Portworx Backupvs
Velero
Velero: Velero if you accept community support in exchange for no licence cost at all
Portworx Backup
Kubernetes application backup with a free tier up to one terabyte
As of 1 September 2026, Portworx Backup has a free plan and paid plans start at $0.2/node hour. A Kubernetes-aware backup service from Pure Storage that protects applications rather than volumes, with a genuinely free tier protecting up to one terabyte and paid usage at 0. Softwr lists it under Backup. Portworx Backup is made by Portworx by Pure Storage, available on Web, Linux.
Overview
What Portworx Backup does
Portworx Backup, previously PX-Backup, backs up Kubernetes applications as units: the resource definitions, the persistent volume data and the configuration that ties them together. It works across Container Storage Interface providers rather than only against Portworx volumes, so it protects clusters using cloud provider storage or another vendor's driver, and it restores into a different cluster or a different cloud. The distinguishing commercial fact is the free tier. Pure offers a fully managed free tier with no feature restrictions protecting up to one terabyte, which is enough to run real production backups for a small platform team and enough to evaluate the product properly without a sales process. Paid consumption is 0.20 US dollars per node hour with a 1,000 node hour monthly minimum, and it is licensed separately from Portworx Enterprise; buying storage does not give you backup. Buyers are platform teams already running Kubernetes in production, particularly those who started with Velero and hit the support question. The trade-off is that it is another Pure Storage subscription with its own minimum, and that backup is only as good as the restore rehearsal; Kubernetes application recovery still requires you to understand your own dependency ordering, whatever the product does automatically.
What people use it for
- A platform team running Velero that needs an accountable vendor for restore failures
- Protecting Kubernetes applications across EKS, GKE and on premises clusters under one policy set
- Restoring a namespace into a different cloud provider as a disaster recovery test
- A small team that wants real Kubernetes backup within the free one terabyte tier before committing budget
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 Portworx Backup.
- The paid tier carries a 1,000 node hour monthly minimum, so a cluster that only needs occasional protection still pays a floor.
- It is licensed separately from Portworx Enterprise, so organisations that assumed storage and backup came together find a second subscription in the quote.
- The free tier caps at one terabyte of protected data, which is quickly exceeded by any database of consequence and forces a jump straight to the minimum commitment.
- Backup targets are object stores you provide, so restore egress charges from your cloud provider are outside the vendor price and appear during a recovery rather than in procurement.
- Application-consistent backup of databases still depends on correct pre and post hooks, so the product does not remove the requirement to understand and rehearse your own restore ordering.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Portworx Backup
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.
- Portworx BackupvsPortworx
Portworx: Portworx for the persistent storage layer rather than its backup
- Portworx BackupvsVeeam Backup & Replication
Veeam Backup & Replication: Veeam Backup & Replication where one vendor covering Kubernetes and virtual machines is worth more than Kubernetes depth
Pricing
What Portworx Backup costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Up to one terabyte of protected data
- No feature restrictions
- Fully managed service
- Cross-cluster restore included
Portworx Backup
$0.2 /node hour
- Minimum 1,000 node hours per month
- Unlimited protected capacity
- Any Container Storage Interface provider
- Role-based access control
- Licensed separately from Portworx Enterprise
Capabilities
Features
Application-level backup
Protects Kubernetes resources and volume data together as one application
Any CSI provider
Works across storage drivers, not only Portworx volumes
Cross-cluster restore
Restores into a different cluster or cloud provider
Namespace and label selection
Backup scope defined by namespace, label or application
Scheduled policies
Retention and schedule policies applied per application
Role-based access
Delegated backup and restore rights per team or namespace
Free tier
Fully managed service protecting up to one terabyte at no cost
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 the free tier real?
Yes, up to one terabyte of protected data with no feature restrictions as a managed service. It is a usable production tier for small footprints, not a trial.
Does it only protect Portworx volumes?
No. It works across Container Storage Interface providers, including cloud provider storage and other vendors' drivers.
Is it included with Portworx Enterprise?
No. It is a separate licence at 0.20 USD per node hour with its own minimum.
Keep looking
Where to go from Portworx Backup
- Portworx Backup alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Portworx Backup pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Portworx Backup 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 Portworx Backup with
- Velero
- Trilio
- HYCU
- Acronis Cyber Protect
- BDRShield
- Veeam Kasten for Kubernetes
- CloudCasa
- Kopia
- AvePoint Cloud Backup
- Redstor
- rustic
- Proxmox Backup Server
- Datto Backup
- HPE StoreOnce
- MSP360 Backup
- N-able Backup
- OwnBackup
- Kopia
Other Backup software
Open source backup and migration for Kubernetes cluster resources
Open source11 researched notesBackup and recovery for OpenStack, Kubernetes and Red Hat Virtualization
Free plan11 researched notesBackup as a service spanning SaaS applications as well as infrastructure
Pricing on request11 researched notesLow-cost backup for virtual machines, servers, endpoints and SaaS from Vembu
Pricing on request11 researched notesKubernetes-native backup, disaster recovery and application mobility
Free plan11 researched notesSaaS Kubernetes backup and migration with published per-node pricing
Free, then $69/mo11 researched notesOpen source deduplicating backup with client side encryption and a repository on almost any storage
Open source12 researched notesMicrosoft 365, Dynamics and Salesforce backup from a long-standing Microsoft partner
Pricing on request11 researched notesCloud backup for managed service providers with instant streamed recovery
Pricing on request11 researched notesRust reimplementation of restic that reads and writes the same repository format
Open source12 researched notesDeduplicating backup server for virtual machines, containers and Linux hosts, with verification built in
Open source12 researched notesOpen source deduplicating backup with client side encryption and a repository on almost any storage
Open source12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Portworx Backup, 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 Portworx Backup
Portworx Backup alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Portworx Backup pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Portworx Backup
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Portworx Backup 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