Amanda vs zrepl
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Amanda | zrepl |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 8 · At risk | 70 · Good |
| 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, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 272 | ★ 1,159 |
| First released | 1991 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Veeam, CommVault | Veeam |
What are Amanda and zrepl?
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
zrepl
zrepl is a one-stop solution for automated ZFS snapshot management and replication. It handles taking snapshots, pruning them per policy, and replicating datasets between machines with a simple daemon and configuration.
- Automatic ZFS snapshots
- Push and pull replication
- Flexible pruning policies
- Single daemon
Amanda vs zrepl: key differences
Amanda is written in C, while zrepl is built with Go. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Amanda versus MIT for zrepl. Zrepl is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Amanda. Amanda is the more established project (first released 1991), while zrepl arrived in 2017. Zrepl has the considerably larger community, at 1,159 GitHub stars versus 272.
Why pick each one
Choose Amanda if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Choose zrepl if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Watch out for
- ZFS required
- YAML configuration
Frequently asked questions
Is Amanda or zrepl better?
zrepl 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 zrepl free and open-source?
Yes. Amanda is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and zrepl under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Amanda and zrepl with Docker?
Amanda: check the project docs for container support. zrepl: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Amanda or zrepl?
zrepl has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Amanda. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.