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.

1. Open source
2. Still active (a commit/version one year old or less)
3. Linux support
4. A decent community around the project
5. Support for incremental backup and versioning
6. Support a variety of storage (objects storage like B2 or remote one with SFTP)
7. Web user interface for easy management and overview (usable on mobile)
8. Activity notification (like email)
9. (Optional) Multi hosts support (avoid having the application split on each device)
10. 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	Email
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	Email
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	Email
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	Email
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

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ November 12, 2021 11:58