pgBackRest vs WAL-G
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?
pgBackRest
Reliable backup and restore solution for PostgreSQL
VS
WAL-G
Archival and restoration tool for databases
| Feature | pgBackRest | WAL-G |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,296 | ★ 4,215 |
| First released | 2013 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Veeam | pgBackRest |
Why pick each one
Choose pgBackRest if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Choose WAL-G if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is pgBackRest or WAL-G better?
Neither is universally better. pgBackRest has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are pgBackRest and WAL-G free and open-source?
Yes. pgBackRest is licensed under MIT and WAL-G under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run pgBackRest and WAL-G with Docker?
pgBackRest: yes. WAL-G: yes.