SimpleBackups
Automated backups for servers, databases, storage buckets, and SaaS apps.
What is SimpleBackups?
SimpleBackups is a backup-as-a-service platform that automates and centralizes backups for servers, databases, cloud storage, Git repositories, and SaaS apps. It stores backups in your own cloud storage or its bundled SimpleStorage, with scheduling, monitoring, and one-click restore. It targets developers, agencies, and startups who want reliable off-site backups without maintaining custom scripts.
Best known for: Automated server and database backups for developers
Key features
- Server and database backup automation
- Cloud storage and bucket backups
- Bring-your-own storage or bundled SimpleStorage
- Flexible scheduling and backup monitoring
- Disaster recovery dashboard and restore
- Notifications and Developer API
Who SimpleBackups is best for
- Developers and DevOps teams
- Web agencies managing client sites
- SaaS startups protecting databases
Ideal team: Technical teams that need centralized, automated backups across servers, databases, cloud storage, and apps without building their own tooling.
SimpleBackups pricing
Basic
$0
- 1 backup job
- 1 GB included storage
- Daily backups with email alerts
Lite
$49/flat / mo
- 5 backup jobs
- 50 GB SimpleStorage included
- Up to 12-hour backup intervals
Plus
$99/flat / mo
- 20 backup jobs
- 200 GB SimpleStorage included
- Hourly intervals and disaster recovery dashboard
Max
$299/flat / mo
- 100 backup jobs
- 1 TB SimpleStorage included
- 5-minute intervals, API access, white glove support
Costs to watch before you commit
- Advertised prices reflect annual billing (20% savings); month-to-month costs more
- Storage beyond each plan's included allotment and serverless bandwidth overages add to the bill
- SSO, SLA, and compliance features are gated behind custom-priced Enterprise
SimpleBackups pros and cons
Pros
- Unifies backups for databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis), servers, files, and cloud storage buckets under one dashboard, so you are not juggling separate cron jobs and vendor tools for each layer of your stack
- No-code, guided setup with pre-built backup scripts and clear documentation - reviewers consistently report getting offsite backups running within an hour, without writing shell scripts
- Bring-your-own-storage model lets you send backups to your own S3, Google Cloud Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Backblaze B2, Wasabi, or on-prem targets, rather than locking you into the vendor's storage
- Genuinely useful monitoring layer: backup job logs, failure alerts, anomaly detection, and shareable status pages make it easy to prove backups are actually succeeding, not just scheduled
- Flexible retention and scheduling, including grandfather-father-son rotation, plus storage sync/bucket replication for keeping copies across providers or regions
- Solid security posture for a tool in this space - AES-256 encryption, agentless operation that avoids opening inbound ports, and stated GDPR and ISO 27001 compliance
Cons
- Plan tiers are metered by database/backup size thresholds rather than actual volume consumed, and several users note they would prefer to pay for what they truly use instead of bumping to a higher tier
- Because backups often run through providers' own APIs, deep customization of what and how you back up can hit ceilings the tool cannot work around
- It is a managed SaaS control plane, so your backup orchestration depends on a third party being available - teams with strict air-gapped or fully self-hosted requirements may find that a dealbreaker
- This is an engineering and infrastructure tool, not a consumer file-sync or document-sharing product - non-technical staff will get little from it despite the 'file sharing' framing of the category
- The review pool is still relatively small, so the near-perfect public ratings should be read with some caution rather than treated as a large, battle-tested sample
SimpleBackups review: a closer look
Ease of Use and Setup
SimpleBackups' strongest and most consistent praise is how quickly it gets out of your way. The onboarding walks you through connecting a server, database, or storage bucket with pre-configured scripts, so a developer can typically have automated offsite backups running in well under an hour without touching cron or writing dump commands by hand. The interface is clean and the documentation is genuinely good, which matters for a category where the alternative is often brittle homegrown scripts that quietly break.
The Core Capability: Backups Across the Whole Stack
The central pitch is consolidation. Instead of one process for your Postgres database, another for server files, and yet another for object storage, SimpleBackups handles databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis and managed DBaaS), full server and file backups, and cloud bucket replication from a single control plane. It covers the scheduling, retention, and rotation logic - including grandfather-father-son strategies - so the boring-but-critical mechanics are standardized across every asset rather than reinvented per project.
Bring-Your-Own-Storage and Restore
Rather than forcing you onto proprietary storage, SimpleBackups lets you route backups to your own destinations - S3, Google Cloud Storage, DigitalOcean Spaces, Backblaze, Wasabi, on-prem, or its optional SimpleStorage - which keeps you in control of cost and data residency. Restores are offered as one-click or customizable operations, and storage sync lets you replicate buckets between providers for redundancy. The main caveat is that because much of this leans on the underlying providers' APIs, the tool inherits their constraints on what can be exported and how.
Monitoring, Alerts, and Team Visibility
A backup you cannot verify is a liability, and this is where SimpleBackups adds real value beyond just running jobs. It logs every backup run, sends failure and anomaly alerts, and exposes shareable status pages plus role-based access and project dashboards so a whole team can see backup health at a glance. For an SMB without a dedicated infrastructure team, that observability layer is often the difference between discovering a broken backup during a routine glance versus during an actual disaster.
Value and Integrations
Beyond core infrastructure, SimpleBackups reaches into SaaS sources like GitHub, GitLab, Notion, Linear, and Knack, which is useful if critical data lives in those tools. On value, the pricing table on this page tells the real story, but the model is tier-based and metered on backup/database size rather than pure usage, so growing datasets can push you into a higher plan before you feel you have earned it. For teams replacing fragile DIY scripts and their hidden maintenance cost, the trade generally still reads as fair.
Who should use SimpleBackups?
A good fit
SimpleBackups is a strong fit for developers, agencies, and small-to-mid-sized engineering teams who run their own servers, databases, and cloud storage and want backups automated, monitored, and centralized without building and babysitting cron scripts. It suits SaaS companies, web shops, and technically-minded SMBs that care about offsite copies, retention policies, and being able to prove a backup actually ran - especially those who want to keep data in their own S3-compatible storage rather than a vendor's silo.
Look elsewhere if…
This is not a product for non-technical users looking to sync and share documents day to day - if that is your need, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Box belong on your list instead, since SimpleBackups sits in this Cloud Storage and File Sharing category as an infrastructure tool, not a collaboration one. Teams that want backups baked into a broader server-management console might prefer a host-integrated option, and organizations with strict air-gapped or fully self-hosted mandates may lean toward self-managed tooling like restic, BorgBackup, or a Veeam-style enterprise platform rather than a managed SaaS control plane.
The verdict
SimpleBackups does the unglamorous work of backups better than most, and it does it with a clarity that is rare in infrastructure tooling. Its real selling point is not any single backup type but the consolidation and visibility: one dashboard to schedule, rotate, and - crucially - verify backups across databases, servers, and storage, sending them to your own cloud destinations. The trade-offs are honest ones. You are trusting a managed control plane, the size-based pricing tiers can nudge you upward faster than pure usage-based billing would, and customization bends to the limits of the providers underneath. But for a team currently relying on hand-rolled scripts and hope, SimpleBackups replaces anxiety with a system you can actually monitor - and for most SMBs that alone justifies the line item.
Top SimpleBackups alternatives
Popular Cloud Storage & File Sharing tools teams evaluate alongside SimpleBackups.
Google DriveGoogle's cloud storage tied to Docs, Gmail, and Photos.
TresoritSwiss end-to-end encrypted storage for security-first businesses.
IDriveMulti-device cloud backup that doubles as bulk cloud storage.
NextcloudOpen-source, self-hostable storage and collaboration platform.
BackblazeUnlimited computer backup plus low-cost B2 object storage.