Backrest vs copyparty

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureBackrestcopyparty
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptPython
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 46,121
First released20242019
ReplacesBackblazeDropbox, Google Drive

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose copyparty if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 46.1k GitHub stars
copyparty details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or copyparty better?

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

Are Backrest and copyparty free and open-source?

Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and copyparty under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Backrest and copyparty with Docker?

Backrest: yes. copyparty: yes.

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