mydumper vs pgBackRest
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?
mydumper
High-performance logical backup tool for MySQL
VS
pgBackRest
Reliable backup and restore solution for PostgreSQL
| Feature | mydumper | pgBackRest |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | C | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,208 | ★ 4,296 |
| First released | 2009 | 2013 |
| Replaces | mysqldump | Veeam |
Why pick each one
Choose mydumper if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Active community (3.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose pgBackRest if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is mydumper or pgBackRest better?
Neither is universally better. pgBackRest has the larger community, while mydumper is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are mydumper and pgBackRest free and open-source?
Yes. mydumper is licensed under GPL-3.0 and pgBackRest under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run mydumper and pgBackRest with Docker?
mydumper: check the project docs for container support. pgBackRest: yes.