Borgmatic vs BorgBackup: What's the Difference?

Quick Verdict

Borgmatic isn’t an alternative to BorgBackup — it’s a wrapper around it. BorgBackup is the backup engine. Borgmatic is the automation layer that makes BorgBackup easier to configure, schedule, and monitor. Use BorgBackup directly for simple manual backups. Use Borgmatic for anything automated.

Overview

Aspect	BorgBackup	Borgmatic
What it is	Backup engine (deduplication, encryption, compression)	Configuration wrapper + scheduler for BorgBackup
Requires	Nothing (standalone)	BorgBackup (dependency)
Configuration	Command-line flags per invocation	YAML config file (declarative)
Scheduling	Manual (cron/systemd timers)	Built-in schedule support + cron integration
Language	Python + C (performance-critical parts)	Python
License	BSD-3	GPL-3
Docker image	Community images	Official ghcr.io/borgmatic-collective/borgmatic

The relationship: BorgBackup does the actual work — reading files, deduplicating, compressing, encrypting, and writing to the repository. Borgmatic wraps those BorgBackup commands behind a YAML config file and adds features BorgBackup doesn’t have: scheduling, hooks, health checks, database dumps, and monitoring integrations.

Feature Comparison

Feature	BorgBackup (bare)	BorgBackup + Borgmatic
Create backups	borg create command	borgmatic (one command)
Configuration	Flags per command	config.yaml (declarative)
Multiple repositories	Manual per-repo commands	Single config, multiple repos
Retention policies	borg prune with flags	Declarative in YAML
Consistency checks	borg check manually	Automatic per schedule
Pre-backup hooks	Shell scripts around borg	Built-in before_backup hooks
Post-backup hooks	Shell scripts around borg	Built-in after_backup hooks
Database dumps	Manual pg_dump/mysqldump	Built-in PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB/SQLite dumps
Health monitoring	Manual	Healthchecks.io, Cronitor, PagerDuty, ntfy integrations
Error notifications	Manual	Built-in hooks for email, webhooks
Multiple source dirs	One borg create per set	Single command, multiple source paths
Exclude patterns	--exclude flags	Clean YAML exclude lists
Docker deployment	Community images	Official Docker image with cron built-in

When You Need Borgmatic

Use BorgBackup directly if:

• You run manual, one-off backups
• You have a simple single-directory backup to one repository
• You’re comfortable writing shell scripts for automation
• You want minimal dependencies

Example direct BorgBackup workflow:

# Initialize
borg init --encryption=repokey ssh://backup@nas/~/borg-repo

# Backup
borg create ssh://backup@nas/~/borg-repo::backup-$(date +%Y%m%d) /data

# Prune old backups
borg prune --keep-daily=7 --keep-weekly=4 --keep-monthly=6 ssh://backup@nas/~/borg-repo

Use Borgmatic if:

• You want automated, scheduled backups
• You back up multiple directories or to multiple repositories
• You need pre/post backup hooks (database dumps, service stops)
• You want health monitoring integration
• You run in Docker and want a clean cron setup

Equivalent Borgmatic config:

# config.yaml
repositories:
  - path: ssh://backup@nas/~/borg-repo
    label: nas

source_directories:
  - /data
  - /config

exclude_patterns:
  - '*.tmp'
  - '.cache'

retention:
  keep_daily: 7
  keep_weekly: 4
  keep_monthly: 6

consistency:
  checks:
    - repository
    - archives

hooks:
  before_backup:
    - echo "Starting backup..."
  after_backup:
    - echo "Backup complete."
  healthchecks:
    ping_url: https://hc-ping.com/your-uuid

Run with a single command:

borgmatic

Docker Setup Comparison

BorgBackup in Docker (manual)

services:
  borgbackup:
    image: monachus/borgbackup:1.4.0
    container_name: borgbackup
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /data:/source:ro
      - /backup:/repository
      - ./borg-scripts:/scripts:ro
    entrypoint: /scripts/backup.sh

You need to write your own backup.sh script handling init, create, prune, and check.

Borgmatic in Docker (automated)

services:
  borgmatic:
    image: ghcr.io/borgmatic-collective/borgmatic:1.9.13
    container_name: borgmatic
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /data:/source:ro
      - /backup:/repository
      - ./config.yaml:/etc/borgmatic/config.yaml:ro
      - borgmatic-state:/root/.borgmatic
      - borgmatic-cache:/root/.cache/borg
    environment:
      BORG_PASSPHRASE: "your-encryption-passphrase"   # CHANGE THIS
      TZ: UTC
      CRON: "0 3 * * *"    # Run daily at 3 AM

volumes:
  borgmatic-state:
  borgmatic-cache:

Borgmatic’s Docker image includes cron built-in. Set the CRON environment variable and it handles scheduling automatically.

Database Backup Integration

One of Borgmatic’s strongest features is built-in database dumping:

# config.yaml
postgresql_databases:
  - name: nextcloud
    hostname: postgres
    port: 5432
    username: nextcloud
    password: changeme

mysql_databases:
  - name: wordpress
    hostname: mariadb
    username: root
    password: changeme

Borgmatic dumps the databases before creating the backup archive, ensuring consistent database snapshots. With bare BorgBackup, you’d write separate dump scripts and coordinate them with backup timing yourself.

The Verdict

Scenario	Recommendation
Learning BorgBackup	Start with bare BorgBackup to understand the fundamentals
Production automated backups	Use Borgmatic — it’s the community standard
Docker deployment	Borgmatic (official image with cron)
Multiple repos/sources	Borgmatic (single config handles everything)
Database backups	Borgmatic (built-in dump integration)
Monitoring/alerting	Borgmatic (Healthchecks.io integration)
One-off manual backups	BorgBackup directly

Bottom line: If you’re setting up automated BorgBackup, there’s no reason not to use Borgmatic. It makes BorgBackup better without adding complexity. Think of it like Docker Compose for Docker — you can use Docker directly, but Compose makes everything more manageable.

Related

• How to Self-Host BorgBackup
• How to Self-Host Borgmatic
• Restic vs BorgBackup
• Restic vs Kopia vs BorgBackup
• Kopia vs Restic
• Best Self-Hosted Backup Solutions
• Self-Hosted Alternatives to CrashPlan
• Backup Strategy