The price anchor
| Vaultkeeper | SimpleBackups | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 — no subscription | $29/mo |
| Annual | $0 after purchase | $348 |
| 5-year total | $99 | $1,740 |
| 10-year total | $99 | $3,480 |
Subscription figures from the vendor's published pricing ($29/mo, ~$348/yr); the Vaultkeeper column is the full price, paid once.
Break-even analysis
SimpleBackups is $348+ per year. Vaultkeeper pays for itself in under 4 months — then your backups run free, forever.
- After 1 year: Vaultkeeper has cost you $99 total — SimpleBackups has cost $348.
- After 3 years: Vaultkeeper is still $99 — the subscription is at $1,044.
- After 5 years: Vaultkeeper is still $99 — the subscription is at $1,740.
What you get for $99 once
- 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.
- GFS-lite retention. Keep last N, plus daily-for-X-days and weekly-for-Y-weeks — pruned automatically on the destination after every successful run.
- No renewal, ever. The license does not expire and there is no per-seat meter — $99 is the whole price.
Pricing questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/vaultkeeper-mvp, always. The $99 buys the packaged installer and funds development. One month of the competition, forever.
What happens to my backups if Vaultkeeper disappears?
They still open. The VK1 encryption format is documented in the README (AES-256-GCM, scrypt key derivation) and the repo ships a zero-dependency decrypt script — plus you can use age instead. Your backups outlive the software by design.
Do I need database tools installed?
For Postgres/MySQL/Mongo, yes — Vaultkeeper shells out to the official dump tools, and a tool-check panel shows what's found on PATH with install hints. SQLite needs nothing installed. The Docker image bundles all of them.
Is restore one-click?
Deliberately not. The restore helper generates the exact command chain — download, decrypt, gunzip, psql/mysql/mongorestore — so you can read every command before it touches your production database. SimpleBackups' managed one-click restores are genuinely more convenient; we chose transparency.
Vaultkeeper — $99, one time
Or get Vaultkeeper plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.