Duplicati — The Complete Guide: Encrypted, Scheduled Backup to Cloud, NAS and Disk
Duplicati is an open-source backup client for Windows, macOS and Linux, managed through a local browser interface. You pick folders, a destination and a schedule, and it encrypts the data on your own machine before it leaves, sending only what changed. It is especially well suited to keeping an encrypted copy of the projects folder in cloud storage you already pay for.
Duplicati
Duplicati Inc. and community
Encrypted, incremental, scheduled folder backup to cloud storage, SFTP, a NAS or an external drive, with a friendly browser interface.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Local encryption — AES-256 on your own computer, so the cloud provider only ever sees ciphertext.
- Incremental backup — only changed blocks are uploaded, even for large model files.
- Many destinations — Amazon S3, Backblaze, Google Cloud, OneDrive, Dropbox, Azure, SFTP, WebDAV, a NAS and local disks.
- Version retention — a policy that sets how many old versions are kept and for how long.
- Browser interface — setup, monitoring and restore without the command line.
What is free and what is not — plus a security tip
The client itself is under the MIT licence and free for any use, including commercial. The full-disk and Microsoft 365/Google Workspace modules are proprietary and need a licence, and the cloud management console is free for up to 2 machines only. Tip: without the encryption passphrase there is no restore — keep it in a password manager and in a second copy away from the computer, and run a test restore now and then.
Related tools
For a fast command-line backup engine — restic. For deduplicated backup with a graphical interface — Kopia. For copying and syncing with dozens of cloud services — rclone.
restic
restic project
Fast, encrypted, deduplicated backups — project folders to disk, NAS or cloud storage.
Get it from the vendor
Kopia
Kopia project
Encrypted incremental backup with a GUI and scheduling — to local disks or the cloud storage of your choice.
Get it from the vendor
rclone
rclone project
Sync and copy files to 70+ cloud storage services from the command line, and mount cloud drives as local disks.
Get it from the vendor
Backrest
Gareth George and contributors
A web interface and scheduler on top of restic: create repositories, browse snapshots and restore files without the command line.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
A simple, safe way to keep an encrypted copy of your work files in the cloud, free and on any operating system — as long as folder backup, not a disk image, is what you need.