Back to Blog
team@tinypod.app

Self-Hosting Kopia: Modern Backup Solution

Kopia is a modern backup tool with encryption, deduplication, compression, and a web UI. A powerful alternative to Restic and Borg.

kopiabackupsstoragesecurity

What Is Kopia?


Kopia is a fast backup tool that creates encrypted, compressed, and deduplicated backups. It's the newer alternative to Restic and Borg.


Kopia vs Restic vs Borg


Kopia

  • Built-in web UI for management
  • Multi-threaded by default (faster)
  • Built-in server mode (centralized backup management)
  • Active development, modern architecture

    • Restic

  • More mature, widely adopted
  • Simpler (CLI only)
  • Excellent documentation
  • Slightly smaller community

    • Borg

  • Very mature and battle-tested
  • SSH-based (no S3/B2 native)
  • Compression is excellent
  • Limited to local/SSH backends

    • Features


    Encryption

    All data encrypted before leaving your machine. AES-256-GCM.


    Deduplication

    File-level and block-level deduplication. Only new data is stored.


    Compression

    Multiple algorithms (zstd, gzip, s2). Typically 40-60% compression ratio.


    Storage Backends

  • Local filesystem
  • S3 (AWS, MinIO, Wasabi)
  • Backblaze B2
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Azure Blob
  • SFTP
  • Rclone (supports 40+ backends)

    • Web UI

    Browse snapshots, restore files, configure policies — all from a web interface.


    Snapshot Policies

  • Retention: Keep N hourly/daily/weekly/monthly/yearly snapshots
  • Scheduling: Automatic backups at configured intervals
  • Ignore rules: Skip specific files or directories

    • Deployment


    1. Deploy Kopia on TinyPod

    2. Connect a storage backend (B2, S3, etc.)

    3. Create a repository with encryption password

    4. Configure backup paths and schedules

    5. Monitor via web UI


    Resources: 1 CPU, 512 MB RAM.


    Best Practice


    Run Kopia on your TinyPod server. Back up all application data to Backblaze B2 ($0.005/GB/month). With deduplication and compression, 100 GB of data might only use 30 GB of B2 storage: $0.15/month for backup peace of mind.