Backrest vs SeaweedFS

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?
FeatureBackrestSeaweedFS
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyHard
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 33,952
First released20242015
ReplacesBackblazeAmazon S3

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose SeaweedFS if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 34k GitHub stars
SeaweedFS details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or SeaweedFS better?

Neither is universally better. SeaweedFS 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 SeaweedFS free and open-source?

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

Can I run Backrest and SeaweedFS with Docker?

Backrest: yes. SeaweedFS: yes.

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