Barman vs pg_dump

While taking a logical backup of your PostgreSQL databases with pg_dump is often a good practice, it is not a sufficient technique for disaster recovery purposes.

Native business critical SLA

pg_dump is the official tool for performing logical backups in PostgreSQL. A logical backup is a snapshot of all the objects and the data contained in a database. While taking a logical backup is often a good practice, it is not a sufficient technique for disaster recovery purposes.

Suppose you regularly take a logical backup with pg_dump at 3AM and you have a crash at 6PM, your data loss is 15 hours worth of transactions. In most business critical scenarios this is unacceptable.

Barman, on the other hand, relies on PostgreSQL’s physical backup technology that allows planning for very low recovery point objective (RPO). Businesses running PostgreSQL are encouraged to use physical backup for disaster recovery and Barman succeeds in making this very simple to administer and reliable to recover.