Kopiavs
Restic
Restic: A longer track record and wider third party tooling, without the desktop interface or default compression
Kopia
Open source deduplicating backup with client side encryption and a repository on almost any storage
As of 31 August 2026, Kopia is free to use. Content addressed, compressed and encrypted backup that writes to S3, B2, Azure, SFTP or a local disk, with both a command line tool and a desktop interface. Softwr lists it under Backup. Kopia is made by Kopia contributors, available on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker.
Overview
What Kopia does
Kopia is an open source backup tool written in Go and released under the Apache licence. It splits files into content defined chunks, deduplicates them globally within a repository, compresses them with zstd or similar, encrypts them client side with AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305 and writes the result to a repository that can live on S3 compatible object storage, Backblaze B2, Azure, Google Cloud Storage, SFTP, WebDAV, rclone remotes or a plain directory. It ships as a command line tool and as KopiaUI, a desktop application over the same engine. The design decision that matters commercially is packing. Small chunks are grouped into larger pack blobs before upload, so a backup of a million small files does not become a million objects in a bucket. Against providers that charge per operation or per segment, that is the difference between a plausible bill and an absurd one, and it is why Kopia behaves well on the cheap object storage tiers that other chunk based tools make expensive. Buyers are individuals and technical teams who want restic or Borg style properties with a desktop interface and better object storage economics. The trade-off is that Kopia expects you to run maintenance. Space is only reclaimed when maintenance runs, ownership of full maintenance sits with one client in a shared repository, and if that machine stops backing up, nothing reclaims anything and the bucket grows without limit while every backup still reports success.
What people use it for
- Backing up laptops and workstations to cheap object storage with a desktop interface rather than a cron job
- Deduplicating backups of several similar machines into one repository so common content is stored once
- Replacing a chunk based tool whose per object charges made a cheap bucket expensive
- Keeping an encrypted offsite copy where the storage provider must never be able to read the contents
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Kopia.
- Space is only reclaimed when maintenance runs, and in a shared repository full maintenance is owned by one client, so if that machine goes away the repository grows for ever while every backup still reports success.
- The repository format has changed across versions and mixing client versions against one repository is discouraged, so a fleet must be upgraded together rather than machine by machine.
- There is no central orchestration or reporting for many machines, so monitoring a fleet means building your own alerting around exit codes.
- Restoring many small files is slower than the backup was, because content must be reassembled from pack blobs, and this is rarely tested until the day it matters.
- Encryption is client side with no escrow, so a lost repository password means the data is unrecoverable and there is no vendor to appeal to.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Kopia
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- KopiavsBorg Backup
Borg Backup: Better single machine deduplication ratios, but the repository must be on a filesystem rather than object storage
- KopiavsDuplicacy
Duplicacy: Lock free design that suits many clients writing to one cloud repository, under a licence that is not open source for commercial use
Pricing
What Kopia costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Kopia
Free
- Full functionality, no data limit
- Desktop application included
- Any supported storage back end
- Community support
Capabilities
Features
Content defined chunking
Splits files at content boundaries so small edits do not rewrite whole files
Global deduplication
Identical content across machines sharing a repository is stored once
Pack blobs
Groups small chunks into larger uploads to avoid per object charges on cloud storage
Client side encryption
Data and metadata are encrypted before upload with keys the storage provider never sees
Desktop and command line
KopiaUI provides scheduling and browsing over the same repository format as the CLI
Repository verification
Commands that re-read and validate snapshot content against the stored blobs
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is a partly corrupt repository still restorable?
Partly. Deduplication means one damaged pack blob affects every snapshot referencing its contents, but unaffected files still restore. Run verification regularly rather than assuming.
How does it compare with restic?
Similar guarantees, with packing that behaves better on per operation billing, a desktop interface, and compression enabled by default.
Do I need to run maintenance manually?
It is scheduled automatically by default, but you must ensure the client that owns full maintenance keeps running, otherwise deleted snapshots never free space.
Can several machines share one repository?
Yes, and that is where deduplication pays off, but they should run compatible versions and only one owns full maintenance.
Keep looking
Where to go from Kopia
- Kopia alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Kopia pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Kopia badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Backup softwareThe full category
- Best Backup softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Backup software for
Compare Kopia with
- rustic
- Borg Backup
- Duplicacy
- Restic
- Proxmox Backup Server
- UrBackup
- Velero
- HPE StoreOnce
- Portworx Backup
- Trilio
- Acronis Cyber Protect
- BDRShield
- CloudCasa
- Cohesity DataProtect
- Datto Backup
- MSP360 Backup
- Velero
- HPE StoreOnce
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Kopia, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Kopia
Kopia alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Kopia pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Kopia
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Kopia badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Backup software alternatives
Microsoft 365, Dynamics and Salesforce backup from a long-standing Microsoft partner
quote
Serverless AWS backup with published per-gigabyte rates and explicit restore charges
Per GiB-month protected
