SHSelfHostIndex

Backrest vs WAL-G

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 WA WAL-G Archival and restoration tool for databases
FeatureBackrestWAL-G
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyHard
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarydocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 4,215
First released20242017
ReplacesBackblazepgBackRest

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose WAL-G if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (4.2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Go
WAL-G details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or WAL-G better?

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

Are Backrest and WAL-G free and open-source?

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

Can I run Backrest and WAL-G with Docker?

Backrest: yes. WAL-G: yes.

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