Great open source backup software

This is the most complete and up-to-date directory on the web. Free backup software refers to products that are offered commercially free by the solution provider. These offerings are usually trimmed-down versions of the expert or enterprise editions, offering basic functionality that enables users to back up their data.

Open source backup software is software with a source code that anyone can inspect, modify, or enhance. These tools are designed to be publicly accessible and are commonly managed and maintained by organizations with a specific mission in mind.

The open source backup tools included in this list are surprisingly full-featured, offering an expansive list of capabilities for a variety of users. The open source tools usually do a good job of explaining the requirements for use on the download pages. Amanda, short for the Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver , is a backup solution that enables IT admins to set up a single master backup server to back up multiple hosts over network to tape drives, changers, disks, or optical media.

Amanda uses native utilities and formats, such as dump or GNU tar , and can back up a large number of servers and workstations running multiple versions of Linux or Unix.

Additionally, the provider uses a native Windows client to back up Microsoft Windows desktops and servers. AOMEI Backupper Standard offers users imaging, file backup, disk cloning, and plain file syncing capabilities, as well as multiple scheduling options. The tool is designed for both Windows PC and Server users. The solution offers multiple backup functionalities, including system backup, file backup, file sync, disk backup, and partition backup.

Users are enabled to select a set of files or directories to back up, choose where and how they will be stored, and configure post-backup actions. The software also provides encryption, compression, and splitting functionalities. Areca also allows customers to use advanced backup modes, such as delta backup, or produce a basic copy of their source files as a standard directory or zip archive. The solution is compatible with Linux and Windows. The solution offers a command line client as well as a GUI, both written in Python.

In order to perform backups, users specify where to store snapshots, what folders to back up, and the frequency of the backups. In addition to this, the solution is licensed with GPLv2. BackupPC is a fully cross-platform tool that can run on all operating systems, which is designed for enterprise use.

The provider supports full file compression and uses a small amount of disk space. According to its website, the vendor is licensed under the GPLv3. The solution is freely available as open source on Github and SourceForge. Bacula is an enterprise level computer backup system that can work in a range of networks, which offers an open source option.

Administrators and operators can configure the system through a command line console, GUI or web interface. Grsync is yet another open source backup software for Windows. This software mainly acts as a GUI of a popular command line file synchronization and backup software named as rsync. The main advantage of this PC backup software is that it provides a lot of backup settings that you can modify according to the task.

On its interface, you get three menus which contain different categories of changeable backup options named Basic Options , Advanced Options , and Extra Options. In basic options, you get options like Preserve time to save file modification time , Delete on destination delete files from destination if it is not present on the source , Ignore Existing to skip updating files that are already present on the destination , etc. In Extra Options , you can manually enter a command that you want to execute before the backup process.

The whole backup session can also be exported or saved in. DirSync Pro is a completely free open source backup software for Windows. This software is mainly used to synchronize data between folders and directories.

Its synchronization functionality also helps you backup your data in local storage or on an external storage device. Among various sync modes, a dedicated backup mode is also available in this software. Now, select the Paths: Source, Destination menu. In this menu, you need to submit the patch of the source and destination in the Dir A and Dir B fields respectively. After that, select one of the sync modes and press OK to come out from the menu.

Lastly, press the Synchronize button from the main interface to start back up or synchronization process. In this software, you can also find some additional tools like Compare to define how this software compare and find new or modified data from existing data , Conflict Resolution to resolve any conflict occurred during mono or bi-directional synchronization , Schedule to schedule backup or synchronization , etc.

Through this software, you can backup standard data along with the registry data. Plus, it lets you save the backup data in local storage , external storage as well as over the internet. In order to run this software, you can directly boot this software using the CD or Pendrive. Bootup process only takes about 30 seconds after which, you are ready to take backup of your data. Still, it comes with a really good GUI with all the essential features to take data backup.

Create Synchronicity is a lightweight and open source backup software for Windows. It is also used as a file synchronizer to maintain similar data between two folders or directories. So, you have to use the synchronization feature to backup your data. It provides three synchronization methods to synchronize and backup your data. To take backup through this software, first, create and set up the profile.

There's also a 'smart' option that automatically backs up files in commonly used locations, and you have the option of using cloud storage. Backups can then be scheduled, running as incremental, differential or full backups as required see below for a full explanation of the differences.

You can still run backups on a schedule, but lose the ability to have these backups triggered by various events — not something most people will miss. The same goes for command line-driven backups, PC-to-PC data transfer, and Outlook backup; they're all nice to have, but their absence is unlikely to be a deal-breaker. A few features are exclusive the the premium version, but EasusUS Todo Backup Free is more than enough for just about everyone out there. You can opt to back up your entire computer, partitions, select files and folders based on location, or files based on their type.

Once that's done, just set a schedule and choose the type of backup you want to want to create and then leave the software to take care of things by itself. That's not all — as the latter portion of its name suggests, this isn't just a backup tool. It's all very impressive. Once you've signed up for a free account, this free backup software is a thing of beauty.

FBackup offers a choice of wizard and advanced modes. Whichever you choose, it's easy to create backup jobs comprising files and folders, which can be saved to local or network drives, removable disks, or Google Drive. Scheduling is available to keep your backups up to date. There are in-program ads suggesting you upgrade to the paid-for Backup4all, but thankfully they are relatively unobtrusive so hopefully you'll be able to ignore them if you're not interested.

The free version of the program lacks a few features, but these might be inconsequential, depending on your needs. If you can live without encryption, FTP backups, email notifications and incremental backups, Fbackup is well worth checking out. Google Drive isn't a traditional backup tool by any means, it is cloud-based and just what you are able to back up will depend on how much online Google storage you have available.

You're given a limited amount of space for free, and there are various ways to boost it without having to part with any money, but in reality Google Drive is going to be useful for backing up individual directories — not your whole system.

For backing up key files and folders, however, it's superb. You can easily specify any number of folders for the software to monitor, and any changes, additions or deletions are implemented near-instantaneously. As the name suggests, the software can be used to synchronize files between computers, and they are accessible through on any device via the Google Drive web app.

An excellent, if slightly limited, backup tool. Confusingly, Google Drive is also sometimes called Google One, and additionally to run Google Drive you need to download the app Google Backup and Sync in order to set it running. Additionally, you will need to be alert that when files and folders are backed up that they have a green tick next to them - if not, it means your files are not being backed up, something that has previously caught users out when Google updated the service.

Cobian Backup is the most advanced free backup tool around, and might be overkill for new users, but if you know exactly how you want to configure your backups then you can be confident it'll give you the flexibility you need. Cobian Backup can be used to create and schedule multiple backup jobs, and files can be archived to another local hard drive, network location or, if you have access to one, an FTP server.