Open-source Druva alternatives

Restic is a backup program designed to be fast, efficient and secure. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, with support for FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and ships as a single command-line tool written in Go. It is released under the BSD-2-Clause license, and the project keeps documentation and a Discourse forum for questions.

Backups are stored in a repository that you create with an init command and protect with a password, and the README warns that losing the password means losing the data. Each run saves a snapshot, and deduplication keeps repeated data from using extra space. Files can be restored with a restore command, or the repository can be mounted through FUSE so past snapshots can be browsed. Restic can store backups in a local directory, over SFTP, on an HTTP REST server, in Amazon S3 or S3-compatible storage, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, or through rclone.

Duplicati is a free, open-source backup client that securely stores encrypted, incremental and compressed backups on cloud storage services and remote file servers. According to its README it is licensed under the MIT license and available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and it is written in C#.

Data is encrypted with AES-256 or GNU Privacy Guard before it is uploaded. Only the first backup is a full copy, and later backups are differential to save bandwidth and storage. A built-in scheduler keeps backups current, and an integrated updater announces new releases. Supported destinations include Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Box, Dropbox, FTP, Google Cloud and Drive, MEGA, Microsoft Azure and OneDrive, Storj, SFTP, WebDAV and others.

Releases are GPG-signed, and the project offers a forum, an online manual and several update channels from stable to more experimental builds. Because the backup client runs on your own machines and sends data to storage you choose, it suits individuals and small teams who want client-side encrypted backups without a vendor-hosted service.

Kopia is an open-source backup and restore tool that creates encrypted snapshots of selected files and directories. It does not image a whole machine; instead you choose the folders that matter and Kopia stores the snapshots in the location you pick, whether that is cloud storage, a network server or a local disk.

Compression, deduplication, error correction and end-to-end encryption controlled by the user are built in, so repeated backups stay small and the storage provider never sees readable data. Supported destinations include Amazon S3 and S3-compatible services, Azure Blob Storage, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, WebDAV, SFTP and, experimentally, a subset of Rclone backends.

Both a command-line interface and a graphical interface are included, so the tool suits advanced users and people who prefer a GUI. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, is written in Go and is licensed under Apache-2.0. The project site offers installation instructions and a step-by-step getting started guide.

BorgBackup, usually called Borg, is a backup program that stores files as content-defined chunks. Identical chunks are kept only once across files, machines and years of history, so a daily full backup costs little more than the changes made since the previous run. This makes long retention periods practical on modest storage.

Repositories are protected with authenticated AES encryption, which means a backup server only ever sees ciphertext and does not need to be trusted. Compression is configurable, with options such as lz4 for speed, zstd as a balance and zlib or lzma for smaller output. Archives can be mounted as an ordinary filesystem through FUSE so earlier versions of files can be browsed like folders.

Borg is written in Python, has been developed since 2015, and is free software under a BSD license. It installs on Linux, macOS, BSD and other systems from distribution packages, single-file binaries or pip. The project site provides a demo, documentation, a community page and commercial support services.

Zerobyte is a backup automation tool for self-hosters, built on top of Restic. It adds a web interface for scheduling, managing and monitoring encrypted backups of remote storage, so Restic's capabilities can be used without hand-writing scripts and cron jobs.

Backups are encrypted, compressed and kept according to retention policies, with flexible scheduling for automated jobs and fine-grained retention rules. Data can be backed up from several protocols, including NFS, SMB, WebDAV, SFTP and local directories. The README says the full documentation, with setup guides and configuration reference, is on zerobyte.app.

Zerobyte runs with Docker and Docker Compose using the provided compose file. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and still at version 0.x, so the authors warn of major changes between versions. They also advise against exposing it directly to the internet, recommending a localhost port mapping with a secure tunnel, and against pointing its data directory to a network share.

Bareos is backup and recovery software for mixed IT environments. It helps organizations back up, restore and manage data across networks, operating systems, storage targets and workloads. The project is licensed under AGPLv3, and the README says it follows an open-source approach without open-core restrictions. Supported systems include Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and macOS.

The architecture is designed for many clients, storage daemons and backup targets across a network. Backups can go to disk, tape or S3-compatible object storage, in a format that suits deduplicating filesystems such as ZFS, VDO and btrfs, and a tool called bdedupestimate helps estimate the benefit. Always Incremental backups are available for file-based data, and a catalog with the WebUI helps teams find and restore the right data.

Administration is scriptable through bconsole and command-line tools, with the Bareos WebUI as a graphical alternative. Role-based ACLs control commands and objects, and encryption covers communication and backups. Plugins extend support to virtual environments, databases and specialized workloads, including VMware vSphere, Hyper-V and Proxmox. It is written in C++ and Python.