Best Open-Source Backup Software 2026: 7 Options Compared

Backup software has one test that matters: can you restore, on a bad day, without the tool that made the backup being healthy. Open source helps with that, because the repository format is documented or at least inspectable, and you are not tied to a vendor's licence server. The tools here fall into two groups. Command-line, repository-style tools such as restic, BorgBackup and Kopia are deduplicating, encrypted and scriptable, and they suit people who are comfortable with cron jobs or systemd timers. Duplicati offers a web interface on top of similar ideas and is easier for beginners, while UrBackup and Bacula Community are client-server systems built for backing up many machines from one place. rclone is the odd one out: it syncs and copies to cloud storage, which makes a useful transport but not, by itself, a versioned backup. The trade-off is the work that falls on you. Commercial products bundle storage, monitoring and support; here you choose where the data goes, check that jobs actually ran, and test restores yourself. Follow the usual rule of keeping three copies on two kinds of media with one offsite, and do a trial restore when you set it up and again after any major change. A backup you have never restored is only a hope.

restic

BSD-2-Clause backup program that is fast, encrypted and deduplicated, and works with many storage backends. Command line only.

Price: Free (free, open source) (restic pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. BSD-2-Clause (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 36.8k GitHub stars · latest release v0.19.1 (Jul 5, 2026) · last commit Oct 18, 2026

Best for: Scriptable encrypted backups.

Worth knowing: Command-line, encrypted, deduplicated backups to local, SFTP, S3 and other storage.

BorgBackup

BSD-3-Clause deduplicating backup with compression and encryption. Free with no paid plan listed; well suited to Linux and macOS servers.

Price: Free (Free and open source; no paid plan listed) (BorgBackup pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Windows (experimental). BSD-3-Clause (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 13.9k GitHub stars · latest release 1.4.5 (Jul 18, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Linux and macOS servers.

Kopia

Apache-2.0 backup tool with both command-line and graphical use. Check the repository for supported storage backends.

Price: Free (Free open source) (Kopia pricing, checked 2026-10-24).

Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, Windows. Apache-2.0 (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 14.5k GitHub stars · latest release v0.23.1 (Jun 16, 2026) · last commit Oct 25, 2026

Best for: A newer alternative to restic.

Duplicati

Free client with a web interface that sends encrypted backups to cloud or local storage. The core is MIT, though a proprietary folder carries a separate license.

Price: Free (free client; proprietary folder under separate license) (Duplicati pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Windows, macOS, Linux. MIT (core) (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 15.2k GitHub stars · latest release v2.4.0.1_stable_2026-10-07 (Oct 7, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Beginners who want a web interface.

Worth knowing: Encrypted incremental backups to cloud and file servers.

UrBackup

AGPL-3.0 client-server backup for files and images across many machines. Setup needs a server, but it covers Windows and Linux clients.

Price: Free (free and open source) (UrBackup pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, macOS (client). AGPL-3.0+ (open source) (license source).

Best for: Small offices backing up several PCs.

Worth knowing: File and image backups with a web interface; bare-metal restore from a USB stick.

Bacula Community

Community edition of an enterprise backup system under the GNU license. Powerful but complex; Enterprise is paid; check the vendor for current pricing.

Price: Free (free Community edition; Enterprise is paid and unpriced on the page) (Bacula Community pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Linux, Unix, Windows (client). GNU v2 per project page (open source) (license source).

Best for: Larger, multi-server environments.

rclone

MIT tool that copies and syncs files to cloud storage. Good as the transport layer, but not a versioned backup on its own.

Price: Free (Free open source software) (rclone pricing, checked 2026-10-22).

Platforms and license: Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD. MIT (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 60.6k GitHub stars · latest release v1.75.2 (Oct 9, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Pushing backups to cloud storage.

Worth knowing: Command-line tool for over 70 cloud storage products; can mount storage as a disk and serve over SFTP, HTTP, WebDAV and FTP. Web GUI is experimental.

Which one to pick

• You want a single command-line tool for a laptop: restic
• You back up Linux servers over SSH: BorgBackup
• You want a web interface: Duplicati
• You must back up several Windows PCs from one place: UrBackup