Back In Time vs CKAN
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?
Compare Back In Time with
choose an app… Rclone Restic Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Barman mydumper Rustic pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver btrbk BackupPC Restic Browser rdiff-backup ElkarBackup alt Snapper ZnapZend Deja Dup Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Kup
Compare CKAN with
choose an app… Syncthing LocalSend MinIO Rclone copyparty Puter croc Spacedrive Nextcloud File Browser Restic SeaweedFS Cloudreve Magic Wormhole Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Barman mydumper Rustic pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Wayback btrbk mail-archiver Backup tool nono Plakar borgmatic Autorestic BackupPC MySQL backup XtraBackup Restic REST Server Gickup Stash by AppsCode Restic alt MiniBackup Restic Browser rdiff-backup Bareos ElkarBackup alt Snapper zrepl K8up Ganymede Bupstash UrBackup Kanister linux-timemachine ZFS Autobackup MySQL Backup Container Restic Cron ZnapZend Restic Mailer BorgWarehouse Deja Dup Burp Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Knoxite ArchivesSpace ElkarBackup Collective Access - Providence Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Duplicity Conserve Backup Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Tarsnap GUI Minarca Backup DAR Obnam2 Rdiffweb Restic Exporter Kup Minarca BackupNinja Time Machine Eonvelope Yuno Archive Custom Backup Sosse HashBackup
Feature Back In Time CKAN Category Backup & Recovery Backup & Recovery License GPL-2.0 AGPL-3.0 Language Python Python Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 128 MB 512 MB Deployment binary bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 2,641 ★ 5,088 First released 2008 2026 Replaces Time Machine —
Why pick each one
Choose Back In Time if… Released under the GPL-2.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly Active community (2.6k GitHub stars) Written in Python Back In Time details Choose CKAN if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars Written in Python Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM CKAN details
Frequently asked questions Is Back In Time or CKAN better? Neither is universally better. CKAN has the larger community, while Back In Time is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Back In Time and CKAN free and open-source? Yes. Back In Time is licensed under GPL-2.0 and CKAN under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Back In Time and CKAN with Docker? Back In Time: check the project docs for container support. CKAN: check the project docs for container support.