V’Ger is a fast, encrypted, deduplicated backup tool written in Rust. It’s centered around a simple YAML config format and includes a desktop GUI and webDAV server to browse snapshots. More about design goals.
⚠️ Don’t use for production backups yet, but do test it along other backup tools.
Features
- Deduplication via FastCDC content-defined chunking
- Compression with LZ4 (default), Zstandard, or none
- Encryption with AES-256-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305 (auto-selected) and Argon2id key derivation
- Storage backends — local filesystem, S3-compatible storage, SFTP
- YAML-based configuration with multiple repositories, hooks, and command dumps
- REST server with append-only enforcement, quotas, and server-side compaction
- Built-in WebDAV and desktop GUI to browse and restore snapshots
- Rate limiting for CPU, disk I/O, and network bandwidth
Benchmarks
V’Ger achieves the best speed and throughput of any comparable backup tool, while using fewer CPU cycles.
See our e2e testing skill for full benchmark details. All benchmarks were run on the same Intel i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz machine with 2x Samsung PM981 NVMe. Compression and resulting repository sizes comparable. Sample corpus is a mix of files including the Linux kernel, a Wikipedia dump and an Ubuntu ISO.
Comparison
| Aspect | Borg | Restic | Rustic | V’Ger |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Configuration | CLI (YAML via Borgmatic) | CLI (YAML via ResticProfile) | TOML config file | YAML config with env-var expansion |
| Browse snapshots | FUSE mount | FUSE mount | FUSE mount | Built-in WebDAV + web UI |
| Command dumps | Via Borgmatic (database-specific) | None | None | Native (generic command capture) |
| Hooks | Via Borgmatic | Via ResticProfile | Native | Native (per-command before/after) |
| Rate limiting | None | Upload/download bandwidth | — | CPU, disk I/O, and network bandwidth |
| Dedicated server | SSH (borg serve) | rest-server (append-only) | rustic_server | REST server with append-only, quotas, server-side compaction |
| Desktop GUI | Vorta (third-party) | Third-party (Backrest) | None | Built-in |
| Scheduling | Via Borgmatic | Via ResticProfile | External (cron/systemd) | Built-in |
| Language | Python + Cython | Go | Rust | Rust |
| Chunker | Buzhash (custom) | Rabin | Rabin (Restic-compat) | FastCDC |
| Encryption | AES-CTR+HMAC / AES-OCB / ChaCha20 | AES-256-CTR + Poly1305-AES | AES-256-CTR + Poly1305-AES | AES-256-GCM / ChaCha20-Poly1305 (auto-select at init) |
| Key derivation | PBKDF2 or Argon2id | scrypt | scrypt | Argon2id |
| Serialization | msgpack | JSON + Protocol Buffers | JSON + Protocol Buffers | msgpack |
| Storage | borgstore + SSH RPC | Local, S3, SFTP, REST, rclone | OpenDAL (local, S3, many more) | OpenDAL (local, S3, SFTP) + vger-server |
| Repo compatibility | Borg v1/v2/v3 | Restic format | Restic-compatible | Own format |
Inspired by
- BorgBackup: architecture, chunking strategy, repository concept, and overall backup pipeline.
- Borgmatic: YAML configuration approach, pipe-based database dumps.
- Rustic: storage backend abstraction via Apache OpenDAL, pack file design, and architectural references from a mature Rust backup tool.
- V’Ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture — a probe that assimilated everything it encountered and returned as something far more powerful.
Usage
- Installing
- Initialize and Set Up a Repository
- Storage Backends
- Make a Backup
- Restore a Backup
- Maintenance