Tarsnap
Ranked 7 of 8 backup software by recommenders
People recommend Tarsnap as a very good encrypted backup service with brilliant software, though critics say it is expensive.
People recommend Tarsnap as a very good encrypted backup service with brilliant software, though critics say it is expensive.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Encrypted backups, well regarded
“I really loved the backup service of Colin Percival, tarsnap.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “GitHub backs down, kills Copilot pull-request ads after backlash” “Tarsnap, a (very good) encrypted backup service”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “(Post-Quantum) Cryptographic Right Answers” Listed among top backup programs
“using any of a number of actual backup programs: borg, restic, hashbackup, tarsnap, others”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Automating Linux Backups with Rsync: A Set-and-Forget Strategy” “tarsnap, restic, borgbackup and others are your friend”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “I Regret Migrating to Codeberg” “There's Backblaze and Arq and Tarsnap, amongst others.”
Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “Tim Cook to become Apple Executive Chairman”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive for what it does
“Cool product and the owner is a good dude, but good Lord is it expensive.”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data” Lacks smartcard support
“It does not even support smartcards, so just shove your private key for your entire filesystem in system memory”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Are we self-sovereign PKI yet?” Cannot be self-hosted or audited
“you cannot selfhost it. it's not verified and audited independently as a whole system.”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The PGP Problem (2019)”
Other backup software people recommend
The four most recommended other backup software, 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 | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time Machine | 70 | 95 | 42% | 13 | 6 yrs13 owners | — |
| Arq Backup | 30 | 2 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Kopia | 16 | 2 | 89% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Carbon Copy Cloner | 15 | 0 | 100% | 9 | — | Approved |
| TarsnapThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Tarsnap, a (very good) encrypted backup service”
“tarsnap, restic, borgbackup and others are your friend”
“It does not even support smartcards, so just shove your private key for your entire filesystem in system memory”
“There's Backblaze and Arq and Tarsnap, amongst others.”
“I really loved the backup service of Colin Percival, tarsnap.”
“you cannot selfhost it. it's not verified and audited independently as a whole system.”
“minimal website, brilliant software”
“using any of a number of actual backup programs: borg, restic, hashbackup, tarsnap, others”
“Cool product and the owner is a good dude, but good Lord is it expensive.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.