Tool Backend Comparison
A comparison of the possible tool backends we might support.
Survey of backup tools by restic author: https://github.com/restic/others
Comparison of restic vs borg circa late 2017: https://blog.stickleback.dk/borg-or-restic/ - main takeaways are restic supports more remotes, but forces you to encrypt and is much less performant.
duplicity
Link: http://duplicity.nongnu.org/
Features: Encryption, compression, incremental, resumable, progress, ACLs, machine-readable, translated, GVFS
Lang: python2
Packaged: Ubuntu & Fedora since forever
Maintenance: bus factor of 1
Notes: Current backend
borg
Link: https://www.borgbackup.org/
Features: Encryption, compression, de-dup, incremental, resumable, progress, ACLs, machine-readable
Missing: translated (hostile to it, oddly), GVFS
Lang: python3
Packaged: Ubuntu (since 16.04) & Fedora
Maintenance: bus factor of 1 (but with notable other contributions), 9 years old (4 as borg)
Notes: Has a FUSE backup browser, is a fork of Attic, has a web-based frontend sister project, only supports local & ssh remotes
restic
Link: https://restic.net/
Features: Encryption (have to encrypt actually), incremental, resumable, progress, ACLs
Missing: compression (but does de-dup), tranlated, GVFS, machine-readable (claims to support JSON output, but doesn't do it for common commands like backup and doesn't stream the output)
Lang: golang
Packaged: Ubuntu (since 18.04) & Fedora
Maintenance: bus factor of 1, 5 years old
Notes: Has a FUSE backup browser, lots of cloud backends
dar
Link: http://dar.linux.free.fr/
Features: Encryption, compression, incremental, resumable (bolted on & slow), progress, ACLs
Lang: C++
Packaged: Ubuntu & Fedora since forever
Notes: has library interface
Duplicati
Link: https://www.duplicati.com/
Features: Encryption, incremental, resumable,
Lang: C#
Packaged: Not in Ubuntu or Fedora
Notes: lots of cloud backends, already has local web frontend
Duplicacy
Not FOSS.
zbackup
Only does standard in / out.
bup
Requires server on remote end.
*defunct*
A bunch of programs that are no longer maintained, but I won’t bother listing here.