Backrest vs Kup
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 Barman 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 Minarca BackupNinja Time Machine Eonvelope Yuno Archive Custom Backup Sosse HashBackup
Compare Kup with
choose an app… Rclone Restic Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Duplicacy CKAN Timeshift Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Back In Time Vorta btrbk BackupPC Restic Browser rdiff-backup ElkarBackup alt Snapper ZnapZend Deja Dup Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone
Feature Backrest Kup Category Backup & Recovery Backup & Recovery License GPL-3.0 GPL-2.0 Language TypeScript C++ Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 256 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, binary binary GitHub stars ★ 7,071 ★ 100 First released 2024 2012 Replaces Backblaze Time Machine
Why pick each one
Choose Backrest if… Makes Restic approachable Good scheduling Lightweight Backrest details Choose Kup if… Released under the GPL-2.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly Written in C++ Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM Kup details
Frequently asked questions Is Backrest or Kup better? Neither is universally better. Backrest has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Backrest and Kup free and open-source? Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Kup under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Backrest and Kup with Docker? Backrest: yes. Kup: check the project docs for container support.