# pgBackRest

32 Hacker News commenters recommended pgBackRest and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free PostgreSQL backup tool praised for physical standby backups, point-in-time recovery, and taking restore validation seriously. Main caveat: concerns about its future maintenance under a permissive license.

## Why people recommend it

- Reliable in production for years (4 comments): "I use pgbackrest for some databases in production, and it has been VERY good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920575)) "Has worked like a charm in the last two years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779382)) "pgBackRest have worked so well for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920386))
- Easy setup with clear docs (3 comments): "I picked pgBackRest over WAL-G because the documentation was clearer." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920614)) "We eventually moved to pgbackrest and it wasn't any harder to setup." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49008588)) "Others have mentioned pgBackRest and that further enforces the ease with which you can set up these traditionally-complex setups." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46346466))
- Backups from standby reduce load (2 comments): "pgBackrest lets you do the majority of the backup from a physical standby, which is VERY nice for removing the load off production." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924257)) "it could offload full and incremental backups to a basically limitless and reliable medium" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47987771))
- Restore validation and point-in-time recovery (2 comments): "It was the only solution that seemed to take restoring and validating as seriously as taking a backup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920417)) "Offers point-in-time recovery which is an improvement over a custom solution we used to have" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49008288))

## What people warn about

- Future maintenance seems uncertain (4 comments): "It's permissive license, which means it's dead Jim. Everyone using it will maintain their own forks privately." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47936482)) "You pick a tool trust it, build around it, one day it stops." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47922718)) "why also slam the door closed on someone taking over?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920814))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Barman](https://hackerapproved.com/p/barman.md): 17 recommend
- [Databasus](https://hackerapproved.com/p/databasus.md): 9 recommend
- [Restoredrill](https://hackerapproved.com/p/restoredrill.md): 7 recommend
- [sqlite3_rsync](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sqlite3-rsync.md): 6 recommend
- [WAL-G](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wal-g.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

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