rsnapshot vs snapper
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | rsnapshot | snapper |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 72 · Good | 83 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Language | Perl | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,683 | ★ 1,171 |
| First released | 2003 | 2011 |
| Replaces | Time Machine | Time Machine |
What are rsnapshot and snapper?
rsnapshot
rsnapshot is a filesystem snapshot utility built on rsync that makes incremental backups of local and remote machines. It uses hard links to keep multiple full backups while saving disk space.
- Hard-link snapshot rotation
- Local and remote backups
- Low storage overhead
snapper
Snapper is a tool for managing filesystem snapshots on Btrfs and LVM thin volumes. It can create automatic timeline snapshots and roll back the system to a previous state.
- Automatic timeline snapshots
- Btrfs and LVM support
- System rollback
rsnapshot vs snapper: key differences
Rsnapshot is written in Perl, while snapper is built with C++. Rsnapshot is the more established project (first released 2003), while snapper arrived in 2011. Rsnapshot has the considerably larger community, at 3,683 GitHub stars versus 1,171.
Why pick each one
Choose rsnapshot if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Perl
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Choose snapper if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is rsnapshot or snapper better?
Neither is universally better. rsnapshot has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are rsnapshot and snapper free and open-source?
Yes. rsnapshot is licensed under GPL-2.0 and snapper under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run rsnapshot and snapper with Docker?
rsnapshot: check the project docs for container support. snapper: check the project docs for container support.