Amanda vs pgBackRest
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Amanda | pgBackRest |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 8 · At risk | 89 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 272 | ★ 4,399 |
| First released | 1991 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Veeam, CommVault | Veeam |
What are Amanda and pgBackRest?
Amanda
Amanda is a mature backup solution that allows an administrator to set up a single backup server to back up multiple hosts to tape, disk, or cloud storage. It is widely used in enterprise environments.
- Centralized network backups
- Tape, disk, and cloud targets
- Mature enterprise tooling
pgBackRest
pgBackRest is a robust backup and restore tool for PostgreSQL that supports full, differential, and incremental backups. It offers parallel processing, encryption, and cloud storage targets.
- Full and incremental backups
- Parallel compression
- S3 and Azure storage support
Amanda vs pgBackRest: key differences
Both projects are written in C. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Amanda versus MIT for pgBackRest. PgBackRest is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Amanda. Amanda is the more established project (first released 1991), while pgBackRest arrived in 2013. PgBackRest has the considerably larger community, at 4,399 GitHub stars versus 272. PgBackRest lists first-class Docker deployment; Amanda does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Amanda if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Choose pgBackRest if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.4k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Amanda or pgBackRest better?
Neither is universally better. pgBackRest has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Amanda and pgBackRest free and open-source?
Yes. Amanda is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and pgBackRest under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Amanda and pgBackRest with Docker?
Amanda: check the project docs for container support. pgBackRest: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Amanda or pgBackRest?
pgBackRest has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Amanda. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.