Conserve Backup vs Duplicacy
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Conserve Backup | Duplicacy |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 58 · Fair | 76 · Good |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Proprietary |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 278 | ★ 5,683 |
| First released | 2015 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze, Carbonite |
What are Conserve Backup and Duplicacy?
Conserve Backup
Conserve is a robust backup program written in Rust that creates deduplicated, versioned archives to local or remote storage. It emphasizes data safety and resumable operations.
- Deduplicated archives
- Versioned backups
- Resumable operations
- Data-safety focus
Duplicacy
Duplicacy is a cross-platform cloud backup tool using a novel lock-free deduplication algorithm for efficient encrypted backups. It targets users backing up to cloud storage. It is deployed as a binary with an optional web UI.
- Lock-free deduplication
- Many cloud backends
- Cross-computer deduplication
- Optional web GUI
Conserve Backup vs Duplicacy: key differences
Conserve Backup is written in Rust, while Duplicacy is built with Go. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Conserve Backup versus Proprietary for Duplicacy. Conserve Backup is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Duplicacy. Duplicacy has the considerably larger community, at 5,683 GitHub stars versus 278. Duplicacy lists first-class Docker deployment; Conserve Backup does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Conserve Backup if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose Duplicacy if…
- Efficient deduplication
- Good cloud support
- Reliable
Watch out for
- Web edition is paid
- CLI is free but licensed
Frequently asked questions
Is Conserve Backup or Duplicacy better?
Neither is universally better. Duplicacy has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Conserve Backup and Duplicacy free and open-source?
Yes. Conserve Backup is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Duplicacy under Proprietary. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Conserve Backup and Duplicacy with Docker?
Conserve Backup: check the project docs for container support. Duplicacy: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Conserve Backup or Duplicacy?
Conserve Backup has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Duplicacy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.