the Bacula Enterprise version which we found very useful.
- Support Documentation is very in depth but it's a tough read sometimes. Takes a while to understand the concepts from this documentation. Could do with making the documentation a small bit easier to understand.
IT Infrastructure Engineer
DPD IrelandTransportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees
Veritas Backup Exec
- The user interface can sometimes be sluggish and hang between options.The minimum spec is 2Gb but if running on a dedicated server I think 4Gb is recommended
- As more companies seem to be entering the backup software market, Acronis is very aggressive on pricing and even offer discounts if you are replacing other backup solutions, the Backup Exec pricing plans have become a more expensive
- Our version is an older 2014 version and has inadequate support for VM backs

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Consumer Goods Company, 201-500 employeesLikelihood to Renew
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise 9.1
Based on 2 answers
Easy to use, proactive and effective customer support, and simple deployment method. The high configurability is what makes this tool so effective for my organization - at no point do I have any issues of trust as to the restorability of a fileset. The GUI provided gives clear actionable reports as to the effectivity of the jobs performed.

Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Hospitality Company, 11-50 employeesVeritas Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec 1.0
Based on 3 answers
This software is a mess in my brutally honest opinion. I've spent more time babysitting this software while backing up 20 servers than I did with Veeam backing up 600+. I've had multiple jobs run fine for weeks at a time that just randomly fail out of the blue for seemingly no reason whatsoever. There's no intuitive way to chain jobs, so automation becomes somewhat more problematic if certain jobs depend on other jobs. The forever incremental feature feels tacked on since the merge operation merges all your incremental jobs into the most recent backup and doesn't have the option set a limit on how long to keep your point in time restores.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employeesUsability
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise 7.2
Based on 3 answers
It still has a lot of flaws to overcome, especially in the area of user friendliness. Searching and filtering is quite cumbersome. Once you find the job you from which you want to restore, be sure to write that job number down because you won't be able to quickly find the job again without it during a recovery.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Logistics and Supply Chain Company, 1001-5000 employeesVeritas Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec 1.0
Based on 1 answer
It can do a lot of things on paper and sounds terrific, but in practice it doesn't do any of them well. It can easily be sold to non-technical minds and C-levels, but of all the backup solutions I've used in the last 15 years of my career, Backup Exec is easily the least fault tolerant. Unless this software is a sunk cost and you're on a shoestring budget, I recommend almost anything else. Jobs fail often with obscure error codes and the KB articles in the Veritas support portal are a mess. Within 30 days of a fresh deployment I've logged more tickets with their support than I did in 3 years with Veeam.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employeesSupport Rating
Bacula Enterprise
Bacula Enterprise 9.5
Based on 15 answers
We have always been very well served by Bacula Enterprise support. The response time is excellent, and any doubts or problems are resolved quickly and easily, avoiding complications and the evolution of problems that could arise. Only praise for Bacula Enterprise's service and support. The monitoring of the entire process from acquisition to implementation was very well done.
Innovation Director
Prefeitura Municipal de Aparecida de GoiâniaGovernment Administration, 10,001+ employees
Veritas Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec 5.2
Based on 3 answers
In the few instances of having to contact support, our overall outcome was always good. They would have received a better score if the wait time was less, but I attribute this to the timing of support calls - it was during the previous owner's time. We have not had to open a support ticket since Veritas Backup Exec took the product back over.
IT Manager
PrecixAutomotive, 201-500 employees
Implementation Rating
Bacula Enterprise
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Veritas Backup Exec
Veritas Backup Exec 3.0
Based on 1 answer
It was pretty straightforward.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Information Technology & Services Company, 201-500 employeesAlternatives Considered
Bacula Enterprise
I used CTERA almost from the time they started up. In short, it was very easy to use but configuration was limited; and in the end the agents were troublesome and I could not restore files. They had one person on staff who was terrific with tech support, when he left support became difficult and I lost confidence. Acronis was my first experience with a bare-metal recovery operation and it was terrific. Really saved the day. I would still be using it except the licensing was difficult and expensive and the software wasn't Linux friendly.
Director of Information Technology
Architectural Design Consultants, Inc.Architecture & Planning, 11-50 employees
Veritas Backup Exec
If your company is looking at changing solutions or currently does not have any, Veritas Backup Exec is the way to go. Do yourself a favor and try the 60 day trial, you won't be disappointed! Very simple to use and has a great GUI, much better than what the competition has to offer.

Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology
Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employeesReturn on Investment
Bacula Enterprise
- Quite transparently for the applications to allow online backup and guaranteed enough confidence due to its efficient algorithms of verification of media and blocks.
- The cost of purchasing and updating the annual support is very low compared to other "Veeam and Backup Exec" tools that I analyzed in the pre-project phase.
Manage Network and Virtualization
Claudino SARetail, 501-1000 employees
Veritas Backup Exec
- Veritas Backup Exec is good for single file restores. We have had to restore files from a few months back without any problem.
- Veritas has saved us money by reverting work that was overwritten by a past employee.
- Sometimes tapes can be overwritten by accident when you inventory it for restore, which can be an issue.
IT Specialist
Epstein Architecture, Engineering and ConstructionArchitecture & Planning, 201-500 employees
Pricing Details
Bacula Enterprise
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Bacula Enterprise Editions & Modules
—
Additional Pricing Details
—Veritas Backup Exec
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Veritas Backup Exec Editions & Modules
Edition
Veritas Backup Exec | Contact sales team |
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