Backrest vs Barman
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 Backrest 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 Duplicacy CKAN pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup mydumper Rustic Back In Time 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
Compare Barman with
choose an app… Rclone Restic Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Duplicacy CKAN pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Bareos zrepl ZFS Autobackup Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Minarca Backup
Feature Backrest Barman Category Backup & Recovery Backup & Recovery License GPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language TypeScript Python Setup difficulty Easy Hard Min. RAM 256 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, binary bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 7,071 ★ 3,214 First released 2024 2012 Replaces Backblaze Veeam
Why pick each one
Choose Backrest if… Makes Restic approachable Good scheduling Lightweight Backrest details Choose Barman if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Active community (3.2k GitHub stars) Written in Python Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM Barman details
Frequently asked questions Is Backrest or Barman better? Backrest is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Barman if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Backrest and Barman free and open-source? Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Barman under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Backrest and Barman with Docker? Backrest: yes. Barman: check the project docs for container support.