CKAN vs Timeshift
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?
Compare CKAN with
choose an app… Syncthing LocalSend MinIO Rclone copyparty Puter croc Spacedrive Nextcloud File Browser Restic SeaweedFS Cloudreve Magic Wormhole Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy pgBackRest bitmagnet WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Barman mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Wayback btrbk mail-archiver Backup tool nono Plakar borgmatic Autorestic BackupPC MySQL backup XtraBackup Restic REST Server Gickup Stash by AppsCode Restic alt MiniBackup Restic Browser rdiff-backup Bareos ElkarBackup alt Snapper zrepl K8up Ganymede Bupstash UrBackup Kanister linux-timemachine ZFS Autobackup MySQL Backup Container Restic Cron ZnapZend Restic Mailer BorgWarehouse Deja Dup Burp Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Knoxite ArchivesSpace ElkarBackup Collective Access - Providence Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Duplicity Conserve Backup Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Tarsnap GUI Minarca Backup DAR Obnam2 Rdiffweb Restic Exporter Kup Minarca BackupNinja Time Machine Eonvelope Yuno Archive Custom Backup Sosse HashBackup
Compare Timeshift with
choose an app… Rclone Restic Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy pgBackRest bitmagnet WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup Barman mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver btrbk BackupPC Restic Browser rdiff-backup ElkarBackup alt Snapper ZnapZend Deja Dup Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Kup
Feature CKAN Timeshift Category Backup & Recovery Backup & Recovery License AGPL-3.0 GPL-3.0 Language Python Vala Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 128 MB Deployment bare-metal binary, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 5,088 ★ 4,219 First released 2026 2014 Replaces — Time Machine, System Restore
Why pick each one
Choose CKAN if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars Written in Python Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM CKAN details Choose Timeshift if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Easy to set up — beginner-friendly Active community (4.2k GitHub stars) Written in Vala Timeshift details
Frequently asked questions Is CKAN or Timeshift better? Neither is universally better. CKAN has the larger community, while Timeshift is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are CKAN and Timeshift free and open-source? Yes. CKAN is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Timeshift under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run CKAN and Timeshift with Docker? CKAN: check the project docs for container support. Timeshift: check the project docs for container support.