Amanda vs Rclone
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Amanda
Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver
VS
Rclone
Sync and copy files to dozens of cloud providers
| Feature | Amanda | Rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 267 | ★ 58,995 |
| First released | 1991 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Veeam, CommVault | Backblaze |
Why pick each one
Choose Amanda if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Amanda or Rclone better?
Rclone is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Amanda if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Amanda and Rclone free and open-source?
Yes. Amanda is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Amanda and Rclone with Docker?
Amanda: check the project docs for container support. Rclone: yes.