Kopia

TAS Score: S3/3 – D5/5 – A3 / T2

Brief Description

Fast and secure open-source backup/restore tool with snapshots, deduplication, compression, and client-side encryption. Works with local storage, network shares, or any S3-compatible backend.

Architectural Role

Data protection layer: creates versioned, encrypted backups of your data, ensuring recoverability.

Technical Autonomy

✅ Works without internet (if backing up to local storage)
✅ Stores data locally (can also use remote storage)
✅ Does not require external accounts
✅ Allows data export (snapshots are portable)
✅ Provides offline updates (manual via packages)

Philosophical Assessment (whose.world criteria)

Criterion Status Comments ————————– ——————- ———————— Pause ✅ Backup can be paused/resumed at any time.

Exit ✅ Snapshots are ordinary files; you can stop using Kopia and keep your data.

Recoverability ✅ Core feature: snapshots allow restoration of previous states.

Visibility ✅ Open source, fully documented.

External Dependencies ✅ None if using local or self-hosted storage. ———————————————————————–

Configuration (Minimal)

Create a repository on an external USB drive:

kopia repository create filesystem --path /mnt/backup

Create a snapshot of your Docker data:

kopia snapshot create /opt/autonomous-stack

List snapshots:

kopia snapshot list

Restore:

kopia restore <snapshot-id> /tmp/restored

Set up a daily cron job to run snapshots:

0 2 * * * /usr/local/bin/kopia snapshot create /opt/autonomous-stack

Minimal Autonomous Server – uses Kopia for backups.

Alternatives

BorgBackup – similar, but Kopia has a more modern UI and cloud support
Duplicati – GUI-based, but less reliable for large datasets
Restic – fast, but no built-in GUI

Sources

Website
Documentation
Repository
Docker image
Community -e

Trajectory

Stable — independent.

Kopia is maintained independently with no commercial backing. Small but active community. No enterprise tier, no cloud dependency introduced. Direction: stable.