bup vs SeaweedFS

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

Not the right match-up?
FeaturebupSeaweedFS
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseLGPL-2.1Apache-2.0
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentbinarydocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 7,337★ 33,952
First released20102015
ReplacesTime MachineAmazon S3

Why pick each one

Choose bup if…

  • Released under the LGPL-2.1 license
  • Mature project with 7.3k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
bup details

Choose SeaweedFS if…

  • Released under the Apache-2.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 34k GitHub stars
SeaweedFS details

Frequently asked questions

Is bup or SeaweedFS better?

Neither is universally better. SeaweedFS has the larger community, while bup is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are bup and SeaweedFS free and open-source?

Yes. bup is licensed under LGPL-2.1 and SeaweedFS under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run bup and SeaweedFS with Docker?

bup: check the project docs for container support. SeaweedFS: yes.

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