Is it possible to have a backup solution that is simple, powerful and have a nice interface ?
I have servals servers and I backup only one of them that contain my sensitives services (like Nextcloud) with a software named Duplicati.
This choice comes after a short personal research for a simple solution, but I have heard about bad restorations case with this and I’m worried.
So today I use 2 hours (maybe more) of my English class to start a little study to find the real treasure.
Criteria
It’s my personal criteria, but I think it’s the bare minimum for a decent backup solution.
- Open source
- Still active (a commit/version one year old or less)
- Linux support
- A decent community around the project
- Support for incremental backup and versioning
- Support a variety of storage (objects storage like B2 or remote one with SFTP)
- Web user interface for easy management and overview (usable on mobile)
- Activity notification (like email)
- (Optional) Multi hosts support (avoid having the application split on each device)
- Free… Because I’m a student and I don’t want to regret a purchase
Duplicati
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | GitHub |
| Still active | Last release Aug 11 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows and Mac |
| A decent community around the project | Active dedicated forum |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | A lot ! |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web interface, not good on mobile |
| Activity notification | Email and webhook |
| Multi hosts support | No |
| Free | Yes |
My actual solution, I haven’t encounter a big issue with this one, but I found repetitive comments about restauration issues. Hopefully there are a bit old.
I dislike the idea of peer device full service stack, I can tinker a little to make it one master instance and mount external devices but I don’t want a messy solution.
I got some problem of download cap with the B2 storage, I think this is due to my download cap too low making the software spamming the download for integrity verification.
BackupPc
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | GitHub |
| Still active | Last commit Sep 3 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows and Mac |
| A decent community around the project | A decent community spread on internet |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | No, only local storage |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web interface |
| Activity notification | |
| Multi hosts support | Yes |
| Free | Yes |
I discover and use this software at work and I find it really stable, his use of rsync is awesome and the possibility to use custom commands on each backup is just great !
The system needs a file system with hard link support, this drastically reduces the possibility of remote storage.
The web interface seems a little old, but work well. Sadly, there is no progress indicator, you have to look at the log section and refresh to estimate this.
Duplicacy
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | Partial, GitHub |
| Still active | Last commit Oct 16 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows and Mac |
| A decent community around the project | A decent community, forum |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | Local, SFTP, B2 and cloud drives |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web interface (paid version only) |
| Activity notification | |
| Multi hosts support | Same problem as Duplicati |
| Free | Only CLI |
This is the “evil” tween of Duplicati, free only if you use the CLI for non commercial uses.
Sadly, I haven’t found the time to use this one, but I heard good review of this software and the licence is cheap for personal use and flexible for students.
Bacula
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | git |
| Still active | Last release Jun 06 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows and Mac |
| A decent community around the project | A little community |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | Yes and no |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web interface |
| Activity notification | |
| Multi hosts support | Yes |
| Free | Enterprise version with more features |
The Bacula need more digging to finish his review !
Restic
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | GitHub |
| Still active | Last release Aug 03 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows and Mac |
| A decent community around the project | A large community, forum |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | A lot \o/ |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web interface comming soon… |
| Activity notification | DIY |
| Multi hosts support | Same as Duplicati |
| Free | Yes |
TimeShift
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | GitHub |
| Still active | Last release Sep 25 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux |
| A decent community around the project | A modest community |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | Only physical device |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Only a GTK GUI |
| Activity notification | DIY |
| Multi hosts support | No |
| Free | Yes |
The snapshot software for personal computers by excellence, like System Restore for Windows or Time Machine on MacOS.
Bareos
| Criteria | Result |
| Open source | GitHub |
| Still active | Last release Sep 14 2021 |
| Linux support | Linux, Windows, MacOS |
| A decent community around the project | A modest community |
| Support for incremental backup and versioning | Yes and yes |
| Support a variety of storage | A lot ! |
| Web user interface for easy management and overview | Web Gui |
| Activity notification | |
| Multi hosts support | Yes |
| Free | Yes, with subscription for support |
This solution seems promising but need more time and a try.
This article is still a Work In Progress, more update soon :3