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Bacula Enterprise vs Retrospect Backup comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
53rd
Ranking in Cloud Backup
34th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Retrospect Backup
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
80th
Ranking in Cloud Backup
65th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of Bacula Enterprise is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Retrospect Backup is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Bacula Enterprise1.0%
Retrospect Backup0.5%
Other98.5%
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…
Sujeet Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Lighthouse Solutions
Can be used to back up servers and desktops, but needs to have an Oracle agent for its on-premises model
Retrospect Backup has a single console that can be used to manage and backup servers and desktops. The solution supports tape and cloud since certain customers are still on tape. The solution provides a dissimilar hardware restore feature. If you have a complete machine burnout, you can restore it on new dissimilar hardware. Retrospect Backup is used to protect file data and SQL databases. Streamlining data backup processes with Retrospect Backup is automated and does not need any human intervention. The solution doesn't take up much time and does the backups automatically. Policy creation is very easy with Retrospect Backup. Once it's done, you don't have to bother about it because it keeps working on its own. A disaster recovery (DR) solution has been built into Retrospect Backup. You can restore the whole machine on a fresh setup with ISO images. Retrospect Backup is very easy to use and not very complicated. Creating policies and adding clients is very easy in the solution. The solution doesn't take up much LAN bandwidth except for the first full backup. The solution is efficient and does the backups really fast. It takes backups in batches of 14 machines at a time.

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 most valuable feature is its ease of use; it works great and it provides you with several standard tools to restore your backup, even after a big failure."
"Bacula is very solid, very stable, and very scalable."
"The most valuable features are the special plugins such as SAP HANA databases, Microsoft SQL, and various types of virtualization."
"It can be used in virtually any environment we have onsite."
"The most valuable feature is the support for Linux servers."
"Bacula Enterprise, so far, has never let us down with their service and support."
"The solution has extensive documentation and a very active community."
"Retrospect Backup has a single console that can be used to manage and backup servers and desktops."
 

Cons

"The interface needs to be easier for adding new devices to be managed."
"Relying solely on a desktop is a bit frustrating as its GUI isn't exactly responsive."
"A more user-friendly interface (GUI) can be developed."
"Many features have been converted to commercial licensing, which restricts their availability."
"The initial setup could be a bit easier."
"Easier setup and configuration, perhaps including a GUI, would be an improvement."
"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."
"Retrospect Backup needs to have an Oracle agent for its on-premises model."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution."
"We have a perpetual license."
"Retrospect Backup is more cost-effective compared to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

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.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Veeam Software, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Rubrik and others in Backup and Recovery. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.