Bareos vs pgBackRest
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Bareos | pgBackRest |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 89 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | C++ | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,256 | ★ 4,402 |
| First released | 2010 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Veeam, CommVault | Veeam |
What are Bareos and pgBackRest?
Bareos
Bareos is a cross-network open-source backup solution forked from Bacula. It preserves and recovers data from disk, tape, and other media, with a web-based management interface.
- Network-wide backup management
- Web UI for administration
- Tape and disk support
pgBackRest
pgBackRest is a robust backup and restore tool for PostgreSQL that supports full, differential, and incremental backups. It offers parallel processing, encryption, and cloud storage targets.
- Full and incremental backups
- Parallel compression
- S3 and Azure storage support
Bareos vs pgBackRest: key differences
Bareos is written in C++, while pgBackRest is built with C. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Bareos versus MIT for pgBackRest. PgBackRest is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Bareos. Bareos is the more established project (first released 2010), while pgBackRest arrived in 2013. PgBackRest has the considerably larger community, at 4,402 GitHub stars versus 1,256.
Why pick each one
Choose Bareos if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
Choose pgBackRest if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.4k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is Bareos or pgBackRest better?
Neither is universally better. pgBackRest has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Bareos and pgBackRest free and open-source?
Yes. Bareos is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pgBackRest under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Bareos and pgBackRest with Docker?
Bareos: yes. pgBackRest: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Bareos or pgBackRest?
pgBackRest has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Bareos. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.