At a glance
| Supported databases | PostgreSQL: the five supported major versions plus the last five end-of-life versions |
| Backup types | Full, differential, incremental; file-level or block-level |
| Point-in-time recovery | Yes, to a chosen time, LSN or other PostgreSQL recovery target |
| Compression and encryption | Compression including lz4 and zstd; AES-256-CBC client-side repository encryption |
| Storage targets | Local or mounted path, SFTP, S3, Azure and GCS compatible object stores; multiple repositories |
| Retention and automation | Retention by number of full or differential backups and for WAL archive; scheduling through cron or similar |
| Restore options | Full and delta restore, PITR, restore of selected databases, backup from standby |
| Deployment | Self-hosted command-line tool on the database host and optionally a dedicated repository host |
| Licensing | MIT, free |
pgBackRest suits teams running self-managed PostgreSQL who need reliable physical backups, point-in-time recovery and off-site copies in object storage, at no licence cost. It is configured through files and the command line, so expect to script monitoring and test restores yourself. Update to 2.59.3 or later if you use repository encryption.
Overview
pgBackRest takes physical backups of a PostgreSQL cluster and archives its WAL, so you can restore the cluster as of a backup or replay WAL to a chosen time, LSN or other recovery target. It supports full, differential and incremental backups at file level or, with block incremental, at block level so only the changed parts of files are stored. Backup, restore and WAL push and get run in parallel, compression (including lz4 and zstd) and checksums are computed while files stream to the repository, and repositories can be encrypted client-side with AES-256-CBC.
A repository can be a local or mounted path, an SFTP server, or S3, Azure or GCS compatible object storage, and you can configure several repositories at once, for example a local one with short retention and a remote one with longer retention. It can back up from a standby to reduce load on the primary, archive WAL asynchronously, and perform delta restores that reuse unchanged files. The project says it supports ten PostgreSQL versions: the five supported releases and the last five end-of-life ones. Version 2.59 added PostgreSQL 19 beta support, and 2.60.0 makes restore stop on invalid page checksums by default.
Key features
- Full, differential and incremental backups at file or block level (block incremental, repo-block)
- Point-in-time recovery to a time, LSN or other target by replaying archived WAL
- Parallel backup, restore and WAL archiving, with asynchronous archive push and get
- Repositories on local or mounted storage, SFTP, and S3, Azure or GCS compatible object storage, with several repositories at once
- Client-side repository encryption (AES-256-CBC) and compression including lz4 and zstd
- Backup from a standby and delta restore that reuses unchanged files
- Retention settings for full, differential and WAL archive data, plus page checksum validation
Integrations and ecosystem
Pros and cons
Pros
- Free under a permissive licence with no paid edition
- Block-level incremental backups reduce repository size for large clusters
- Native object storage support and multiple repositories for off-site copies
- Frequent releases, including early support for new PostgreSQL versions
Cons
- No graphical interface: configuration files, command line and your own scheduling
- PostgreSQL only
- Needs file system access to the cluster, so it does not apply to managed services such as Amazon RDS
- Funding depends on sponsors rather than a commercial product
Pricing
pgBackRest is free and open source under the MIT licence. There is no paid edition; the project is funded by sponsors, which in November 2026 were listed as AWS, Supabase, pgEdge, Tiger Data, Percona, Eon, Xata, Dalibo and Data Egret (Crunchy Data and Resonate are listed as past sponsors). Your costs are repository storage and the servers that run it.
Pricing checked on the vendor's official page on 7 November 2026. Prices change; confirm before buying.
Who it is best for
Teams running self-managed PostgreSQL, on servers or virtual machines, who want robust physical backups, PITR and object storage repositories without licence fees.
Typical use cases
- Nightly full or differential backups of a multi-terabyte PostgreSQL cluster with block incrementals in between
- Recovering to the moment before an accidental DELETE with point-in-time recovery
- Keeping a short-retention local repository and a long-retention copy in S3 or Azure
- Taking backups from a standby to keep load off the primary
Who should look elsewhere
- Managed PostgreSQL such as Amazon RDS, where the provider handles physical backups: see RDS backups and snapshots.
- One-off copies of a single database between versions, where a logical dump is simpler: see the pg_dump guide.
Verdict
pgBackRest is one of the most complete free backup tools for PostgreSQL, with block-level incrementals, parallelism, encryption and native object storage. It asks for command-line comfort and your own monitoring and restore testing, and it only fits self-managed clusters where you can reach the data directory.
Frequently asked questions
pgBackRest or Barman?
Both are free physical backup managers with PITR. pgBackRest is MIT-licensed, runs from the database host or a repository host and writes natively to S3, Azure, GCS or SFTP. Barman is GPLv3, maintained by EDB, and centres on a dedicated backup server that manages many PostgreSQL servers, with separate barman-cloud tools for object storage.
Does pgBackRest support block-level incremental backups?
Yes. With the block incremental option, differential and incremental backups store only the changed parts of files. It requires repository bundling.
Which PostgreSQL versions does pgBackRest support?
The project supports ten versions: the five currently supported PostgreSQL releases and the last five end-of-life releases. Releases 2.59.0 to 2.59.2 added PostgreSQL 19 beta support.
Is pgBackRest still maintained after Crunchy Data?
Yes. Crunchy Data is now listed as a past sponsor, and current sponsors include AWS, Supabase, pgEdge, Tiger Data and Percona. Version 2.60.0 was released on 18 October 2026.
Sources
- pgBackRest home page (features, sponsors, news)
- pgBackRest user guide
- pgBackRest release notes
- pgBackRest GitHub repository (MIT licence)
Checked November 2026.
Listed in: Database Backup & Recovery.
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