Duplicati vs Clonezilla
Both are free backup & recovery tools. Here is how they actually differ.
Duplicati and Clonezilla at a glance
| Feature | Duplicati | Clonezilla |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Duplicati Team | NCHC, Taiwan |
| Licence | Open Source | Open Source |
| Cost | Free | Free |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | No |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile | No | No |
| Source code | Public | Public |
Duplicati: what it's good at
Duplicati backs up to almost any cloud destination — S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, OneDrive, FTP and more — with strong client-side encryption applied before anything leaves your machine, plus incremental, deduplicated storage.
- AES-256 encryption before upload
- Works with most cloud storage providers
- Incremental deduplicated backups
- Scheduled automatic runs
Clonezilla: what it's good at
Clonezilla creates complete disk and partition images for bare-metal restore or mass deployment, booting from its own live media so it can image a system drive safely. The open-source counterpart to commercial imaging suites.
- Full disk and partition imaging
- Boots from its own live USB or CD
- Mass deployment across many machines
- Supports most common filesystems
Which should you choose?
Both are free, so the honest answer is that you can install either and decide for yourself — that is the advantage of free software over a paid trial.
Both run on Windows, Linux. Only Duplicati supports macOS. Both are open source, so neither locks you in.
We deliberately do not publish a star rating for either. We have no way to verify a rating that would be honest at scale, and an invented one would be worse than none — so we give you the facts and let you decide.
Frequently asked questions
Is Duplicati better than Clonezilla?
Neither is universally better. Duplicati encrypted, incremental backup to any cloud storage, while Clonezilla bare-metal disk and partition imaging. The right pick depends on your platform and workflow.
Are both really free?
Duplicati is open source and Clonezilla is open source. Both can be downloaded without paying.
Can I install both?
Yes. Since neither costs anything, installing both and comparing them on your own files is usually the fastest way to decide.