Areca Backup is a very flexible backup tool

What do you need from a backup program? Set up in seconds, maybe? Complete system backups, full disaster recovery, maybe integration with all your favorite cloud storage providers?

Bad news: Areca Backup doesn’t provide any of that. But if you’re an experienced user who wants a more configurable way to run file-based backups then the program could still be worth a try.

Getting started takes a moment, as you have to figure out what the program’s various terms mean ("workspace" = a storage folder for your backup settings, "target"= a backup job, "repository" = a backup destination, and so on). But it’s not particularly difficult, and if you do run into trouble then a web-based tutorial explains all the key details.

The program’s strength is in its configurability. You don’t just get an option to ignore *.tmp files; you’re able to set up include and exclude filters based on any combination of name, extension, size or date. Compression can be zip or zip64, with optional comments, your chosen compression level or encoding, split as required. And there’s optional AES encryption -- including file names -- via passphrases or raw keys.

The pre and post-processing options are impressive, too. If other backup programs have these at all, they’re often just "Run ThisProgram.exe before/ after backup". Areca allows you to set up as many rules as you need, to send emails, run scripts or delete the latest backups, optionally passing them relevant parameters (computer or archive name, date, time), and executing these only in specific situations (backup succeeds, fails, displays a warning).

All this can be used to run incremental, differential or full backups, with delta backup support to store only the modified parts of files. Archives may be saved locally, to network or FTP, FTPS or SFTP destinations, and a "max throughput" setting throttles write speeds to prevent the program hogging too many system resources.

Restoring files is straightforward. Areca’s archive content viewer makes it easy to browse your backups, search for specific files or versions (the program keeps previous versions of modified files), or restore an entire archive at once. But as your backups are just regular zip/ zip64 files, you can use whatever other compatible archiver you prefer.

What you don’t get here is any form of disaster recovery. Areca can’t back up or restore system files. There’s no support for Windows VSS, either, unless you pay for a plugin, which means it won’t back up open or locked files.

There’s also no built-in scheduler, either, just a command line interface which you can use from your own scripts.

Areca Backup clearly isn’t for full system backups or PC novices, but if you’re an experienced user looking for more control over their file backups then it’s a solid, reliable and extremely configurable choice. Take a look.