# AWS Backup vs rsync.net

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/aws-backup-vs-rsync-net/

Every value below is read from AWS Backup's and rsync.net's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | AWS Backup | rsync.net |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry paid plan | None. There is no minimum fee and no setup charge, so the smallest possible bill is the cost of whatever is actually stored — the only member of this category without a floor to clear. | No plan fee. The floor is an 800 GB minimum order at 1.5 cents per GB per month; the page states the minimum and the rate separately and does not multiply them out. |
| Pricing model | Pure consumption, with no plan and no floor: backup storage held, cross-region transfer, data restored, and backup evaluations. Nothing is bought in advance, which is the opposite end of the category from the job-count and resource-count plans. | Per gigabyte held, per month, tiered by total volume with no contract. The same features are offered at every tier and at every location — what a larger commitment buys is a lower rate, longer snapshot retention, physical media shipment and integration engineering, not a different product. |
| Egress over allowance | Charged. Backup data transferred between AWS Regions is billed as its own line, so cross-region copies — the thing that makes a backup a disaster recovery plan — are not free the way they are at rsync.net and BorgBase. | None. Restoring is not charged for, which is the difference that matters in this category: a backup you cannot afford to read is not a backup. |
| Storage price | $0.05 per GB-month warm and $0.01 per GB-month cold, for EFS in us-east-1. The rate is per protected service rather than universal — EBS, RDS, Aurora and DynamoDB each carry their own — so this is one row of a table, not a headline price. | 1.5 cents per GB per month up to 9 TB, falling to 1.25 cents from 10 TB and 0.75 cents from 100 TB. Priced in cents rather than dollars, which is the unit the page uses throughout. |
| HIPAA | Yes. AWS Backup is named on the HIPAA Eligible Services Reference, the list of services that may handle protected health information under the AWS Business Associate Addendum. Eligibility is per-service rather than account-wide, so the list is the thing to check. | Yes, and they will sign a Business Associate Agreement — the thing that actually matters, since HIPAA obligations flow to the vendor only through a BAA. They also document a Massachusetts 201 CMR 17 data security plan, and publish a separate full HIPAA Compliance Statement. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- AWS Backup: None. There is no minimum fee and no setup charge, so the smallest possible bill is the cost of whatever is actually stored — the only member of this category without a floor to clear. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/backup/pricing/))
- rsync.net: No plan fee. The floor is an 800 GB minimum order at 1.5 cents per GB per month; the page states the minimum and the rate separately and does not multiply them out. ([source](https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html))

### Pricing model

- AWS Backup: Pure consumption, with no plan and no floor: backup storage held, cross-region transfer, data restored, and backup evaluations. Nothing is bought in advance, which is the opposite end of the category from the job-count and resource-count plans. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/backup/pricing/))
- rsync.net: Per gigabyte held, per month, tiered by total volume with no contract. The same features are offered at every tier and at every location — what a larger commitment buys is a lower rate, longer snapshot retention, physical media shipment and integration engineering, not a different product. ([source](https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html))

### Egress over allowance

- AWS Backup: Charged. Backup data transferred between AWS Regions is billed as its own line, so cross-region copies — the thing that makes a backup a disaster recovery plan — are not free the way they are at rsync.net and BorgBase. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/backup/pricing/))
- rsync.net: None. Restoring is not charged for, which is the difference that matters in this category: a backup you cannot afford to read is not a backup. ([source](https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html))

### Storage price

- AWS Backup: $0.05 per GB-month warm and $0.01 per GB-month cold, for EFS in us-east-1. The rate is per protected service rather than universal — EBS, RDS, Aurora and DynamoDB each carry their own — so this is one row of a table, not a headline price. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSBackup/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- rsync.net: 1.5 cents per GB per month up to 9 TB, falling to 1.25 cents from 10 TB and 0.75 cents from 100 TB. Priced in cents rather than dollars, which is the unit the page uses throughout. ([source](https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html))

### HIPAA

- AWS Backup: Yes. AWS Backup is named on the HIPAA Eligible Services Reference, the list of services that may handle protected health information under the AWS Business Associate Addendum. Eligibility is per-service rather than account-wide, so the list is the thing to check. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/hipaa-eligible-services-reference/))
- rsync.net: Yes, and they will sign a Business Associate Agreement — the thing that actually matters, since HIPAA obligations flow to the vendor only through a BAA. They also document a Massachusetts 201 CMR 17 data security plan, and publish a separate full HIPAA Compliance Statement. ([source](https://www.rsync.net/resources/regulatory/hipaa.html))

## Which should you choose?

Pick AWS Backup if Backing up AWS services from one console with nothing bought in advance. There is no minimum fee and no setup charge, and the rate is per GB-month per service, so a small estate genuinely pays a small bill.

Pick rsync.net if Holding a lot of data cheaply and reading it back for nothing: 1.5 cents per GB a month, falling to 0.75 cents above 100 TB, with no egress charge on a restore and unlimited email and phone support at every size.

Consider something else: AWS Backup — Your estate is not all AWS, or disaster recovery means a copy in another region. Cross-region transfer is billed as its own line where rsync.net and BorgBase charge nothing to move data at all, and anything moved to cold storage is committed for 90 days whether you keep it or not.

Consider something else: rsync.net — You have less than 800 GB to protect. The minimum order is a floor rather than a discount threshold, so a small estate pays for capacity it is not using — BorgBase starts at $2 a month and gives 10 GB away.

## Documented by only one

- Free tier: AWS Backup: Yes
- What the free plan includes: AWS Backup: Backup storage free tiers exist for EBS, DocumentDB and Neptune. The pricing page names them only in passing, to say they do not apply inside a logically air-gapped vault, and never states how large they are — so the allowance is confirmed to exist here and its size is not sourced from here.
- Backup retention: rsync.net: 7 daily snapshots below 10 TB, and 7 days plus 4 weeks above it. Snapshots are taken and held by rsync.net rather than scheduled by the customer, though the page says every account can set a custom schedule.
- Minimum storage duration: AWS Backup: 90 days for anything moved to cold storage. Deleting earlier still bills the remaining days, so cold storage is a commitment rather than a cheaper shelf.
- Support on entry paid plan: rsync.net: Unlimited email and phone support on every tier, with a 24/7 hotline added above 100 TB. Support is not a paid add-on at any volume.
- SOC 2: rsync.net: Not SOC 2. Both US locations — San Diego and Denver — are SSAE16 certified with zero exceptions as of May 2015, SSAE16 being the older attestation standard SOC 1 reports are issued under. The company says the certification is not relevant outside the US and holds its Hong Kong and Zurich sites to the same standards without it. Full compliance reports are available, as are in-person datacentre visits.
- GDPR / data residency: rsync.net: Absolute by location: data never leaves the geographic location chosen at signup, and the page names Zurich specifically — choose it and not one bit of data leaves Switzerland. Account contact and payment details are held only by full-time employees and shared with nobody, the company having no partners, affiliates or parent.
- PCI DSS: rsync.net: Updated quarterly, with overall and site-specific documentation supplied on request. The page is unusually blunt about it — it dismisses the standard as worthless before confirming they maintain it anyway, on the grounds that customers still have reporting requirements to meet.
- Encryption at rest: AWS Backup: Yes, and independently of the source: a backup can carry a different encryption method from the resource it was taken from, so an unencrypted volume can still produce an encrypted recovery point. Only resource types supporting full AWS Backup management get this; others inherit the source resource encryption.
- Customer-managed keys: AWS Backup: Yes, through KMS. The key is configured on the backup vault rather than per backup, so the vault is the unit of key control — which also means moving a backup between vaults changes which key protects it.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: AWS Backup or rsync.net?**

AWS Backup: None. There is no minimum fee and no setup charge, so the smallest possible bill is the cost of whatever is actually stored — the only member of this category without a floor to clear.
rsync.net: No plan fee. The floor is an 800 GB minimum order at 1.5 cents per GB per month; the page states the minimum and the rate separately and does not multiply them out.

**Egress over allowance: AWS Backup or rsync.net?**

AWS Backup: Charged. Backup data transferred between AWS Regions is billed as its own line, so cross-region copies — the thing that makes a backup a disaster recovery plan — are not free the way they are at rsync.net and BorgBase.
rsync.net: None. Restoring is not charged for, which is the difference that matters in this category: a backup you cannot afford to read is not a backup.

**Should I choose AWS Backup or rsync.net?**

Pick AWS Backup if Backing up AWS services from one console with nothing bought in advance. There is no minimum fee and no setup charge, and the rate is per GB-month per service, so a small estate genuinely pays a small bill.
Pick rsync.net if Holding a lot of data cheaply and reading it back for nothing: 1.5 cents per GB a month, falling to 0.75 cents above 100 TB, with no egress charge on a restore and unlimited email and phone support at every size.