What is pgBackRest used for?

pgBackRest is a backup and restore tool for PostgreSQL with parallel processing, incremental backups and cloud storage support, built to scale to large databases. It is a good fit for backing up large PostgreSQL databases, keeping local and offsite backup copies, and restoring a failed server.

Is pgBackRest open source?

Yes. pgBackRest is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pgbackrest/pgbackrest and is written mainly in C.

Yes. pgBackRest is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

What are some alternatives to pgBackRest?

Similar open-source tools in the Database Tools category include Pgcli, pgAdmin and pg_timetable. SaaS products in the same category include DBCode, dbForge Studio and Navicat.

Is pgBackRest actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to pgBackRest was on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.4k stars on GitHub.

pgBackRest: open-source database tools

About pgBackRest

pgBackRest is a backup and restore solution for PostgreSQL that is meant to scale to the largest databases and workloads. It is written in C and aims to remove the usual bottlenecks of backup jobs, especially compression, by processing files in parallel and offering efficient algorithms such as lz4 and zstd.

Backups and restores can run locally or remotely over TLS or SSH using a custom protocol, and remote access to PostgreSQL itself is never required. It supports multiple repositories, for example a local one with short retention for fast restores and a remote one with longer retention. Full, differential and incremental backups work at file or block level, with retention policies and WAL archive expiration.

Repositories can be placed on cloud object storage, as the repository topics refer to S3, Azure and GCS. Checksums and compression options such as gzip, bzip2, lz4 and zstd are supported. The project publishes release notes with each stable version and documentation on pgbackrest.org.

Key features

Parallel backup and restore
Full, differential and incremental backups
Block-level incremental backups
Local or remote operation over TLS or SSH
Multiple repositories with separate retention
WAL archive management and expiration
Compression with lz4 and zstd
Cloud storage support

Good fit for

→Backing up large PostgreSQL databases
→Keeping local and offsite backup copies
→Restoring a failed server

Built with: C; PostgreSQL
Tags: postgresql; postgres; backup; restore; database; wal; incremental; s3

pgBackRest: questions and answers

What is pgBackRest used for?: pgBackRest is a backup and restore tool for PostgreSQL with parallel processing, incremental backups and cloud storage support, built to scale to large databases. It is a good fit for backing up large PostgreSQL databases, keeping local and offsite backup copies, and restoring a failed server.
Is pgBackRest open source?: Yes. pgBackRest is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at pgbackrest/pgbackrest and is written mainly in C.
Is pgBackRest free?: Yes. pgBackRest is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
What are some alternatives to pgBackRest?: Similar open-source tools in the Database Tools category include Pgcli, pgAdmin and pg_timetable. SaaS products in the same category include DBCode, dbForge Studio and Navicat.
Is pgBackRest actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to pgBackRest was on 2 October 2026. The project has 4.4k stars on GitHub.