# Kopia

16 Hacker News commenters recommended Kopia and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free backup tool that people recommend over paid options, with GUI restores and support for multiple repositories. Common caveat: local config makes scripting and declarative setups harder.

## Why people recommend it

- Free and better than paid tools (3 comments): "There are actually really good free backup solutions, like kopia.io. Tried a couple of paid ones first because I didn't know about them, but this is even better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457098)) "Gave up and moved on to Kopia." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980356)) "something better like Kopia" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172702))
- GUI makes restores easy (2 comments): "Borg/Kopia if you want GUI-driven restores for non-technical members of your family" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46850412)) "Kopia is better for maybe less advanced user as it gives them GUI to click on" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49751568))
- Works with object storage and S3 (4 comments): "I use Kopia for that, one repository on an external SSD and another on Backblaze" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47313428)) "Reliable for me is Kopia from Mac to S3 compatible volume (minio) on Synology." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46852871)) "use restic or kopia to back it up to cheap object storage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47358051))
- Recommended alongside restic (2 comments): "restic and kopia should work decently, if with a bit of setup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46849525)) "restic or kopia are better for proper backups" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46851254))

## What people warn about

- Harder to script and configure (2 comments): "it insists on keeping local config which makes scripting a bit more involved" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49734242)) "IMO it's harder to configure if you have your own declarative config tooling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49740617))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [BorgBackup](https://hackerapproved.com/p/borgbackup.md): 12 recommend

## Cite as

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