Disclaimer: I am only a user, not the developer, and I am not in their team :)
I found this backup solution a few days ago and I already love it! Time to share!
Vykar is a new backup solution in an early state, that is inspired by Borg and Restic. It offers a fast and encrypted backup solution with an easy YAML formatted configuration. It can back up to a local repository, S3, its own backup server or all of them. Deduplication and snapshots are integrated, in daemon mode it has a built-in scheduler too.
Run it via the provided binaries, the GUI or use it in Docker. Recovery can be easily done via the CLI or starting a local web server to browse the files or access them via WebDAV.
Example YAML configuration (for showing its simplicity), full docs here
# vykar configuration file
# Minimal required configuration.
# Full reference: https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration
repositories:
- label: "Backupserver"
url: "https://backup.myserver.com/"
access_token: "secure-token-here"
sources:
- label: "immich-homeserver"
path: "/docker/immich/data"
exclude:
- "backup"
- "thumbs"
- "encoded-video"
- label: "media-homeserver"
paths:
- "/backup/media/books"
- "/backup/media/music"
- "/backup/scripts"
- "/backup/media/video"
exclude:
- "cache"
- "tmp"
# --- Common optional settings (uncomment as needed) ---
encryption:
# mode: "auto" # Default — benchmark at init and persist chosen mode
mode: "aes256gcm"
#
retention:
keep_last: 3 #keeps the last 3 snapshots
# keep_daily: 7
# keep_weekly: 4
# https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration#compression
compression:
algorithm: zstd
zstd_level: 5
# https://vykar.borgbase.com/configuration#exclude-patterns
exclude_patterns:
- "*.tmp"
- "*.bak"
- "*.log"
- ".pnpm-store"
- "node_modules"
- "postgres"
- ".Trash-1000"
- "$Recycle.Bin"
- "System Volume Information"
- ".DS_Store"
# schedule:
# enabled: true
# every: "24h"
Disclaimer: I am only a user, not the developer
Got any screenshots? /s
This was created with AI, so while it seems interesting, I will give it some time for others to find issues with their backups. Maybe in a couple years.
I don’t understand, what’s wrong with Borg?
There is nothing wrong with borg, but it is complex and for easiness you need scripts or tools like borgmatic. Vykar is designed to be beginner friendly
Borgmatic also uses yaml and I’m pretty sure most package managers have Borg as a dependency for borgmatic. So if you just install borgmatic and forget about Borg, it isn’t seen as an extra tool.
I remember having to puzzle over the borg documentation a little when I started using it, but I don’t use any tools. I just have a couple of aliases in my .bashrc and that seems like enough.



