shallow-backup lets you easily create lightweight backups of installed packages, applications, fonts and dotfiles, and automatically push them to a remote Git repository.
This backup tool is git-integrated, meaning that you can easily store your backups remotely (on GitHub, for example.) Dotfiles and configuration files may contain sensitive information like API keys and ssh keys, and you don’t want to make those public.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Back up dotfiles from where they live on the system.
- Back up files from any path on the system, not just $HOME.
- Reinstall them from the backup directory idempotently.
- Backup and reinstall files conditionally, so you can easily manage dotfiles across multiple systems.
- Copy files on installation and backup, as opposed to symlinking them.
- Backup package installations in a highly compressed manner.
- Not worry about accidentally doing something dangerous / destructive (is user-protective).
Website: github.com/alichtman/shallow-backup
Support:
Developer: Aaron Lichtman
License: MIT License

shallow-backup is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Backup Tools | |
|---|---|
| restic | Fast, efficient and secure backup software |
| Borg | Deduplicating backup software |
| Duplicity | Encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup |
| TimeShift | Takes regular incremental snapshots of the filesystem |
| Duplicati | Store encrypted backups online |
| bup | Backup a system based on the git packfile format |
| Déjà Dup | Hides the complexity of doing backups the Right Way |
| Bacula | Network backup, recovery and verification |
| Kopia | Secure backup/restore tool that allows you to create encrypted snapshots |
| Clonezilla | Offers similar functionality to Symantec Ghost |
| Bareos | Backup Archiving Recovery Open Sourced |
| rsync | Fast remote file copy program |
| BackupPC | High-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up PCs |
| Vorta | Desktop client for Borg Backup |
| Backrest | Web UI and orchestrator for restic backup |
| Back in Time | Equivalent of OS X's Time Machine |
| UrBackup | Easy to setup open source client/server backup system |
| Rescuezilla | Easy backup, recovery & bare metal restore |
| Mondo Rescue | A powerful disaster recovery suite |
| KBackup | Backup program targeted at non-computer experts |
| rsnapshot | Local and remote filesystem snapshot utility |
| Amanda | Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver |
| FOG | Cloning / imaging solution / rescue suite |
| Partclone | Provides utilities to save and restore used blocks on a partition |
| XtraBackup | Backup tool for InnoDB and XtraDB databases |
| Plakar | Scalable backup solution |
| kup | Backup scheduler for the Plasma desktop |
| BURP | Uses librsync to save network traffic and space |
| Btrbk | Backup tool for btrfs subvolumes |
| Pika Backup | App focused on backups of personal data |
| PING | Also offers similar functionality to Symantec Ghost |
| dar | Full featured archiver with support for differential backups |
| tar | Tar archiving utility |
| Cedar Backup | Local and remote backups to CD or DVD media |
| shallow-backup | Git-integrated backup tool |
| ArchiveKeep | Keeps your files archived in multiple places |
| ZnapZend | ZFS centric backup tool |
| Vykar | Fast, encrypted, deduplicated backups in Rust |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

