SHSelfHostIndex

Back In Time vs Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone

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?
BA Back In Time Simple backup tool inspired by Apple Time Machine VS BA Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Cross-platform backup tool with deduplication and encryption
FeatureBack In TimeBackblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectRead-the-docs project
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-2.0GPL-3.0
LanguagePythonRust
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinarybinary
GitHub stars★ 2,669★ 500
First released20082020
ReplacesTime MachineTime Machine, Backblaze

What are Back In Time and Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone?

Back In Time

Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux inspired by Time Machine and rsnapshot. It takes snapshots of specified folders using rsync and hard links to save disk space.

  • Time Machine-style snapshots
  • Hard-link deduplication
  • GUI and command-line modes

Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone

Pika Backup is a simple desktop backup application for GNOME built on BorgBackup. It focuses on protecting personal data with encrypted, deduplicated, and compressed backups.

  • GNOME desktop backup app
  • Encrypted Borg archives
  • Simple scheduling

Back In Time vs Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone: key differences

Back In Time is written in Python, while Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone is built with Rust. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Back In Time versus GPL-3.0 for Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone. Back In Time is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone. Back In Time is the more established project (first released 2008), while Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone arrived in 2020. Back In Time has the considerably larger community, at 2,669 GitHub stars versus 500.

Why pick each one

Choose Back In Time if…

  • Released under the GPL-2.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Python
Back In Time details

Choose Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in Rust
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone details

Frequently asked questions

Is Back In Time or Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone better?

Neither is universally better. Back In Time has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Back In Time and Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone free and open-source?

Yes. Back In Time is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Back In Time and Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone with Docker?

Back In Time: check the project docs for container support. Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone: check the project docs for container support.

Which is lighter on resources, Back In Time or Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone?

Back In Time has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.

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