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.
Not the right match-up?
Amanda
Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver
VS
zrepl
Automated ZFS snapshot replication and pruning
| Feature | Amanda | zrepl |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | ★ 267 | ★ 1,151 |
| First released | 1991 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Veeam, CommVault | Veeam |
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
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.