# Duplicati

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Duplicati and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free encrypted backup tool that keeps data unless you exclude it and reports failures. Critics say retrieving files from cold storage is slow.

## Why people recommend it

- Does not silently skip data (2 comments): "we take special care to not silently skip things as this is likely to cause problems when you want to restore later" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47790338)) "one thing we've tried to be careful about is not silently ignoring data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768630))
- Control over what gets backed up (2 comments): "You get the benefit of encrypted backups, have more control over what to back up, and will be notified upon failure." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47766491)) "Duplicati, at least, keeps everything except that which I tell it not to" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47765409))

## What people warn about

- Slow retrieval from cold storage (2 comments): "It's a serious pain in the ass because it takes hours to queue up and retrieve a file." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777016)) "It's a serious pain in the ass because it takes hours to queue up and retrieve a file" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47774430))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Arq Backup](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arq-backup.md): 30 recommend
- [Tarsnap](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tarsnap.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Duplicati", https://hackerapproved.com/p/duplicati/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).