Managing BorgBackup repositories through command line tools works great for simple setups, but when you’re dealing with multiple repositories, scheduled backups, and want to browse archive contents, the terminal quickly becomes limiting. Commercial backup solutions either cost too much or lack the flexibility of Borg’s deduplication and compression. I set out to build a comprehensive web interface that
would give me the control I wanted without sacrificing Borg’s powerful features.

The result is Borgitory – a self-hosted web application that brings modern UI/UX to BorgBackup operations while maintaining all the security and efficiency that makes Borg great.

Repository Management Made Simple

Setting up repositories through Borgitory eliminates the guesswork of command-line Borg initialization. The interface validates connections in real-time and stores encrypted passphrases securely using
Fernet encryption. I can add local repositories, remote SSH locations, or any path accessible to the Docker container.

Additional functionality includes the repository overview page where I can see backup status, archive counts, and storage usage at a glance. No more running borg list commands to figure out what’s where.

Interactive Archive Browsing

One feature I’m particularly proud of is the archive browser. Using FUSE mounting, Borgitory mounts archives as filesystems and provides a web interface for navigating directories just like a file manager.
This was challenging to implement in a Docker environment – requiring --cap-add SYS_ADMIN and --device /dev/fuse – but the result is seamless file exploration without extracting entire archives.

Files can be downloaded directly from mounted archives, streaming efficiently even for large files. Multiple downloads work simultaneously, and there’s no temporary storage overhead since files stream
directly from the FUSE-mounted filesystem.

Automated Scheduling with Composite Jobs

Rather than managing separate cron jobs for backup, pruning, and cloud sync operations, Borgitory introduces “composite jobs” that chain multiple tasks together. A single scheduled job can backup data,
clean up old archives according to retention policies, sync to cloud storage, and send push notifications when complete.

The scheduling interface uses cron expressions but provides common presets for daily, weekly, and monthly backups. Each schedule can be enabled/disabled independently and shows the next execution time.

Real-time Job Monitoring

All backup operations run in isolated Docker containers and stream progress updates via Server-Sent Events. The job history shows detailed logs for each task within composite jobs, with expandable output
sections and progress indicators.

Failed jobs highlight errors prominently, and completed jobs show statistics like data processed, compression ratios, and execution time. The job manager handles queuing and prevents resource conflicts
when multiple operations are scheduled simultaneously.

Flexible Cleanup Policies

Archive cleanup goes beyond simple “keep N days” rules. Advanced retention strategies can keep different numbers of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly archives – just like Borg’s native pruning but
configured through an intuitive interface.

Cleanup operations can run independently or as part of scheduled composite jobs. The interface shows exactly which archives will be deleted and estimates space savings before execution.

Cloud Storage Integration

Using Rclone under the hood, Borgitory syncs repositories to S3-compatible storage after backups complete. The cloud sync configuration supports multiple providers and includes connection testing to validate credentials.

Sync operations track transfer progress and can run manually or automatically after successful backups. This provides offsite storage without requiring separate backup tools.

Push Notifications

Pushover integration sends notifications to mobile devices when jobs complete, fail, or require attention. Rather than checking logs manually, I get immediate alerts about backup status with configurable
triggers for success, failure, or both.

Repository Statistics

Basic statistics about a repository can be viewed through the UI, including measurements that change over time as archives are created.

Technical Implementation

The backend uses FastAPI with SQLite for job history and configuration storage. The frontend leverages HTMX for dynamic updates without JavaScript frameworks, creating a responsive interface that works
well on mobile devices. All sensitive data like passphrases and API keys use Fernet encryption at rest.

Docker deployment includes pre-built images on Docker Hub, eliminating the need to clone and build from source. The container requires specific capabilities for FUSE mounting but otherwise runs as a
standard web service.

Getting Started

Installation is straightforward with Docker:

docker run -d \
-p 8000:8000 \
-v ./data:/app/data \
-v /path/to/backup/sources:/backup/sources:ro \
-v /path/to/borg/repos:/repos \
--cap-add SYS_ADMIN \
--device /dev/fuse \
--name borgitory \
mlapaglia/borgitory:latest

The interface is available at http://localhost:8000 and creates the first admin account on initial setup. From there, repository management, scheduling, and monitoring are all handled through the web
interface.

The project is open source and available on https://github.com/mlapaglia/Borgitory with comprehensive API documentation at /docs. Whether you’re backing up a single machine or managing multiple
repositories across different systems, Borgitory brings the power of BorgBackup to a modern web interface without sacrificing the flexibility that makes Borg great.