Best Self Hosted Alternatives to BorgBase

restic is a modern backup program designed to create efficient, secure backups of files and directories across major operating systems. It stores data as snapshots and is built to be easy to run as a single executable without requiring a dedicated server.

Key Features

• Client-side encryption for confidentiality and integrity
• Deduplication and incremental snapshots to reduce storage and bandwidth use
• Multiple backends including local storage, SFTP over SSH, and an HTTP REST backend
• S3-compatible object storage support (including MinIO) and other cloud backends
• Repository verification features to help ensure restores will work
• Mount and restore capabilities for browsing and recovering previous snapshots

Use Cases

• Encrypted offsite backups to an SFTP server or object storage
• Workstation and server file backups with efficient incremental updates
• Periodic backup verification and disaster-recovery restore testing

restic is a strong choice when you want a scriptable, secure backup workflow with deduplication and flexible storage targets. Its snapshot-based design and verification focus make it well-suited for reliable long-term backups.

Duplicati is a cross-platform backup client that creates encrypted, compressed, incremental backups and sends them to a wide range of cloud storage providers or remote file servers. It is designed for automated, bandwidth-efficient backups with a web-based UI and command-line tooling.

Key Features

• Client-side encryption using AES-256 or GnuPG before upload
• Incremental/differential backup approach to reduce storage and bandwidth
• Built-in scheduler for unattended, recurring backups
• Multiple destination types including SFTP/SSH, WebDAV, FTP, and S3-compatible/object storage providers
• Flexible selection and filtering (folders, file types, include/exclude rules)
• Web-based management interface plus command-line operation
• Support for backing up open/locked files via VSS on Windows and LVM snapshot support on Linux

Use Cases

• Encrypted offsite backups of desktops or servers to S3-compatible storage or a NAS
• Scheduled backups to remote servers over SFTP/WebDAV with retention rules
• Bandwidth-aware incremental backups for laptops and small office environments

Limitations and Considerations

• As a backup client, it requires a separate storage destination (cloud bucket, remote server, or file share) to receive data

Duplicati is a good fit when you need privacy-preserving backups with strong encryption and flexible destination support. Its combination of scheduling, incremental backups, and broad protocol/provider compatibility makes it practical for both home and small business environments.

BorgBackup is a deduplicating archiver designed for backups. It provides space-efficient storage with optional authenticated encryption and multiple compression options for Unix-like systems.

Key Features

• Global deduplication reduces stored data across archives and backups
• Authenticated encryption safeguards stored data
• Flexible compression choices: lz4, zstd, zlib, lzma, or none
• Mountable backups via FUSE for direct access
• Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, and BSD
• Open-source under the BSD license with active community

Use Cases

• Regular backups to local disks, network shares, or remote repositories
• Server backups with multiple clients across environments
• Restore and verify archives using Borg commands

Limitations and Considerations

• No official GUI; primarily CLI with community UIs (not official)

Conclusion

BorgBackup is a CLI-centric deduplicating backup tool with encryption and compression, suitable for Unix-like environments and active community support.

Kopia is a cross-platform backup and restore tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux that creates snapshot-based, incremental backups of selected files and directories. It focuses on fast backups with client-side end-to-end encryption, compression, and deduplication, and can store backups in many different backends.

Key Features

• Snapshot-based incremental backups for files and directories (not full-disk imaging)
• Client-side end-to-end encryption with user-controlled keys
• Deduplication and compression to reduce storage usage
• Multiple repository backends, including local storage, network targets, and cloud object storage
• Command-line interface and a desktop GUI for managing backups, policies, and restores
• Supports backing up multiple machines to a shared repository

Use Cases

• Encrypted laptop and workstation backups with quick file restores
• Centralized backups for multiple servers to an object storage bucket or NAS
• Cost-efficient long-term backups using deduplication and compression

Limitations and Considerations

• Designed for file and directory backups rather than full system imaging
• Some storage backends via Rclone are experimental and may vary in reliability

Kopia is well-suited for users who want secure, portable backups with flexible storage choices and strong data reduction. It works for both technical users via CLI and everyday workflows through its GUI, while keeping encryption and storage selection under your control.

Duplicacy is a cross-platform backup tool designed for fast, encrypted, deduplicated backups to local, SFTP, and many cloud storage providers. It uses a lock-free deduplication design that allows multiple clients to back up to the same repository without requiring distributed locks or a centralized chunk database.

Key Features

• Lock-free, cross-client deduplication enabling concurrent backups to the same storage target
• Database-less chunk storage (chunks stored independently by hash) for simple lookups and reduced metadata complexity
• Encrypted backups with support for stronger asymmetric encryption options
• Full-snapshot incremental backups, with support for deleting/pruning old backups
• Data integrity checking and repository maintenance workflows (e.g., check and prune)
• Broad storage backend support including local disk, SFTP, S3-compatible/object storage, and various cloud drives
• Command-line interface plus an optional web-based GUI application built on the same backup engine

Use Cases

• Centralized backups for multiple machines to a shared NAS/SFTP or cloud bucket with cross-machine deduplication
• Efficient long-term backup retention with pruning of old snapshots
• Offsite backups to common cloud/object storage providers while keeping data encrypted

Limitations and Considerations

• The command-line version is source-available but not OSI open-source; commercial use typically requires per-computer licensing for running backups

Duplicacy focuses on reliability, performance, and storage efficiency, particularly for multi-client repositories. It is well-suited for individuals and teams that want deduplicated, encrypted backups to commodity storage backends without lock coordination overhead.

Zerobyte is a backup automation service for self-hosters that schedules, manages, and monitors encrypted backups through a modern web interface. It orchestrates backups using restic and supports backing up from local folders or remote network shares into a variety of repository backends.

Key Features

• Automated, encrypted, deduplicated backups powered by restic
• Web interface to create volumes, repositories, and scheduled backup jobs
• Flexible scheduling and retention policies for backup rotation
• Restore workflow to browse snapshots and restore selected data
• Multiple source protocols, including local directories, NFS, SMB, WebDAV, and SFTP
• Multiple repository backends, including local storage, S3-compatible, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob, and rclone remotes
• Secret reference support (environment variables or Docker secrets) to avoid storing sensitive values in the database

Use Cases

• Protect homelab or self-hosted application data with scheduled, encrypted backups
• Back up NAS/network shares to offsite object storage (S3-compatible) with retention rules
• Centralize monitoring and management of multiple restic backup jobs via a single UI

Limitations and Considerations

• Currently in 0.x releases and may introduce breaking changes between versions
• Remote share mounting features may require elevated container capabilities and FUSE device access

Zerobyte is a practical way to run restic-based backups with a friendlier operational workflow and broader backend support. It fits well for users who want scheduled, policy-driven backups and a UI for monitoring and restores without building custom scripts.

Databasus is an open-source backup management service for PostgreSQL (primary focus), MySQL/MariaDB, and MongoDB. It provides a web UI to schedule backups, store encrypted archives to various destinations, and notify teams about job results.

Key Features

• Scheduled backups with hourly/daily/weekly/monthly intervals and cron support
• Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and MongoDB across multiple major versions
• Multiple storage destinations including local disk and S3-compatible object storage
• AES-256-GCM encryption for backup archives and protection of sensitive configuration data
• Team-oriented workspaces with role-based access control and audit logs
• Optional database health checks with status history and outage notifications
• Notification integrations (for example email, Slack, Discord, Telegram, and webhooks)

Use Cases

• Centralized backup management for multiple production databases across projects
• Team-run backup operations with access controls, auditing, and shared notifications
• Storing encrypted database backups in third-party or shared object storage

Limitations and Considerations

• Focuses on scheduled full backups; it is not designed for incremental/PITR workflows such as WAL archiving

Databasus fits teams and individuals who want a simple, UI-driven way to manage database backups reliably. It combines scheduling, encryption, storage backends, and notifications in a single service suitable for DevOps operations.

Borg Web UI is a modern web application for managing Borg Backup without relying on complex terminal commands. It provides a guided interface to create and monitor backup jobs, browse archives, and restore files across local and remote repositories.

Key Features

• Create, run, and monitor Borg backups with live progress tracking
• Archive browser for file-level restore, with optional Redis caching for faster browsing on large repositories
• Repository management for local and remote targets (including SSH and SFTP)
• Visual cron-style scheduler with execution history
• Pre/post-backup hooks to run custom scripts (for example, stopping services or creating database dumps)
• Notifications for failures and completions via many providers (commonly via Apprise)
• SSH key generation, import, and deployment for remote repository access
• Built-in API with interactive Swagger documentation (after installation)

Use Cases

• Centralized backup management for a home server, NAS, or small homelab
• Scheduled backups for servers and services with health monitoring and alerting
• Quick file recovery by browsing archives and restoring specific paths

Limitations and Considerations

• Requires careful volume-mount configuration, since the container needs access to the data you want to back up
• Some features (like accelerated archive browsing) depend on optional components such as Redis

Borg Web UI is well-suited for users who want Borg’s deduplicated backups with a practical, production-friendly interface. It combines scheduling, monitoring, and restore workflows into a single dashboard while supporting common remote backup patterns.

GitSave is a self-hosted web application that automates scheduled backups of Git repositories. It provides a simple, responsive UI to configure repositories, schedules, retention and storage destinations for safe, repeatable backups.

Key Features

• Responsive web interface for managing repositories, schedules and backups
• Automated scheduling with pause/resume controls and configurable retention (number of backups to keep)
• Support for GitHub, GitLab and arbitrary Git endpoints
• Pluggable authentication / support for a custom authentication provider
• Backup history and logs for auditing and troubleshooting
• Ability to store backups on a mounted filesystem or an SMB/CIFS share
• Distributed as Docker images with a provided docker-compose deployment pattern
• Requires configurable secrets for JWT and encryption (ENCRYPTION_SECRET is used to encrypt stored data)

Use Cases

• Regularly back up personal and starred repositories to a local NAS or backup server
• Ensure offline copies of organization repositories hosted on third-party Git providers
• Maintain a retention policy of repository snapshots for incident recovery and audits

Limitations and Considerations

• ENCRYPTION_SECRET must be a specific length (32 characters) for encryption to function correctly
• Primary storage options documented are local filesystem mounts and SMB shares; built-in cloud storage providers are not a highlighted feature
• Intended for single-node Docker deployments; lacks built-in clustering or multi-node high-availability features

GitSave is aimed at users who need a straightforward, self-hosted solution to schedule and retain Git repository backups. It emphasizes ease of deployment via Docker and simple management through a web UI.