BorgBackup vs Puter

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureBorgBackupPuter
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseBSD-3-ClauseAGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentbinary, bare-metaldocker
GitHub stars★ 13,588★ 43,003
First released20152026
ReplacesCarbonite, Backblaze

Why pick each one

Choose BorgBackup if…

  • Excellent space efficiency
  • Strong security
  • Battle-tested
BorgBackup details

Choose Puter if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 43k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
Puter details

Frequently asked questions

Is BorgBackup or Puter better?

Neither is universally better. Puter has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are BorgBackup and Puter free and open-source?

Yes. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Puter under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run BorgBackup and Puter with Docker?

BorgBackup: check the project docs for container support. Puter: yes.

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