FastBack vs Minecraft Backup

FastBack is a free, open-source Minecraft mod for incremental world backups: snapshots save changed parts rather than the entire world. Backups can be stored locally, on a Git server, or on a network volume without a Git server. They can run when a world shuts down or after Minecraft autosaves. Restoring a snapshot creates a copy of the selected world, leaving the current files untouched. Snapshot pruning and retention policies help manage backups, which can also include mod JARs and configuration files. FastBack works with Minecraft clients and dedicated servers on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It requires native Git and Git LFS to be installed and available on Minecraft's process PATH. The project describes it as intended for worlds up to about 5GB and recommends GitHub remotes only for smaller worlds under 500MB because of GitHub size restrictions. Documentation links to CurseForge for downloads and Discord for questions and help installing native Git. FastBack is distributed under GNU GPL version 2.

Minecraft Backup is a Linux script for backing up Minecraft server world folders. It can create tar archives or use the restic backend, and connects to servers managed with screen or tmux, as well as servers with RCON or Docker RCON enabled. The script works with vanilla servers and does not require plugins. Backups can be scheduled with cron; the README includes an hourly example. For older backups, users can choose no deletion, sequential deletion of the oldest backup, or thin retention. Thin retention keeps the last 24 hourly and 30 daily backups, then uses available space for weekly backups. Backups are stored locally, and restoration uses tar extraction for tar files or restic restore for restic backups. The script can post backup status messages in Minecraft chat. It requires tar and a compression program such as the default gzip; RCON also requires xxd. Player data can become out of sync with world data during backups, potentially duplicating or losing items. RCON is recommended because it waits for the server to confirm saving is complete. The README also warns that Minecraft bug MC-217729 can cause a backup to fail.