WAL-G
Shares rank 14 of 19 backup tools by recommenders
Open-source tool for streaming PostgreSQL backups and point-in-time recovery, with cloud storage support and replica catch-up. Critics note a base-backup bug on PG15+ and confusing docs.
Open-source tool for streaming PostgreSQL backups and point-in-time recovery, with cloud storage support and replica catch-up. Critics note a base-backup bug on PG15+ and confusing docs.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 67%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Streaming recovery and replica catch-up
“The streaming PITR nature of these won over pgbackrest when we did the analysis ~9 years ago.”
Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “Pgbackrest is no longer being maintained” “Works great for catching up secondary servers”
Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Litestream Writable VFS” Go version improves on wal-e
“I must say I'm quite pleased to see how well Go version works.”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “WAL-RUS: a Rust Rewrite of WAL-G for PostgreSQL Backups” “wal-g was a much larger improvement over wal-e”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “WAL-RUS: a Rust Rewrite of WAL-G for PostgreSQL Backups”
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 | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| restic | 83 | 5 | 94% | 12 | — | Approved |
| pgBackRest | 32 | 6 | 84% | 6 | 1 yr4 owners | Approved |
| Borg Backup | 30 | 8 | 79% | 12 | — | Approved |
| iCloud Photos Downloader | 18 | 4 | 82% | 2 | — | — |
| WAL-GThis page | 6 | 3 | 67% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
9 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“wal-g base backups being inconsistent on PG15+ (parameter typo had pg_backup_stop return before wal archived far enough for consistency)”
“wal-g was a much larger improvement over wal-e”
“I must say I'm quite pleased to see how well Go version works.”
“that command will wait for the full wal segment before it pushes anything to storage”
“I'm one of many wal-g maintainers, it's comparable.”
“The streaming PITR nature of these won over pgbackrest when we did the analysis ~9 years ago.”
“I find the WAL-G documentation very confusing.”
“Wal-G focuses on cloud and universality”
“Works great for catching up secondary servers”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.