# BorgBase vs SnapShooter

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | BorgBase | SnapShooter |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | One backup job, daily, with daily retention and 500 MB of included storage. The card is titled Free and its call to action is Register rather than the Try for free used on paid cards — but it also prints $14 a month, which is the Lite price, and the page shows Lite at both $14 and $13 elsewhere. Recorded as printed; the $14 on a plan called Free is not resolved here. |
| Entry paid plan | $2 a month, sold as $24 a year billed annually for the Small plan, which includes 250 GB and 10 repositories. | $14 a month for Lite, covering up to 3 backup resources with 10 GB of included storage and daily 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 resource — 3, 20, 50, then 250 — with included storage at each step and unlimited bring-your-own storage throughout. As with SimpleBackups the tier also buys frequency, from daily to twice daily to every 5 minutes, so the plan is really priced on how much you protect and how recently. |

## 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/))
- SnapShooter: One backup job, daily, with daily retention and 500 MB of included storage. The card is titled Free and its call to action is Register rather than the Try for free used on paid cards — but it also prints $14 a month, which is the Lite price, and the page shows Lite at both $14 and $13 elsewhere. Recorded as printed; the $14 on a plan called Free is not resolved here. ([source](https://snapshooter.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/))
- SnapShooter: $14 a month for Lite, covering up to 3 backup resources with 10 GB of included storage and daily runs. ([source](https://snapshooter.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/))
- SnapShooter: Per backup resource — 3, 20, 50, then 250 — with included storage at each step and unlimited bring-your-own storage throughout. As with SimpleBackups the tier also buys frequency, from daily to twice daily to every 5 minutes, so the plan is really priced on how much you protect and how recently. ([source](https://snapshooter.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 SnapShooter if Protecting a handful of servers or DigitalOcean resources without paying for a platform: $14 a month covers three, with daily runs, 10 GB included and unlimited bring-your-own storage on every tier including the free one.

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: SnapShooter — You need backups encrypted or rotated. Backup encryption is listed from the $79 Business plan and weekly and monthly retention from $39, so the entry tier keeps daily copies in whatever state they arrived.

## 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: SnapShooter: Daily only on the entry plan; daily, weekly and monthly rotation from the $39 Startup plan upward. Retention rotation is a paid feature rather than a default.
- 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
- Encryption at rest: SnapShooter: Listed as a feature of the $79 Business plan and above, so the two cheapest paid tiers do not name 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 SnapShooter?**

BorgBase: $2 a month, sold as $24 a year billed annually for the Small plan, which includes 250 GB and 10 repositories.
SnapShooter: $14 a month for Lite, covering up to 3 backup resources with 10 GB of included storage and daily runs.

**Should I choose BorgBase or SnapShooter?**

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 SnapShooter if Protecting a handful of servers or DigitalOcean resources without paying for a platform: $14 a month covers three, with daily runs, 10 GB included and unlimited bring-your-own storage on every tier including the free one.