updated Sep 2026deployed by usprices checked · Jul 2026Install verified on Ubuntu 26.04 · Sep 2026 · how we test
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A backup tool with a CLI, a desktop GUI (KopiaUI) and a server mode with a web UI: encrypted, deduplicated snapshots with per-path policies for retention, scheduling and compression (zstd, s2, pgzip; off by default), stored on S3-compatible storage, B2, Azure, Google Cloud, SFTP, WebDAV, rclone or a local disk. Repository maintenance runs automatically, and a repository server can take backups from many machines, each user seeing only its own snapshots.
Pick Kopia when you want the backup tool to do the bookkeeping: per-path policies for retention, scheduling and compression, automatic quick (hourly) and full (daily) maintenance, and a GUI, either the KopiaUI desktop app or the web UI of `kopia server`. It is Apache-2.0, encrypts everything with AES-256-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305, and writes to S3-compatible storage, B2, Azure, Google Cloud, SFTP, WebDAV, rclone or a local disk. Its repository server lets many machines back up through per-user logins without ever holding the storage credentials. If you would rather drive a plain binary from cron with the policy spelled out as flags, restic is the simpler fit.
What you need
Any VPS with at least 512 MB of RAM
A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
Paid link — we earn a commission if you shop through it.
Install
Run these commands on your server:
# Kopia — official kopia/kopia image in server mode with the web UI, after kopia.io/docs/installation (Docker Images)mkdir -p ~/kopia/config ~/kopia/cache ~/kopia/logs && cd ~/kopiaprintf 'UI_PASSWORD=%s\nREPO_PASSWORD=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 16)" "$(openssl rand -hex 24)" > .env && chmod 600 .envcat > compose.yaml <<'EOF'services: kopia: image: kopia/kopia:0.23.1 hostname: backup-host restart: unless-stopped ports: ["127.0.0.1:51515:51515"] command: [server, start, --insecure, --address=0.0.0.0:51515, --server-username=admin, "--server-password=${UI_PASSWORD}"] environment: { KOPIA_PASSWORD: "${REPO_PASSWORD}", USER: admin } volumes: [./config:/app/config, ./cache:/app/cache, ./logs:/app/logs, /srv:/data:ro]EOFdocker compose up -d# UI: ssh -L 51515:127.0.0.1:51515 user@SERVER_IP, open http://localhost:51515, log in as admin / UI_PASSWORD,# then create the repository (S3, B2, SFTP...) with REPO_PASSWORD from .env so the container can reopen it after a restart# --insecure means no TLS: keep it on loopback. Remote kopia clients need a TLS server (see the Repository Server docs)
Kopia takes on more for you, and four things in its docs matter before you trust it with a VPS:
non-negotiableCompression is off by default. Kopia's FAQ says it is "disabled by default" and set per policy. Run kopia policy set --global --compression=zstd (or set it in the UI) before the first snapshot, because a change only applies to data uploaded afterwards.
non-negotiableOne password per repository, and no recovery: the docs say there is "no way to recover a forgotten password". In the Docker image the password comes from KOPIA_PASSWORD, so keep it in a root-only .env and back that value up somewhere other than this server.
non-negotiable--insecure in the web-UI example means plain HTTP, so bind the UI to loopback and reach it over an SSH tunnel. Remote Kopia clients need a TLS server: the Repository Server docs say --insecure does not work because gRPC needs TLS, and a reverse proxy has to use grpc_pass.
non-negotiableFull maintenance is deliberately slow to delete. It relies on time passing so that concurrent clients stay consistent, and upstream says freeing space "may take several hours and/or multiple maintenance cycles". Only one user@hostname, the maintenance owner, runs it. The 512 MB RAM floor is our estimate; Kopia publishes none, and its FAQ names compression and parallelism as the main causes of high memory use.
