Plakar review
A self-hosted backup tool with encrypted snapshots and centralized management options.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Plakar is an open-source backup and restore product for individuals, developers, infrastructure teams, and organizations that want encrypted, versioned copies across filesystems, databases, cloud services, and remote sources. Its community edition is a self-hosted command-line tool, while the commercial Control Plane adds a web interface and centralized inventory, policies, and scheduling. The product suits teams comfortable managing backup workflows, particularly those seeking control over where backups are stored.
Its scope and ecosystem are a notable fit for technical environments. Plakar can store backups on local filesystems and S3-compatible backends, and its listed integrations include S3, SFTP/SSH, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Azure Blob Storage, Proxmox, PostgreSQL, and MySQL/MariaDB. Kubernetes, Terraform, and Ansible policy integrations connect backup management with infrastructure workflows. Snapshots are encrypted before leaving the source, and the feature set includes deduplication, compression, scheduling, and immutable snapshots on object-lock storage. This breadth makes it relevant when a team needs to protect varied sources rather than only personal computer files.
According to the vendor's published plans, Free includes up to 500 GB of managed data with no time limit and lets customers deploy the Control Plane on their own infrastructure. Community is available to qualifying nonprofits, startups, war-zone organizations, and eligible contributors or community members. Enterprise is consumption-based, includes premium support, and requires contacting sales for pricing. Restoration is documented for files and directories, so buyers needing full-system recovery should assess whether that scope fits before choosing Plakar. It is a stronger fit for technically capable teams that value open-source tooling and self-hosting than for buyers looking for a clearly priced paid tier or a broad system-recovery workflow.
Plakar pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Encrypts data before it leaves the source system
- Deduplicated, compressed, versioned snapshots with scheduling
- Connects to varied sources, storage backends, and policy tools
- Where it doesn't
- Free plan caps managed data at 500 GB
- Documented restore workflows cover files and directories
- Enterprise pricing is consumption-based and requires contacting sales
Plakar fact sheet, pricing and score →
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