Vaultkeeper and SimpleBackups solve the same problem from opposite directions: one is source-available software you can own outright for $39, the other is a subscription at $29/mo run entirely on someone else's servers.
Head to head
| Vaultkeeper | SimpleBackups | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $39 once | $29–$99/mo ($348–$1,188/yr) |
| Cost over 3 years | $39 | $1,044+ |
| Postgres / MySQL / Mongo / SQLite | All four | Yes |
| Your DB credentials | Stay on your box, encrypted at rest | Stored on their cloud |
| Encryption format you can decrypt yourself | Documented VK1 + age, decrypt script included | Partial |
| Works fully offline | Yes | No |
| Failure alerts (webhook + email) | Yes | Yes |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
What Vaultkeeper does well
- Four engines — PostgreSQL (pg_dump), MySQL/MariaDB (mysqldump), MongoDB (mongodump) — and SQLite via the online backup API, safe on live WAL databases with nothing installed.
- Real scheduling — Cron expressions with presets, per-job timezone, next-3-runs preview, and a per-job lock so runs never overlap.
- Encryption you can restore without us — age if installed, or built-in AES-256-GCM with a documented open format and a dependency-free decrypt script — your backups are never hostage.
- Three destination types — Local disk, any S3-compatible bucket (AWS, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2, MinIO — multipart uploads), and FTP/FTPS.
What SimpleBackups still does better
There's a real reason SimpleBackups costs what it does: a bigger team, broader integrations and dedicated support behind it. If that ecosystem is genuinely what you need, it's worth paying for.
Which one should you pick
If your workflow depends on SimpleBackups's specific integrations or you'd rather not run anything yourself, stay put — that's a legitimate call. If you're comfortable owning the tool and want to stop paying $29/mo for a job your own hardware can do, Vaultkeeper pays for itself and then some: simpleBackups is $348+ per year. Vaultkeeper pays for itself in 6 weeks — then your backups run free, forever.
Try Vaultkeeper — $39, once
Postgres, MySQL, SQLite & Mongo dumps on cron — encrypted, shipped to S3/FTP/disk, with failure alerts.