Barman
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 6 of 23 backup tools by recommenders
People recommend Barman as a solid, long-used PostgreSQL backup and restore tool with point-in-time recovery. Its most common caveat is no direct backup to S3 object storage.
15 people recommended Barman in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 23 comments.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 3
The record
Recommended in 6 of 12 months
In 8 different threads.
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 8 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 33% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 20 of the 24 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Solid, reliable backup and restore
“the backup mechanism using Barman for database snapshots and WAL backups is vastly superior”
Comment from 20 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “I've used barman on somewhat large-ish DBs (30+ TB), and had no complaints with it.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained” “we have been using barman for a long time very happily”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained” - Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL”
- Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained”
Point-in-time restore via WAL backups
“This allows for point-in-time restores, but there were a lot of lessons to learn along the way.”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Backups Aren't Simple” “Setup pgbackreset or barman, use WAL archiving and setup block incremental backups”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “The startup's Postgres survival guide” Mature, widely used open source
“This is a fantastic project that a lot of self-hosters using PostgreSQL use.”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL” “Barman has been around since 2011, released under the GPL.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained” Good fit for Kubernetes
“Barman Cloud was a convenient choice for CloudNativePG (CNPG”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No direct S3 or object storage backup
“It's been solid, although I've had a few complaints about 1) inability to set S3 storage classes, 2) slow upload for very large databases.”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL” “It looks like Barman doesn't support direct backup to object storage, unfortunately.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained” “Barman didn't support backups to S3”
Comment from 2 May 2026 in “Barman – Backup and Recovery Manager for PostgreSQL”
Other backup tools people recommend
The four most recommended other backup tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| restic | 72 | 7 | 5 | 94% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Time Machine | 50 | 14 | 86 | 37% | 11 | 6 yrs13 people | — |
| Arq Backup | 27 | 2 | 1 | 96% | 10 | — | — |
| Borg Backup | 27 | 3 | 8 | 77% | 8 | — | Approved |
| BarmanThis page | 15 | 1 | 3 | 83% | 6 | — | Approved |
Also compared with pgBackRest, Kopia and Carbon Copy Cloner.
What people said
20 of the 24 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This allows for point-in-time restores, but there were a lot of lessons to learn along the way.”
“Setup pgbackreset or barman, use WAL archiving and setup block incremental backups”
“we test the S3 barman restoration and it works fine”
“Barman Cloud was a convenient choice for CloudNativePG (CNPG”
“It's been solid, although I've had a few complaints about 1) inability to set S3 storage classes, 2) slow upload for very large databases.”
“we use it for azure at work”
“For PG v17+, Barman seems to be the most efficient backup solution based on PG native tools”
“Barman didn't support backups to S3”
“Barman has always been solid for backup and restore”
“This is a fantastic project that a lot of self-hosters using PostgreSQL use.”
“Our main complaints with barman were that incremental backups utilized hardlinks.”
“Barman has been around since 2011, released under the GPL.”
“We use barman, very happily”
“we have been using barman for a long time very happily”
“barman seems to cover "Natural disaster" in their docs. Seems good.”
“I've used barman on somewhat large-ish DBs (30+ TB), and had no complaints with it.”
“It looks like Barman doesn't support direct backup to object storage, unfortunately.”
“In the same SLAVE, you can also install barman - claude code will help you set it up.”
“the backup mechanism using Barman for database snapshots and WAL backups is vastly superior”
“Barman for backups and unless you need multi-master you can use the builtin publication and subscription”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.