SHSelfHostIndex

Duplicacy vs Tarsnap GUI

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?
DU Duplicacy Lock-free deduplication cloud backup tool VS TA Tarsnap GUI Cross-platform desktop front end for Tarsnap backups
FeatureDuplicacyTarsnap GUI
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseProprietaryBSD-2-Clause
LanguageGoC++
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentbinary, dockerbinary, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 5,671★ 250
First released20162016
ReplacesBackblaze, CarboniteBackblaze

Why pick each one

Choose Duplicacy if…

  • Efficient deduplication
  • Good cloud support
  • Reliable
Duplicacy details

Choose Tarsnap GUI if…

  • Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Tarsnap GUI details

Frequently asked questions

Is Duplicacy or Tarsnap GUI better?

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

Are Duplicacy and Tarsnap GUI free and open-source?

Yes. Duplicacy is licensed under Proprietary and Tarsnap GUI under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Duplicacy and Tarsnap GUI with Docker?

Duplicacy: yes. Tarsnap GUI: check the project docs for container support.

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