{"slug": "borgbackup", "name": "BorgBackup", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "Open-source deduplicating backup program with compression and encryption.", "recommenders": 7, "commenters": 15, "warners": 0, "score": 8.269, "rising": -0.96, "first": "2025-11-19", "latest": "2026-10-18", "why": "Recommended for deduplicated, compressed backups with mountable snapshots, often paired with remote storage such as rsync.net or Hetzner Storage Box.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 8, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 1, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Remote storage", "Deduplication"], "caveat": "Synology support", "short_quote": "when I switched to borgbackup on Windows as well [1], this massive reduplication of files became a solved problem.", "icon": true, "domain": "borgbackup.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.borgbackup.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["BorgBackup", "Borg", "borgbackup", "borg"], "verdict": [{"text": "Recommended for deduplicated, compressed backups with mountable snapshots,", "cites": [{"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 781271040, "item_id": 48829440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829440", "by": "ralferoo", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I switched to borgbackup on Windows as well [1], this massive reduplication of files became a solved problem.", "excerpt": "Hehe, I used to create a folder as some variant of \"Old\" and move everything in my downloads folder into it once or twice a year, and with a lesser frequency my documents. At one point when I realised this had got about 10 levels deep, I switched to yyyy-mm format directories instead of nesting them. I also used to back up other PCs to each other somewhat regularly, and sometimes I'd end up with those files back on t", "context": "", "use_case": "backups on Windows via WSL", "switched_from": "", "story": "Copy That Floppy \u2013 Cambridge guide for preserving data from fragile floppy disks"}, {"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}]}, {"text": " often paired with remote storage such as rsync.net or Hetzner Storage Box.", "cites": [{"id": 735716913, "item_id": 45982307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982307", "by": "monerozcash", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use rsync.net with borg", "excerpt": "This needs more information. 5TB is far from \"BIG\" when it comes to cloud backups. You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use. I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?"}, {"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 789318657, "item_id": 49332416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332416", "by": "jm4", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "hourly borg backups to rsync.net", "excerpt": "I self host Forgejo on a cheap VPS with hourly borg backups to rsync.net. It's a great system and seems comparable to github, although I'm not a heavy user of actions on either platform. I do use the container registry though. It was a smooth transition and easy to install. I used the docker installation method. Forgejo is great if you don't mind hosting yourself.", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"text": " The main caveat is that it used to need an extra community package to run on Synology,", "cites": [{"id": 749863041, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "excerpt": "I remember doing my own backups with rsync a super long time ago! It worked pretty well, but it didn't have compression, encryption, desktop integration, or deduplication, and adding anything would be one more script to maintain. Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there. I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "context": "Synology user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}]}, {"text": " and a few commenters later moved to Restic or Kopia.", "cites": [{"id": 802189457, "item_id": 50136841, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50136841", "by": "theamk", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic).", "excerpt": "huh, have not realized Obnam is still alive. I remember Obnam being retired in 2017[0]. I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic). But turns out, it came back 2020. I like the motivation [1]: > Borg and Restic are both fine backup programs. I've been using Borg for a while. The point here for me is that I find implementing backup systems to be a fascinating hobby. Thus, I want ", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "Obnam", "story": "Obnam Community"}, {"id": 749863041, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "excerpt": "I remember doing my own backups with rsync a super long time ago! It worked pretty well, but it didn't have compression, encryption, desktop integration, or deduplication, and adding anything would be one more script to maintain. Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there. I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "context": "Synology user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Remote storage", "summary": "Commenters run it against rsync.net and Hetzner Storage Box and are happy with the setup.", "quotes": [{"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 740445153, "item_id": 46277822, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277822", "by": "sleeper01", "date": "2025-12-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have a discounted Borg account on Rsync.net", "excerpt": "I have a discounted Borg account on Rsync.net and am very happy with it. Can I use Git-annex on the same account, or do I need to switch to a standard account? As far as I understand, discounted accounts only have no support and no free ZFS snapshots, right?", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Deduplication", "summary": "Deduplication removes duplicate copies of files across backups.", "quotes": [{"id": 781271040, "item_id": 48829440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829440", "by": "ralferoo", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I switched to borgbackup on Windows as well [1], this massive reduplication of files became a solved problem.", "excerpt": "Hehe, I used to create a folder as some variant of \"Old\" and move everything in my downloads folder into it once or twice a year, and with a lesser frequency my documents. At one point when I realised this had got about 10 levels deep, I switched to yyyy-mm format directories instead of nesting them. I also used to back up other PCs to each other somewhat regularly, and sometimes I'd end up with those files back on t", "context": "", "use_case": "backups on Windows via WSL", "switched_from": "", "story": "Copy That Floppy \u2013 Cambridge guide for preserving data from fragile floppy disks"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Long-term schedules", "summary": "Users keep daily or hourly archives for years.", "quotes": [{"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 789318657, "item_id": 49332416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332416", "by": "jm4", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "hourly borg backups to rsync.net", "excerpt": "I self host Forgejo on a cheap VPS with hourly borg backups to rsync.net. It's a great system and seems comparable to github, although I'm not a heavy user of actions on either platform. I do use the container registry though. It was a smooth transition and easy to install. I used the docker installation method. Forgejo is great if you don't mind hosting yourself.", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 773914049, "item_id": 48369628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48369628", "by": "gchamonlive", "date": "2026-06-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My backup strategy is to create a borg archive entry every day at a fixed time.", "excerpt": "Moved from cronie to systemd timers because they are resilient to system startup times. My backup strategy is to create a borg archive entry every day at a fixed time. With cronie the system needs to be running at the scheduled time, but systemd timer tolates this and runs the service as soons as the system is available.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Don't Love Systemd Timers Enough"}]}, {"label": "Mountable archives", "summary": "Archives can be mounted with borg mount and browsed, including older snapshots.", "quotes": [{"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Solid default", "summary": "Commenters suggest it as a good backup tool for servers and home devices.", "quotes": [{"id": 752719761, "item_id": 47044985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47044985", "by": "alexcheese", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Restic and Borg are good options to look into.", "excerpt": "> ...I\u2019m looking forward to using up all that available memory and disk space. Ideas? Highly recommend hosting a backup system for your other devices. Restic and Borg are good options to look into.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Site Runs on 30GB of RAM"}, {"id": 751097216, "item_id": 46943576, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46943576", "by": "jarofgreen", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use borg backup, for instance.", "excerpt": "Hey, sorry it was hacked. You mention rsync which can be fine. But there are tons of other solutions, many that will have snapshot features. I use borg backup, for instance. https://www.borgbackup.org/ Also, look into scriping your server setup with tools like Ansible or PyInfra. There is always the risk that bad things happen to servers, and when you want a new server it's great to be able to spin things up in a mat", "context": "", "use_case": "server backups with snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Encryption", "summary": "Backups can be encrypted with a passphrase.", "quotes": [{"id": 750682240, "item_id": 46917640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46917640", "by": "ddtaylor", "date": "2026-02-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my very long password I use for an encrypted Borgbackup I have", "excerpt": "I suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) related to an e-bike accident two years ago. I woke up in the ICU after a short coma-like thing and the nurses/doctors asking me questions and it was clear I was answering for the 10th time or more, like we had all done this before, but I couldn't remember anything. Thankfully my very long password I use for an encrypted Borgbackup I have was somewhere deep or untouched, but,", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Synology support", "summary": "Until recently it needed a fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "quotes": [{"id": 749863041, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "excerpt": "I remember doing my own backups with rsync a super long time ago! It worked pretty well, but it didn't have compression, encryption, desktop integration, or deduplication, and adding anything would be one more script to maintain. Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there. I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "context": "Synology user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}]}, {"label": "Users moved on", "summary": "Some commenters later switched to Restic or Kopia.", "quotes": [{"id": 802189457, "item_id": 50136841, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50136841", "by": "theamk", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic).", "excerpt": "huh, have not realized Obnam is still alive. I remember Obnam being retired in 2017[0]. I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic). But turns out, it came back 2020. I like the motivation [1]: > Borg and Restic are both fine backup programs. I've been using Borg for a while. The point here for me is that I find implementing backup systems to be a fascinating hobby. Thus, I want ", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "Obnam", "story": "Obnam Community"}, {"id": 749863041, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "excerpt": "I remember doing my own backups with rsync a super long time ago! It worked pretty well, but it didn't have compression, encryption, desktop integration, or deduplication, and adding anything would be one more script to maintain. Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there. I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "context": "Synology user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}]}], "who": [{"by": "dakra", "context": "Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48888445", "date": "2026-07-12"}, {"by": "eternityforest", "context": "Synology user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "date": "2026-02-02"}], "tags": ["for servers", "with rsync.net", "for Windows users", "for offline drives"], "use_cases": ["backups", "backup", "offline backups", "emacs package management", "backups on windows via wsl", "daily backups"], "compared": [{"slug": "restic", "name": "restic", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "kopia", "name": "Kopia", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "rsync-net", "name": "rsync.net", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "rsync", "name": "rsync", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "sshfs", "name": "sshfs", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46150994", "title": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50135289", "title": "Obnam Community", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49985548", "title": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49509606", "title": "Creating backup storage sucks", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49331033", "title": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48879504", "title": "Ghostel.el: Terminal emulator powered by libghostty", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802189457, "item_id": 50136841, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50136841", "by": "theamk", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic).", "excerpt": "huh, have not realized Obnam is still alive. I remember Obnam being retired in 2017[0]. I was evaluating backup systems back then, and went to borg (and later to restic). But turns out, it came back 2020. I like the motivation [1]: > Borg and Restic are both fine backup programs. I've been using Borg for a while. The point here for me is that I find implementing backup systems to be a fascinating hobby. Thus, I want ", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "Obnam", "story": "Obnam Community"}, {"id": 800409497, "item_id": 50025593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50025593", "by": "MayeulC", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Borg backup", "excerpt": "Well, I have a VPS, plus multiple physical servers in different locations (parents, etc). The VPS is useful for: - sending e-mails (hard to improve your reputation on residential IPs and get a reverse DNS record) - Unifi controller, though I appreciate Unifi less and less. - Uptime monitoring / status page - I think I'll move my headscale node there, since it has the highest availability -- Internet was out for a wee", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 792738563, "item_id": 49546160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49546160", "by": "fc417fc802", "date": "2026-09-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "stuffed into borgbackup on redundant offline devices", "excerpt": "> like the hard drive part here will just fail to mount one night and not back things up for 3 months until you notice I think the author is having trouble because he is conflating concepts and roles that should be distinct. Sync, rotating snapshots, and deduplicated backups need to be kept entirely separate if you want any hope of maintaining your sanity. So he's got sync but he's missing some sort of rotating snaps", "context": "", "use_case": "offline backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}, {"id": 789318657, "item_id": 49332416, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332416", "by": "jm4", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "hourly borg backups to rsync.net", "excerpt": "I self host Forgejo on a cheap VPS with hourly borg backups to rsync.net. It's a great system and seems comparable to github, although I'm not a heavy user of actions on either platform. I do use the container registry though. It was a smooth transition and easy to install. I used the docker installation method. Forgejo is great if you don't mind hosting yourself.", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub"}, {"id": 782215121, "item_id": 48888445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48888445", "by": "dakra", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Personally I use borg and always at least quick check what changed", "excerpt": "This is just optional. I explained why it's not in the package in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881722 For all Emacs package updates, it's best of course to check the source what's changed and then you can compile yourself. PS, I also think Emacs is one of the few ecosystems where people actually check what changed. It's not like npm where you have a million of deps unreviewed pulled in. Personally I use bor", "context": "Emacs user", "use_case": "Emacs package management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostel.el: Terminal emulator powered by libghostty"}, {"id": 781271040, "item_id": 48829440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48829440", "by": "ralferoo", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "when I switched to borgbackup on Windows as well [1], this massive reduplication of files became a solved problem.", "excerpt": "Hehe, I used to create a folder as some variant of \"Old\" and move everything in my downloads folder into it once or twice a year, and with a lesser frequency my documents. At one point when I realised this had got about 10 levels deep, I switched to yyyy-mm format directories instead of nesting them. I also used to back up other PCs to each other somewhat regularly, and sometimes I'd end up with those files back on t", "context": "", "use_case": "backups on Windows via WSL", "switched_from": "", "story": "Copy That Floppy \u2013 Cambridge guide for preserving data from fragile floppy disks"}, {"id": 773914049, "item_id": 48369628, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48369628", "by": "gchamonlive", "date": "2026-06-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My backup strategy is to create a borg archive entry every day at a fixed time.", "excerpt": "Moved from cronie to systemd timers because they are resilient to system startup times. My backup strategy is to create a borg archive entry every day at a fixed time. With cronie the system needs to be running at the scheduled time, but systemd timer tolates this and runs the service as soons as the system is available.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "You Don't Love Systemd Timers Enough"}, {"id": 764224336, "item_id": 47764021, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47764021", "by": "mrighele", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion", "excerpt": "Not OP, but I have been using borg backup [1] against Hetzner Storage Box [2] Borg backup is a good tool in my opinion and has everything that I need (deduplication, compression, mountable snapshot. Hetzner Storage Box is nothing fancy but good enough for a backup and is sensibly cheaper for the alternatives (I pay about 10 eur/month for 5TB of storage) Before that I was using s3cmd [3] to backup on a S3 bucket. [1] ", "context": "", "use_case": "deduplicated backups", "switched_from": "s3cmd", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 752719761, "item_id": 47044985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47044985", "by": "alexcheese", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Restic and Borg are good options to look into.", "excerpt": "> ...I\u2019m looking forward to using up all that available memory and disk space. Ideas? Highly recommend hosting a backup system for your other devices. Restic and Borg are good options to look into.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Site Runs on 30GB of RAM"}, {"id": 751097216, "item_id": 46943576, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46943576", "by": "jarofgreen", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use borg backup, for instance.", "excerpt": "Hey, sorry it was hacked. You mention rsync which can be fine. But there are tons of other solutions, many that will have snapshot features. I use borg backup, for instance. https://www.borgbackup.org/ Also, look into scriping your server setup with tools like Ansible or PyInfra. There is always the risk that bad things happen to servers, and when you want a new server it's great to be able to spin things up in a mat", "context": "", "use_case": "server backups with snapshots", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)"}, {"id": 750682240, "item_id": 46917640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46917640", "by": "ddtaylor", "date": "2026-02-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my very long password I use for an encrypted Borgbackup I have", "excerpt": "I suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) related to an e-bike accident two years ago. I woke up in the ICU after a short coma-like thing and the nurses/doctors asking me questions and it was clear I was answering for the 10th time or more, like we had all done this before, but I couldn't remember anything. Thankfully my very long password I use for an encrypted Borgbackup I have was somewhere deep or untouched, but,", "context": "", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?"}, {"id": 749863041, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "excerpt": "I remember doing my own backups with rsync a super long time ago! It worked pretty well, but it didn't have compression, encryption, desktop integration, or deduplication, and adding anything would be one more script to maintain. Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there. I used to use Borg but until recently it needed some fussy extra community package to work on Synology.", "context": "Synology user", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}, {"id": 740445153, "item_id": 46277822, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277822", "by": "sleeper01", "date": "2025-12-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have a discounted Borg account on Rsync.net", "excerpt": "I have a discounted Borg account on Rsync.net and am very happy with it. Can I use Git-annex on the same account, or do I need to switch to a standard account? As far as I understand, discounted accounts only have no support and no free ZFS snapshots, right?", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 738428977, "item_id": 46151811, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151811", "by": "EuAndreh", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers.", "excerpt": "As free advertisement to rsync.net, I also like the service and support. I have not deleted any of my daily borg backups for many years, covering my laptop and some servers. Borg has an equivalent `borg serve` feature as detailed in the article. I use borg mount every other week. After the initial config, you can just type: $ borg mount :: borg/ ...and browse the full archive lazily. Most of the time I'm looking at t", "context": "", "use_case": "daily backups of laptop and servers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rsync.net Technical Notes \u2013 Q4 2025"}, {"id": 735716913, "item_id": 45982307, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45982307", "by": "monerozcash", "date": "2025-11-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use rsync.net with borg", "excerpt": "This needs more information. 5TB is far from \"BIG\" when it comes to cloud backups. You can probably get away with google drive+rclone+borg/restic/whatever, but it will be rather clunky. Backblaze might be a nicer backend to use. I use rsync.net with borg, but not sure about your budget. Their 1TB lifetime plan is very competitive though.", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?"}]}