Open Source Time Machine AlternativesTop System Restore & System Backup Tools like Time Machine

The best open source alternative to Time Machine is Duplicati. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Time Machine and many of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Time Machine are TimeShift, Restic, Déjà Dup and UrBackup.

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Alternatives list

  1. Duplicati icon
     355 likes

    Duplicati stores encrypted, incremental backups with AES-256 encryption and GPG, compatible with Windows, Linux, MacOS. Supports cloud services like OneDrive, Google Drive, and includes a built-in scheduler, auto-updater. Run backups through a web interface or command line.

    136 Duplicati alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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    2
    Comments about Duplicati as an Alternative to Time Machine
    Guest
    Positive
    2

    Only backs up the changes instead of the whole file, just like Time Machine.

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Guest
    Negative
    -15

    because it saves the whole backup every time, not just the changes like time machine does

    Review by a new / low-activity user.
    Duplicati icon
    Duplicati icon
    • Duplicati is Freemium and Open SourceTime Machine is Free and Proprietary
    • Duplicati is Privacy focusedTime Machine is not according to our users
  2. TimeShift icon
     78 likes

    TimeShift for Linux is an application that provides functionality similar to the System Restore feature in Windows and Time Machine tool in Mac OS. TimeShift protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of file system at regular intervals.

    33 TimeShift alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
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    1
    Comments about TimeShift as an Alternative to Time Machine
    Paul
    Positive
    0

    Great piece of software to take snapshots of your system and easily restore it.

    TimeShift icon
    TimeShift icon
    • TimeShift is Free and Open SourceTime Machine is Free and Proprietary
    • TimeShift is Lightweight and Privacy focusedTime Machine is not according to our users
  3. Restic icon
     66 likes

    restic is a program that does backups right. The design goals are: Easy, Fast, Verifiable, Secure, Efficient, Free.

    61 Restic alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Arch Linux
    • FreeBSD
    • OpenBSD
     
  4. Déjà Dup icon
     80 likes

    Déjà Dup is a simple backup tool. It hides the complexity of doing backups the Right Way (encrypted, off-site, and regularly) and uses Restic behind the scenes.

    91 Déjà Dup alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Flathub
    • GNOME
     
  5. UrBackup icon
     39 likes

    UrBackup is a open source client/server backup system, that through a combination of image and file backups accomplishes both data safety and a fast restoration time.

    47 UrBackup alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • FreeBSD
     
  6. Duplicacy icon
     16 likes

    Duplicacy is a new generation local and cloud backup tool that supports cross-computer deduplication. It is free for personal use and source code is available to commercial users.

    78 Duplicacy alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. Plakar icon
     5 likes

    An open-source backup and restore platform built for modern workloads. It offers encrypted, deduplicated, and instantly recoverable snapshots across file systems, object stores and cloud environments.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (ISC)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
    • Ubuntu
    • Debian
    • FreeBSD
    • OpenBSD
     
  8. Cronopete icon
     7 likes

    Cronopete is a backup utility for Linux, modeled after Apple's Time Machine. It aims to simplify the creation of periodic backups.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  9. Rsnapshot icon
     16 likes

    rsnapshot is a rsync based backup utillity, providing filesystem snapshot functionality. It can take incremental snapshots of local and remote filesystems for any number of machines.

    42 Rsnapshot alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
  10. rdiff-backup icon
     15 likes

    rdiff-backup backs up one directory to another, possibly over a network. The target directory ends up a copy of the source directory, but extra reverse diffs are stored in a special subdirectory of that target directory, so you can still recover files lost some time ago.

    80 rdiff-backup alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
     
12 of 32 Time Machine alternatives