Synchronization and backup programs
This page lists and compares applications that synchronize data between two or more locations, and those that build on top of such functionality to make incremental copies of important data for backup purposes. Because of their relationship, the two groups share several traits that justify describing them in the same article.
Important considerations
In order to choose the best program for one’s own needs, the following aspects should be considered:
- The type of backup medium that is going to store the data, e.g. CD, DVD, remote server, external hard drive, etc.
- The planned frequency of backups, e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
- The features expected from the backup solution, e.g. compression, encryption, handles renames, etc.
- The planned method to restore backups if needed.
Data synchronization
These applications simply keep directories synchronized between multiple locations/machines, in a «mirror» fashion. Nonetheless, most of them still allow storing and reverting to old revisions of modified or deleted files.
Legend
- unidirectional means one-way synchronization of two locations,
- bidirectional means two-way synchronization of two locations and
- multidirectional means full synchronization of more than two locations.
Table
This article or section needs language, wiki syntax or style improvements. See Help:Style for reference.
Reason: Explicitly list supported protocols / tools. Drop Encrypted transfer column because it depends on the protocol / tool. Simplify and color Change propagation column and move it leftwards. Split unmaintained into subsection? See also User:Larivact/drafts/Synchronization and backup programs#Synchronization. (Discuss in Talk:Synchronization and backup programs)
This article or section needs expansion.
Incremental backups
Applications that can do incremental backups remember and take into account what data has been backed up during the last run (so-called «diffs») and eliminate the need to have duplicates of unchanged data. Restoring the data to a certain point in time would require locating the last full backup and all the incremental backups from then to the moment when it is supposed to be restored. This sort of backup is useful for those who do it very often.
- Name: the application name, linking to the ArchWiki article or the official website.
- Package: a link to the package.
- Implementation: the programming language, library, or utility that the application is based on.
- Compressed storage: compression is used for storage.
- Encrypted storage: encryption is used for storage.
- Delta transfer: only the modified parts of files are transferred.
- Encrypted transfer: data is encrypted by default when transferred over a network.
- FS metadata: file system permissions and attributes are backed up.
- Easy access: the backup is stored plainly in the file system, or is mountable as such.
- Resumable: the backup can be resumed without restarting it if interrupted.
- Multithreading: the backup can be done in multiple threads of execution concurrently.
- Handles renames: moved/renamed files are detected and not stored or transferred twice; it typically means that a checksum is computed for files or chunks thereof.
- CLI: the application is command-line driven, i.e. it is scriptable.
- Other interfaces: the application has the specified user interfaces, e.g. GUI, TUI, or web-based.
- Licence: the licence of the server and client applications.
- Other platforms: supported operating systems other than Linux.
- Maintained: whether the project is maintained.
- Deduplication: whether the program supports deduplicating saved files
- Specificity: brief notes about special features that notably set the application apart from the others.
Single machine
These applications are aimed at backing up data from the machine they are installed on, although the backup destination can be located on an external machine or storage media.
Chunk-based increments
This article or section needs expansion.
Reason: Fill in the blanks. FS metadata column: What does Immature mean? Resumable column: What does Pausing only / Kinda through tar mean? (Discuss in Talk:Synchronization and backup programs)
If a file is modified, these applications store only its changed parts at the next snapshot. Compared to #File-based increments applications, these are more space-efficient, especially when large files receive small modifications; on the other hand, the archived snapshots have to be opened with the backup application that created them, since the files have to be reconstructed from the stored binary diffs.
| Name | Package | Implementation | Compressed storage | Encrypted storage | Delta transfer | Encrypted transfer | FS metadata | Easy access | Resumable | Multithreading | Handles renames | CLI | Other interfaces | Licence | Other platforms | Maintained | Deduplication | Specificity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Areca Backup [dead link 2023-05-20 ⓘ] | areca AUR | Java | Zip, Zip64 | AES128, AES256 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Pausing only | No [27] | No | Yes | Yes | GPLv2 | Windows | Yes | ||
| Borg backup | borg | Python, C (Cython) | lz4, zlib, lzma, zstd | AES256 | Yes | SSH | Yes [28] | Yes [29] | Yes [30] | No [31] | Yes | Yes | third party | BSD | *BSD, macOS, Windows (Cygwin / WSL)[32] | Yes | Yes, based on variable length chunks. | Support both local and SSH-based remote backup destination. |
| bup | bup | C, Python, git | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Immature | Yes [33] | pick up where you left off [34] | No | Yes | Yes | thesafe AUR | GPLv2 | NetBSD, Windows, macOS | Yes | Yes | Same storage format as git. |
| Duplicacy | duplicacy AUR | Go | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [35] | Yes [36] | Yes [37] | Yes [38] | Yes | duplicacy-web AUR | Custom (non-free) | FreeBSD, macOS, Windows | Yes | Yes | |
| Duplicati | duplicati-canary-bin AUR | C# | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Pausing only | Yes [39] | No | Yes | Yes | LGPL | Windows, macOS | Yes | Yes | |
| Duplicity | duplicity | librsync | gzip | gpg | Yes | Yes | ? | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | GPL | Yes | |||
| Kopia | kopia AUR | Go, Javascript front-end | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | APACHE | Windows, macOS, OpenBSD | Yes | Yes | |
| Kup Backup System | kup | rsync, bup front-end | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Immature | Yes | No | ? | Yes | bup | Qt | GPLv2 | Yes | |||
| restic | restic | Go | Yes | AES-256 [40] | Yes | Yes | Yes [41] | Yes [42] | Yes [43] | Yes [44] | Yes | Yes | No [45] | BSD | OpenBSD, Windows, macOS | Yes | Yes [46] | Supports storage on various cloud services natively and through rclone . |
| ZBackup | zbackup AUR | C++ | LZMA, LZO | AES | Yes | Yes | ? | planned [47] | No | ? | Kinda through tar | Yes | No | GPLv2 | No | Yes | Repository consists of immutable files. |
File-based increments
This article or section needs expansion.
If a file is modified, these applications store its new version entirely at the next snapshot. Compared to #Chunk-based increments applications, these are less space-efficient, especially when large files receive small modifications; on the other hand, often the archived snapshots can be opened without the need to have the backup application installed.
Network oriented
This article or section needs expansion.
Reason: Fill in the blanks. Encrypted transfer column: What does Internet transfers only mean? (Discuss in Talk:Synchronization and backup programs)
These applications have been designed to centralize the backup of several machines connected to a network, through a server-client model. In general they are more complicated to deploy, compared to #Single machine solutions.
Version control systems
While version control systems are mostly used for source code, they can track any files in a directory.