Backrest vs Kopia

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?
FeatureBackrestKopia
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarybinary, docker
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 13,798
First released20242019
ReplacesBackblazeBackblaze, Carbonite

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose Kopia if…

  • GUI and CLI both available
  • Fast and efficient
  • Modern design
Kopia details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or Kopia better?

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

Are Backrest and Kopia free and open-source?

Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Kopia under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Backrest and Kopia with Docker?

Backrest: yes. Kopia: yes.

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