Duplicati vs Minarca

Duplicati is backup software for Windows, macOS and Linux, covering computers and servers. It can back up desktops, laptops, local servers, NAS devices, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and S3 buckets. Destinations include S3, WebDAV, SFTP and local hardware; cloud data can also be copied to an on-prem SAN or private S3 cluster. Data is encrypted locally with AES-256 before transfer, and only changed blocks are sent. Retention settings can remove older backups or keep a chosen number. Administrators can distribute backup configurations to clients, delegate local management to regional IT staff and isolate clients in sub-organizations. One subscription supports unlimited clients and endpoints. The free plan provides an insights dashboard, monitoring for up to two machines and access to the last 200 backups. Pro adds alerts, AI analysis, remote management, retention, storage and priority support. Enterprise adds organization management, configuration assistance, SSO with MFA, agent deployment and credential management. Pro is $2/mo billed annually; Enterprise is $3/mo billed yearly and requires at least 10 machines.

Minarca is a free, open-source backup solution that places an agent on computers and uses a central server for management. It backs up Linux, Windows and macOS systems, with destinations including remote servers and external disks. Its web interface provides a dashboard, logs and statistics, while the server can keep separate repositories and disk quotas for multiple users. Minarca uses rdiff-backup for incremental backups; its maker says the reverse incremental differential method helps resist data corruption. Large restores can be handled with the local agent, while smaller datasets can be restored through the web interface. The software also creates a mirror of backed-up directories that can be accessed and restored from the filesystem, with or without the application. A central Minarca server is required to back up a desktop computer. Listed agents support Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), macOS Catalina 10.15 and later, and 64-bit Linux, Ubuntu and Debian. The plan costs nothing and is self-hosted, with configurable user storage quotas.