# BorgBase vs SimpleBackups

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/borgbase-vs-simplebackups/

Every value below is read from BorgBase's and SimpleBackups's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | BorgBase | SimpleBackups |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| What the free plan includes | 10 GB across 2 repositories, free forever rather than a trial, with no API or data transfer charges on top. | The Basic plan at $0: one backup job and 1 GB of included storage, with your own storage connectable without limit. |
| Entry paid plan | $2 a month, sold as $24 a year billed annually for the Small plan, which includes 250 GB and 10 repositories. | $49 a month for Lite, which includes 5 backup jobs, 50 GB of storage and a floor of 12 hours between runs. |
| Pricing model | Per gigabyte stored AFTER compression and deduplication, which is the distinction from every other per-GB vendor here: Borg deduplicates client-side, so the billed quantity is smaller than the data protected and there is no separate charge for the transfer that produced it. | Per backup job, in plan-sized blocks of 1, 5, 20 and 100, with storage included at each step and unlimited bring-your-own storage alongside it. The tier also sets how often a job may run — 12 hours, 1 hour, then 5 minutes — so the plan buys recovery point objective as much as it buys capacity. |

## Where they differ

### What the free plan includes

- BorgBase: 10 GB across 2 repositories, free forever rather than a trial, with no API or data transfer charges on top. ([source](https://www.borgbase.com/))
- SimpleBackups: The Basic plan at $0: one backup job and 1 GB of included storage, with your own storage connectable without limit. ([source](https://simplebackups.com/pricing))

### Entry paid plan

- BorgBase: $2 a month, sold as $24 a year billed annually for the Small plan, which includes 250 GB and 10 repositories. ([source](https://www.borgbase.com/))
- SimpleBackups: $49 a month for Lite, which includes 5 backup jobs, 50 GB of storage and a floor of 12 hours between runs. ([source](https://simplebackups.com/pricing))

### Pricing model

- BorgBase: Per gigabyte stored AFTER compression and deduplication, which is the distinction from every other per-GB vendor here: Borg deduplicates client-side, so the billed quantity is smaller than the data protected and there is no separate charge for the transfer that produced it. ([source](https://www.borgbase.com/))
- SimpleBackups: Per backup job, in plan-sized blocks of 1, 5, 20 and 100, with storage included at each step and unlimited bring-your-own storage alongside it. The tier also sets how often a job may run — 12 hours, 1 hour, then 5 minutes — so the plan buys recovery point objective as much as it buys capacity. ([source](https://simplebackups.com/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

Pick BorgBase if Paying for what survives compression and deduplication rather than for what you sent. Borg deduplicates client-side under a key BorgBase never holds, so the bill and the blast radius of a breach are both smaller than the data being protected.

Pick SimpleBackups if Backing up many different things on a schedule you choose and being told when one stops working: 5 jobs at $49 a month rising to 100 at $299, with unlimited storage of your own alongside whatever the plan includes.

Consider something else: BorgBase — You are not running Borg or Restic. The product is hosting for those two tools, so anything that speaks neither — a managed database, a SaaS export, an S3 bucket — needs a service that connects to it directly rather than a repository to push into.

Consider something else: SimpleBackups — You protect one or two things. The free plan allows a single job with 1 GB, and the next step is $49 — Snapshooter covers three resources for $14 and five times that for $39.

## Documented by only one

- Egress over allowance: BorgBase: None. Neither API calls nor data transfer are charged for, so a restore costs only the time.
- Regions: BorgBase: EU and US, and a single account can hold repositories in both at once rather than choosing one at signup.
- Backup retention: SimpleBackups: Customer-defined on every paid tier, described only as flexible retention and schedule rather than as a fixed number of days.
- Storage price: BorgBase: $0.01 per GB per month beyond the 250 GB included on Small, falling to $7 per TB per month on Medium — the same unit quoted two ways, which works out cheaper per gigabyte on the larger plan.
- Multi-factor authentication: BorgBase: Supported
- SOC 2: SimpleBackups: Listed as a feature of the $299 Max plan rather than as a property of the company, which is an unusual way to present an attestation and is recorded as the page frames it.
- Customer-managed keys: BorgBase: Yes, and not optionally: Borg encrypts client-side with a key BorgBase never holds, so the provider cannot read a repository it stores.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: BorgBase or SimpleBackups?**

BorgBase: $2 a month, sold as $24 a year billed annually for the Small plan, which includes 250 GB and 10 repositories.
SimpleBackups: $49 a month for Lite, which includes 5 backup jobs, 50 GB of storage and a floor of 12 hours between runs.

**Should I choose BorgBase or SimpleBackups?**

Pick BorgBase if Paying for what survives compression and deduplication rather than for what you sent. Borg deduplicates client-side under a key BorgBase never holds, so the bill and the blast radius of a breach are both smaller than the data being protected.
Pick SimpleBackups if Backing up many different things on a schedule you choose and being told when one stops working: 5 jobs at $49 a month rising to 100 at $299, with unlimited storage of your own alongside whatever the plan includes.