# Bareos is the AGPL backup suite that ships three release lines at once > Bareos is a network backup and restore system for mixed environments, licensed AGPLv3 with no open-core restrictions, supporting disk, tape and S3-compatible targets. Its storage design favours Always Incremental backups and a deduplication-friendly format, and it maintains 23.1, 24.0 and 25.1 simultaneously, all released on the same day. **bareos/bareos** — Bareos is a cross-network Open Source backup solution (licensed under AGPLv3) which preserves, archives, and recovers data from all major operating systems. - Repository: https://github.com/bareos/bareos - Website: http://www.bareos.org - Stars: 1,277 · Forks: 320 - Language: C++ - License: NOASSERTION - Published: 2026-10-17 · Updated: 2026-10-17 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/bareos-bareos ## The licence and the absence of an open core Bareos describes itself as backup and recovery open source software for mixed IT environments, and its first stated characteristic is the licence. It is licensed under AGPLv3 and follows what the README calls a true open-source approach without open-core restrictions. That phrase is doing specific work. The AGPL is the strongest copyleft in common use, and the network clause is the part that matters for a server product: if you modify Bareos and offer it to others over a network, you owe them the source of your modifications. For a backup system that almost nobody modifies, that obligation rarely triggers, so AGPL here is effectively a strong copyleft rather than a viral one. The open-core question is separate and more important to an evaluator. Plenty of backup products are open source with a limited edition, where the features you need at scale are commercial. The README names this as a distinguishing characteristic, and the releases section points at both subscription packages for subscribers and a community package, with two different download hosts. That is worth reading carefully rather than taking the badge at face value. A community package and a subscriber package from the same project is not automatically an open core, and a licence file and feature list are the things to check. The repository root carries `AGPL-3.0.txt` as well as `LICENSE.txt`, and the recorded licence for the repository is a custom one that GitHub cannot classify, which is a discrepancy to resolve with the project rather than guess at. The commercial relationship is explicit elsewhere. There is a badge for commercial support services and one for sponsoring, plus `SPONSORS.md` at the root. ## Always Incremental and a format designed for deduplication Two features describe Bareos's storage philosophy, and they are the ones to understand before comparing it to a product that stores full images. Always Incremental backup is described as a scheme for file-based backups. The name is the argument: rather than choosing per job whether a backup is full or incremental, the scheme is incremental always, which means the full copy happens once and later backups carry changes. It also moves the cost, because the storage has to be managed as a growing pool rather than as a set of dated volumes. The second feature is that backups are stored in a format optimized for deduplicating storage systems such as ZFS, VDO or btrfs. That is a deliberate division of labour. Bareos does not deduplicate; it writes in a shape that a deduplicating filesystem can deduplicate well. So the decision about whether you get deduplication is a decision about your storage, and the README is honest about where the work happens. There is a tool for the decision too. `bdedupestimate` helps estimate deduplication potential before changing the backup setup. That is the feature most worth noticing in a backup product, because most tell you their savings after you have bought. An estimator you run against a sample of your data before changing anything turns deduplication from a hope into an estimate. Storage targets are disk, tape and S3-compatible object storage, with tape, tape libraries and WORM media supported for long-term retention, so the same backup can land in object storage and still be retained on tape. ## The catalog is the restore interface Restore is where backup products differ, and Bareos's answer is a catalog. Controlled restore is described as using a catalog and WebUI to help teams find, select and restore the right data. So the catalog is not a side index, it is the interface: you find a file through the catalog and then restore it. That is the right model for finding an older document, and it is why the feature list spends a bullet on access control rather than only on recovery. Role-based ACL support exists for commands and objects, so you can let someone restore their own files without letting them restore the whole server. The other half of that bullet list is encryption. Encrypted communication and backup encryption are both supported, which means the data at rest in your storage target is not readable by whoever has the disk. Administration has two surfaces. `bconsole` and command-line tools give you scriptable administration, and the Bareos WebUI gives you a graphical interface for administration and restore tasks. Everything else in the feature list is about the breadth of what it can protect. Plugins extend it to virtual environments, databases and specialized workloads, with specific plugins for VMware vSphere, Hyper-V and Proxmox. Bare-metal recovery is supported for Linux with Relax-and-Recover and for Windows with `Barri`. SAN backups use NDMP with DAR and DDAR. That last group is the difference between a backup product and a workstation backup product. ## Platforms, packages and two download hosts The badges at the top of the README are the platform matrix, and they cover more ground than the average backup tool. Linux is first, then Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu as distributions, then FreeBSD, macOS and Windows. That list is a statement about where the packages exist rather than about what the client can protect. Bareos is a client and server system, so the client runs on what you need to protect and the server runs where you want it. The packages come from two different hosts. `download.bareos.com` is where the subscription packages live, and `download.bareos.org` is where the community package lives. That split is the practical face of the open-core question, and it is worth signing up for the community package first and finding out whether the thing you need is in it. Agent coverage is broad in the way backup agents usually are: Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, macOS and other well-established operating systems, and the README says Bareos helps organisations back up, restore and manage data across networks, operating systems, storage targets and workloads. One scaling feature is worth calling out because it is not universal. Just-In-Time Device Reservation is described as improving storage device usage in environments with shared devices, tape libraries, autochangers or parallel backup jobs. That is a scheduling feature for expensive shared hardware. ## Three maintained lines, all released on one day The release history is the clearest signal about the project's maturity and its maintenance commitments. Three releases appear together: Bareos 23.1.8, 24.0.11 and 25.1.1, all published on 2026-09-03 within a few minutes of each other. These are three releases published on the same day. So the project supports more than one major line at a time and patches all of them, which is what an installed base of backup servers requires. The last push was on 2026-10-14, so development continues between releases. The repository shows the same breadth as the feature list, which is a good sign for a project of this age. There is `core/` for the daemons, `python-bareos/` for the Python library, `restapi/` for the API, `webui/` and `webui-vue/` as two web interfaces, `systemtests/` for integration tests, `contrib/` and `debian/` for packaging, and `docs/`. The repository also contains `vcpkg.json`, `publiccode.yml`, `.quality-gates.yml` and `.matrix.yml`. ## Conclusion Adopt Bareos if you need a network backup system you can read the licence of, with a catalog rather than filesystem snapshots as the restore model. Skip it if you want a modern, simple single-node backup and have no legacy estate, since this is an architecture with daemons, a director and a catalog. Verify which release line fits your distribution; 23.1.8, 24.0.11 and 25.1.1 were all released on 2026-09-03. ## FAQ ### What licence is Bareos under? AGPLv3, and the README describes it as a true open source approach with no open-core restrictions. The repository root carries both AGPL-3.0.txt and LICENSE.txt, and packages are published to download.bareos.com for subscribers and download.bareos.org for the community package. ### What is an Always Incremental backup in Bareos? It is the backup scheme Bareos supports for file-based backups, where the full copy happens once and later backups carry changes, rather than scheduling periodic full backups. Storage is written in a format optimized for deduplicating filesystems such as ZFS, VDO or btrfs, and `bdedupestimate` estimates the deduplication potential before you change the setup. ### How do you find and restore data in Bareos? Through a catalog and the WebUI, which the README describes as helping teams find, select and restore the right data. Administration is available through the `bconsole` command line as well as the WebUI, and role-based ACLs apply to both commands and objects. ## Sources - [bareos/bareos on GitHub](https://github.com/bareos/bareos) - [Issues](https://github.com/bareos/bareos/issues) - [Project website](http://www.bareos.org) - [README](https://github.com/bareos/bareos/blob/master/README.md) - [Releases](https://github.com/bareos/bareos/releases) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/bareos-bareos