BorgBackup vs Box Backup
BorgBackup
borgbackup.orgBox Backup
boxbackup.orgSide by side
| Figure | BorgBackup | Box Backup |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Backup software | 8.1 (#56) | 8.2 (#54) |
| Spec score · Data Backup Software | 8.3 (#12) | 8.6 (#6) |
| Backup scope | mixed | file |
| Compression | Optional compression choices include lz4, zstd, zlib, and lzma. | Files on the server are compressed to reduce storage use. |
| Computer backup | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption | Borg supports client-side 256-bit AES encryption and verifies data integrity and authenticity with HMAC-SHA256. | The site says TLS is used to encrypt connections and authenticate servers and clients, while stored file data uses AES and metadata uses Blowfish. |
| Platforms | The documentation lists binaries for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD; Cygwin and Windows Subsystem for Linux are listed with experimental limitations. | The installation wiki lists packages for Debian, FreeBSD, Windows, Gentoo Linux, Arch Linux, and RPM-based systems, and source compilation instructions for Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and Windows. |
| Purpose | BorgBackup is a deduplicating backup program with optional compression and authenticated encryption. | Box Backup is an open source, automatic online backup system. |
| Restore modes | file | file |
| Server backup | Yes | Yes |
Plans
In their own words
BorgBackup
BorgBackup is free, open-source backup software for computers and servers on Linux, macOS and Windows. It uses content-defined chunking so repeated chunks are stored once, including across files, backups and machines sharing a repository. Optional compression is available with lz4, zstd, zlib and lzma. Client-side 256-bit AES encryption protects backups, while HMAC-SHA256 verifies data integrity and authenticity. Backups can be stored on remote hosts over SSH. Archives can be mounted as user-space file systems for interactive browsing and file restores. Listed repository and storage options include BorgBase, Hetzner Storage Box and rsync.net. Community help is available through documentation, the issue tracker, IRC, Matrix and a mailing list; commercial consulting, support and development are also listed. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD 3-clause, and its documentation says security and functionality can be independently audited. The site identifies version 1.4.5 as stable; the 2.0 beta remains in testing and should not be used in production. Major-version changes may repeatedly break compatibility.
Box Backup
Box Backup has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.