Backrest vs Velero

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?
FeatureBackrestVelero
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyHard
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarykubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 10,187
First released20242017
ReplacesBackblazeKasten K10

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose Velero if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 10.2k GitHub stars
  • Written in Go
Velero details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or Velero better?

Neither is universally better. Velero has the larger community, while Backrest is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Backrest and Velero free and open-source?

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

Can I run Backrest and Velero with Docker?

Backrest: yes. Velero: check the project docs for container support.

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