SHSelfHostIndex

btrbk 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?
BT btrbk Backup tool for Btrfs subvolume snapshots VS RS rsnapshot Filesystem snapshot utility based on rsync
Featurebtrbkrsnapshot
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectRead-the-docs project
Health score78 · Good72 · Good
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseGPL-3.0GPL-2.0
LanguagePerlPerl
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM64 MB64 MB
Deploymentbare-metal, binarybinary, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 2,155★ 3,683
First released20142003
ReplacesTime MachineTime Machine

What are btrbk and rsnapshot?

btrbk

btrbk is a backup tool for creating and managing snapshots of Btrfs subvolumes and replicating them to local or remote targets. It is designed for incremental, atomic backups driven by a simple configuration file.

  • Incremental Btrfs backups
  • Remote replication over SSH
  • Configurable retention
  • Atomic snapshots

rsnapshot

rsnapshot is a filesystem snapshot utility built on rsync that makes incremental backups of local and remote machines. It uses hard links to keep multiple full backups while saving disk space.

  • Hard-link snapshot rotation
  • Local and remote backups
  • Low storage overhead

btrbk vs rsnapshot: key differences

Both projects are written in Perl. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for btrbk versus GPL-2.0 for rsnapshot. Rsnapshot is the more established project (first released 2003), while btrbk arrived in 2014.

Why pick each one

Choose btrbk if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Active community (2.2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Perl
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM

Watch out for

  • Btrfs only
  • No graphical interface
btrbk details

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
rsnapshot details

Frequently asked questions

Is btrbk or rsnapshot better?

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

Are btrbk and rsnapshot free and open-source?

Yes. btrbk is licensed under GPL-3.0 and rsnapshot under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run btrbk and rsnapshot with Docker?

btrbk: check the project docs for container support. rsnapshot: check the project docs for container support.

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