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Disclaimer: I am only a user, not the developer, and I am not in their team :)

I found this backup solution a few days ago and I already love it! Time to share!

Vykar is a new backup solution in an early state, that is inspired by Borg and Restic. It offers a fast and encrypted backup solution with an easy YAML formatted configuration. It can back up to a local repository, S3, its own backup server or all of them. Deduplication and snapshots are integrated, in daemon mode it has a built-in scheduler too.

Run it via the provided binaries, the GUI or use it in Docker. Recovery can be easily done via the CLI or starting a local web server to browse the files or access them via WebDAV.

Example YAML configuration (for showing its simplicity), full docs here

# vykar configuration file
# Minimal required configuration.
# Full reference: https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration

 repositories:
  - label: "Backupserver"
    url: "https://backup.myserver.com/"
    access_token: "secure-token-here"
 sources:
   - label: "immich-homeserver"
     path: "/docker/immich/data"
     exclude:
       - "backup"
       - "thumbs"
       - "encoded-video"

   - label: "media-homeserver"
     paths:
       - "/backup/media/books"
       - "/backup/media/music"
       - "/backup/scripts"
       - "/backup/media/video"
     exclude:
       - "cache"
       - "tmp"


# --- Common optional settings (uncomment as needed) ---

 encryption:
  # mode: "auto"                     # Default — benchmark at init and persist chosen mode
   mode: "aes256gcm"

# 

 retention:
   keep_last: 3 #keeps the last 3 snapshots
#   keep_daily: 7
#   keep_weekly: 4

# https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration#compression

 compression:
   algorithm: zstd
   zstd_level: 5

# https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration#exclude-patterns

 exclude_patterns:
   - "*.tmp"
   - "*.bak"
   - "*.log"
   - ".pnpm-store"
   - "node_modules"
   - "postgres"
   - ".Trash-1000"
   - "$Recycle.Bin"
   - "System Volume Information"
   - ".DS_Store"

# schedule:
#   enabled: true
#   every: "24h"

This was created with AI, so while it seems interesting, I will give it some time for others to find issues with their backups. Maybe in a couple years.

I don’t understand, what’s wrong with Borg?

There is nothing wrong with borg, but it is complex and for easiness you need scripts or tools like borgmatic. Vykar is designed to be beginner friendly

I remember having to puzzle over the borg documentation a little when I started using it, but I don’t use any tools. I just have a couple of aliases in my .bashrc and that seems like enough.

Borgmatic also uses yaml and I’m pretty sure most package managers have Borg as a dependency for borgmatic. So if you just install borgmatic and forget about Borg, it isn’t seen as an extra tool.

Disclaimer: I am only a user, not the developer

Got any screenshots? /s

I feel that the bar could be lower for less hardcore people ;)