SHSelfHostIndex

Backrest vs Tarsnap GUI

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 TA Tarsnap GUI Cross-platform desktop front end for Tarsnap backups
FeatureBackrestTarsnap GUI
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0BSD-2-Clause
LanguageTypeScriptC++
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarybinary, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 250
First released20242016
ReplacesBackblazeBackblaze

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose Tarsnap GUI if…

  • Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Tarsnap GUI details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or Tarsnap GUI 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 Tarsnap GUI free and open-source?

Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Tarsnap GUI under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Backrest and Tarsnap GUI with Docker?

Backrest: yes. Tarsnap GUI: check the project docs for container support.

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