SHSelfHostIndex

Backrest vs SnapRAID

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?
BA Backrest Web UI and orchestrator for Restic backups VS SN SnapRAID Parity-based backup for disk arrays of large files
FeatureBackrestSnapRAID
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptC
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarybinary, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 2,543
First released20242011
ReplacesBackblazeunRAID parity

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose SnapRAID if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Active community (2.5k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
SnapRAID details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or SnapRAID better?

Backrest is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider SnapRAID if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Backrest and SnapRAID free and open-source?

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

Can I run Backrest and SnapRAID with Docker?

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

Related comparisons