Alternatives/Comparisons

[alexreg]

When/after porting over the old Synctus website (http://web.archive.org/web/20131209161307/http://www.synctus.com/ddar/) to GitHub (pages/wiki), it might be nice to add to the alternative list, and perhaps create comparisons pages for the main ones (like you before for tarsnap and rdiff-bacup).

I suppose these would include:

• ZBackup
• Attic
• Obnam
• ZPAQ
• Bup
• Burp
• Possibly others from this list: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/backup_programs

What are your thoughts on this? With the proliferation of all these backup utilities and software lately, I personally think it would be of supreme helpfulness to have such a guide (summary and comparisons) on these various options, especially to the majority of people like me who aren't experts on this. Naturally you'd be a little biased towards your own software, but I hardly think that would undermine it as a tremendously useful resource. There's also the possibility of doing a simple comparisons matrix/table in addition or instead of the aforementioned.

Of course, this is a tacit request for you to do a fair amount of writing (and possibly research, depending on how much you already know about these alternatives). I hope I've convinced you it would be worth your while though. I could certainly help with this in some aspect, if you like.

[basak]

I'd be happy to have such a guide on the wiki here, extending the comparison I wrote up when I first published ddar. Please go right ahead and edit the wiki if you like.

Naturally you'd be a little biased towards your own software...

Perhaps, yes, although my goal when I wrote the comparison originally was to try and be as unbiased as possible. It's all Free Software and we're all friends here :)

Of course, this is a tacit request for you to do a fair amount of writing...

My time has been pretty limited for the last year or so for personal reasons, but I should be back to normal in a few months. In the meantime, if anyone wants to take this on, please do. Taking the whole thing on right now feels a little more than I can manage right now, but I'm happy to respond to specific questions in this issue.

[alexreg]

I fear I'm not knowledgeable enough about the technical differences between all the options, but I may have a go if I get some free time! And when I say you might be biased, it's just my intention to say that even in the worst case such a guide would still be highly beneficial. But I agree, your previous comparisons were pretty objective. :-)

That's good to hear you'll have more free time in a few months. I look forward to seeing what you can do with the documentation and perhaps with ddar itself then.