{"slug": "kopia", "name": "Kopia", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "Open-source backup tool with encryption, deduplication, snapshots, and both CLI and GUI.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 4.962, "rising": -0.31, "first": "2026-02-01", "latest": "2026-09-16", "why": "HN commenters use it for encrypted, incremental backups to S3-compatible storage such as Backblaze or MinIO, and describe it as reliable with a handy GUI.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["S3-compatible backends", "Reliability"], "caveat": "Weaker CLI", "short_quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "icon": true, "domain": "kopia.io", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://kopia.io/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Kopia"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters use it for encrypted, incremental backups to S3-compatible storage such as Backblaze or MinIO,", "cites": [{"id": 757014849, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}, {"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 749645937, "item_id": 46852871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871", "by": "re5i5tor", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "excerpt": "I strongly recommend against Time Machine to NAS \u2014 just mentioned it in an article today as \u201cworks great, until it inevitably and catastrophically fails\u201d. Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac backups to NAS", "switched_from": "Time Machine", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}]}, {"text": " and describe it as reliable with a handy GUI.", "cites": [{"id": 749645937, "item_id": 46852871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871", "by": "re5i5tor", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "excerpt": "I strongly recommend against Time Machine to NAS \u2014 just mentioned it in an article today as \u201cworks great, until it inevitably and catastrophically fails\u201d. Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac backups to NAS", "switched_from": "Time Machine", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}, {"id": 749863040, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there.", "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": "Borg", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}, {"id": 795747873, "item_id": 49734242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://kopia.io/ does the same +GUI but a bit worse on CLI front", "excerpt": "So is apparently making readable site. Software like https://restic.net/ does a good job. Few choices of backend Accepts stuff from pipe too so you can just pipe mysqldump or pg_dumpall without intermediate files Very decent options for checking repo integrity, personally (well, at work too, we use it on few hundred user machines and servers) I also added \"roll a dice for backup and try to restore it\" test script to ", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"text": " The one complaint is that its command-line interface is a bit worse than restic's.", "cites": [{"id": 795747873, "item_id": 49734242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://kopia.io/ does the same +GUI but a bit worse on CLI front", "excerpt": "So is apparently making readable site. Software like https://restic.net/ does a good job. Few choices of backend Accepts stuff from pipe too so you can just pipe mysqldump or pg_dumpall without intermediate files Very decent options for checking repo integrity, personally (well, at work too, we use it on few hundred user machines and servers) I also added \"roll a dice for backup and try to restore it\" test script to ", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "S3-compatible backends", "summary": "Commenters send backups to S3-compatible storage such as Backblaze, MinIO, or a generic S3 bucket.", "quotes": [{"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 749645937, "item_id": 46852871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871", "by": "re5i5tor", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "excerpt": "I strongly recommend against Time Machine to NAS \u2014 just mentioned it in an article today as \u201cworks great, until it inevitably and catastrophically fails\u201d. Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac backups to NAS", "switched_from": "Time Machine", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}, {"id": 757014849, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}]}, {"label": "Reliability", "summary": "Users report it as reliable, with no real complaints, after switching from Time Machine or Borg.", "quotes": [{"id": 749645937, "item_id": 46852871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871", "by": "re5i5tor", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "excerpt": "I strongly recommend against Time Machine to NAS \u2014 just mentioned it in an article today as \u201cworks great, until it inevitably and catastrophically fails\u201d. Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac backups to NAS", "switched_from": "Time Machine", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}, {"id": 749863040, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there.", "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": "Borg", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}]}, {"label": "GUI", "summary": "It offers a GUI (kopia-ui) for browsing snapshots, unlike restic.", "quotes": [{"id": 795747873, "item_id": 49734242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://kopia.io/ does the same +GUI but a bit worse on CLI front", "excerpt": "So is apparently making readable site. Software like https://restic.net/ does a good job. Few choices of backend Accepts stuff from pipe too so you can just pipe mysqldump or pg_dumpall without intermediate files Very decent options for checking repo integrity, personally (well, at work too, we use it on few hundred user machines and servers) I also added \"roll a dice for backup and try to restore it\" test script to ", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Encrypted backups", "summary": "A self-hoster uses it for encrypted backups to an external SSD and Backblaze.", "quotes": [{"id": 757014849, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}]}, {"label": "Incremental snapshots", "summary": "Incremental snapshots work with S3 compliance retention as ransomware protection.", "quotes": [{"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}]}, {"label": "Error correction", "summary": "It supports Reed-Solomon error correction.", "quotes": [{"id": 793304434, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Kopia has error correction, with Reed Solomon.", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Weaker CLI", "summary": "One commenter finds its command-line interface a bit worse than restic's.", "quotes": [{"id": 795747873, "item_id": 49734242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://kopia.io/ does the same +GUI but a bit worse on CLI front", "excerpt": "So is apparently making readable site. Software like https://restic.net/ does a good job. Few choices of backend Accepts stuff from pipe too so you can just pipe mysqldump or pg_dumpall without intermediate files Very decent options for checking repo integrity, personally (well, at work too, we use it on few hundred user machines and servers) I also added \"roll a dice for backup and try to restore it\" test script to ", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}]}], "who": [{"by": "GTP", "context": "self-hoster", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "date": "2026-03-09"}, {"by": "eternityforest", "context": "Synology user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "date": "2026-02-02"}], "tags": ["self-hostable", "for Synology users", "for Mac users"], "use_cases": ["backups", "backup", "incremental backups to s3", "encrypted backups", "mac backups to nas"], "compared": [{"slug": "borgbackup", "name": "BorgBackup", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "time-machine", "name": "Time Machine", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "restic", "name": "restic", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732513", "title": "Backups Aren't Simple", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49509606", "title": "Creating backup storage sucks", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48442569", "title": "OneDrive data now has an expiry date", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47762864", "title": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313152", "title": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46850709", "title": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 795747873, "item_id": 49734242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242", "by": "PunchyHamster", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://kopia.io/ does the same +GUI but a bit worse on CLI front", "excerpt": "So is apparently making readable site. Software like https://restic.net/ does a good job. Few choices of backend Accepts stuff from pipe too so you can just pipe mysqldump or pg_dumpall without intermediate files Very decent options for checking repo integrity, personally (well, at work too, we use it on few hundred user machines and servers) I also added \"roll a dice for backup and try to restore it\" test script to ", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backups Aren't Simple"}, {"id": 793304434, "item_id": 49581527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49581527", "by": "aborsy", "date": "2026-09-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Kopia has error correction, with Reed Solomon.", "excerpt": "The best backup solution that I found is ZFS send (even if it\u2019s not strictly a back up tool). ZFS send raw encrypted stream from laptop to a server automatically. Encrypted compressed incremental. No need to verify: if snapshot exists at destination, there is no error. If a problem is encountered, restore from redundancy. Errors can be detected and corrected. Restic has also been working great. The problem is that, i", "context": "", "use_case": "backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Creating backup storage sucks"}, {"id": 775323808, "item_id": 48457738, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457738", "by": "bayindirh", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Thanks, looks interesting.", "excerpt": "Thanks, looks interesting. For my personal Linux systems, I use backintime and pay for Acronis for my parents' Windows system right now (since it can also image disks and whatnot), but I'll keep this in mind, too. Thanks again.", "context": "", "use_case": "backup", "switched_from": "", "story": "OneDrive data now has an expiry date"}, {"id": 764255136, "item_id": 47765946, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765946", "by": "igtztorrero", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket", "excerpt": "I use Kopia Backup software, sending all my important files to a compatible S3 bucket, using retention-mode: compliance as ransomware protection. I have access to every incremental snapshot Kopia makes using kopia-ui.", "context": "", "use_case": "incremental backups to S3", "switched_from": "", "story": "Backblaze has stopped backing up your data"}, {"id": 757014849, "item_id": 47313428, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428", "by": "GTP", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that", "excerpt": "Look into self-hosting. Start small with only one or two services that have a big impact on your privacy (e.g., backup of your phone's pics with Immich) and expand from there once you gained some experience. Things will go wrong, expecially in the beginning. So set up encrypted backups, I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze.", "context": "self-hoster", "use_case": "encrypted backups", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you keep your data private?"}, {"id": 749863040, "item_id": 46866440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866440", "by": "eternityforest", "date": "2026-02-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now I use Kopia, no real complaints there.", "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": "Borg", "story": "Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)"}, {"id": 749645937, "item_id": 46852871, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871", "by": "re5i5tor", "date": "2026-02-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "excerpt": "I strongly recommend against Time Machine to NAS \u2014 just mentioned it in an article today as \u201cworks great, until it inevitably and catastrophically fails\u201d. Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology.", "context": "", "use_case": "Mac backups to NAS", "switched_from": "Time Machine", "story": "TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe"}]}