Barman 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 | Barman | pgBackRest |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 88 · Excellent | 89 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Python | C |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,244 | ★ 4,402 |
| First released | 2012 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Veeam | Veeam |
What are Barman and pgBackRest?
Barman
Barman is a disaster recovery tool for PostgreSQL servers that manages backups and point-in-time recovery. It supports remote backups, retention policies, and WAL archiving.
- Point-in-time recovery
- Retention policy management
- Remote backup 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
Barman vs pgBackRest: key differences
Barman is written in Python, while pgBackRest is built with C. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Barman versus MIT for pgBackRest. PgBackRest lists first-class Docker deployment; Barman does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Barman if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Active community (3.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
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 Barman 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 Barman and pgBackRest free and open-source?
Yes. Barman is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pgBackRest under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Barman and pgBackRest with Docker?
Barman: check the project docs for container support. pgBackRest: yes.