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Best Backup Tool for Simple Websites?
I made a similar thread around 12 years ago. I know there are multiple tools now but I’d love to hear what’s working best for you in 2025.
I’m ideally looking for an open source solid backup solution that can handle Docker containers, simple websites, and files across VMs.
My key requirements:
- Easy to use (with a Web UI)
- Automated backups with deletion of expired data e.g. after setting 0.5TB of space the software automatically deletes the oldest version of backed up data to make space for new backups
- Efficiently syncs from one VM to another
- Bonus: Compression, versioning, alerts, etc.
Any recommendations? Thanks!
Thanked by 1noob404
Comments
I'd love to find out as well, for future purposes. Currently, though rsync works fine, I will need something more easily manageable, preferably with a UI.
This is interesting, i will keep my eyes to this post, since I also need something like this. Currently, I use rsync to upload my zipped small blogs to google drive. It work as intended, but with UI it would be a plus.
Not sure if all requirements are met but you might want to take a look at Kopia: https://kopia.io/
I use BackupPC
First of all, every project is different so needs will be very different.
In my eyes, separation of layers is important. I prefer backing up in a modular structure.
For example, let's take a simple project.
modular design gives much flexibility than a one full backup.
That sounds like good advice but my experience has been pretty different over the last 20 years or so. In the case where one does actually need to go to backups, the ideal solution shud be a one click restore bcoz any time while the system is down = stress rising to the point of a pressure cooker blowing up. Several years back I had a backup server's disc die, back then I had a multi step process of backing up, in my laziness I didn't get around to setting up the backup system on the new disc and exactly after a fortnight my main server's disc died too, wt r the odds of that happening
? Its funny now but back then all hell had broken loose. I spent the next 15 days trying to rescue the disc using ddrescue . Its all documented in a thread here. My take away from all the mayhem was that backup shud be easy! Ideally one click backup and restore, not something complex with multiple steps that u try to avoid even thinking about. Docker containers r pretty great that way, u mount all the volumes in sub folders & copy the entire directory, easy peasy. Just backup and restore that folder.
Is there any backup tool that can use remote sftp as source?
So I do not have to install the software on a system I am backing up.
Doesn't pulling data over sftp still require ssh instance running on the source? Same thing with rsync, it requires the rsync package installed on the source.
using rclone on Host-C to sync(cron every 2h) my s3 node to the Hostbrr DA storage 1TB and MS onedrive, as i am using rclone for a couple of years i just find it much more flexible and easy.......
i use restic + backrest for the webUI. restic has rclone support so it works with all sort of cloud provider with compression and encryption and backrest is a very simple UI but a little hard to understand at first
Using scripts for backup my all databases and source . And Dupliciti with web UI for auto upload all to Storage Object.
I still use easypanel. Got a super easy export option for your images for each app. It’s docker based.
Tools like Restic and Duplicati are quite user-friendly and capable.
Following this as well. I couldn't find any backup tool for a while now.
+1 on Restic
I previously tried Duplicati, but it died for me when backup size reached more than a couple terabytes. Restic still working well as long as you don't do too frequent incremental backups on too large dataset (only do small number (< 50) of active snapshots)
Restic you can set up to go to cloud storage which is nice, and can combine with immutable stores or lifecycle rules to be more ransomware resistant
For simple website I use aapanel and install the google drive backup extension, i'ts not the best but it's free. There's also AWS S3 extension as well
sftp is available on all servers. Won't require any additional installation.
Just looking for something so I don't need to install any backup software on the source server.
urbackup, rsync...
I have tried many tools and the one I always go back to when the others fail is restic. It just works.
what do you think of rclone ?
I'm using restic for servers, working fine.
I don't consider it as a proper backup tool when used alone
I have to second this. Every now and then I get the idea that I should try something else but after a while I return to restic. It just works, simple as that.
https://github.com/duplicati/duplicati
though you should secure this as best as you can. My instances are only reachable with a specific ip + authelia + reverse-proxy
I strongly advise against using Duplicati. It has one of the worst reputations among backup tools due to its known unreliability.
Cant expect too much from free software
. Idk, never had any problems, but I must admit, I've only had to restore once in the past two years using duplicati. All my backups are stored multiple times, most of my servers have enough space to store 3-7 days locally using rsync and pigz.
There is a nice gui for restic backups: https://github.com/garethgeorge/backrest?tab=readme-ov-file
I will give it a try, but i will take some time as I dont have much spare time at the moment