BorgBackup vs rsnapshot
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?
BorgBackup
Deduplicating archiver with compression and encryption
VS
rsnapshot
Filesystem snapshot utility based on rsync
| Feature | BorgBackup | rsnapshot |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Python | Perl |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,588 | ★ 3,662 |
| First released | 2015 | 2003 |
| Replaces | Carbonite, Backblaze | Time Machine |
Why pick each one
Choose rsnapshot if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Perl
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is BorgBackup or rsnapshot better?
Neither is universally better. BorgBackup has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are BorgBackup and rsnapshot free and open-source?
Yes. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and rsnapshot under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BorgBackup and rsnapshot with Docker?
BorgBackup: check the project docs for container support. rsnapshot: check the project docs for container support.