DumpCat
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DumpCat vs SnapShooter

SnapShooter is a hosted backup service that DigitalOcean acquired in January 2023; the last product update listed in its docs is from September 2024. DumpCat is a free, open-source backup manager that runs on your own server. Here is how they compare for MySQL and MariaDB.

Download DumpCat Source on GitHub

At a glance

DumpCatSnapShooter
Price and licenseFree and open source (Apache-2.0). No account, no license key.Free: 1 job, daily, 500 MB. Lite $14/month (3 jobs, 10 GB), Startup $39 (20 jobs, 60 GB), Business $79 (50 jobs, every 5 minutes, 120 GB), Agency $199 (250 jobs, 240 GB).
How it runsSelf-hosted: one binary with a web UI, running as a systemd or Windows service next to your database.Hosted SaaS that connects over SSH or through its agent; managed databases are backed up by its serverless workers.
PlatformsLinux (amd64, arm64) and Windows (64-bit).Servers reachable over SSH or with the agent, and managed databases.
DatabasesMySQL 5.7, 8.0, 8.4, Percona Server, MariaDB 10.x and 11.x.MySQL and other engines. Supported versions are not listed on the pages we checked.
Backup methodsLogical with mysqldump / mariadb-dump or parallel mydumper; hot physical backups with XtraBackup / MariaBackup, including incrementals. No locks on InnoDB.mysqldump of all databases or a single one. Table locking behaviour is not documented on the pages we checked.
Point-in-time recoveryYes. Continuous binlog archiving; restore to a timestamp, a binlog position or just before a GTID.Partial: a MySQL binlog backup option uploads binlogs incrementally.
StorageLocal disk / NFS, S3 and compatibles, Google Drive, OneDrive, SFTP, FTP / FTPS, WebDAV, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob, Dropbox and every rclone backend; several per job.S3-compatible storage only (AWS, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Filebase, UpCloud, Wasabi, MinIO), or SnapShooter's own storage.
Encryptionage encryption on your server before anything is uploaded; zstd compression; SHA-256 for every file.OpenSSL with an RSA key; which plans include it differs between parts of the pricing page.
Scheduling and retentionCron-style schedules; retention per storage by count, age or GFS (daily / weekly / monthly).From daily (Free) to every 5 minutes (Business); jobs and storage are capped per plan.
RestoreFrom the web UI: restore under a new database name, test-decrypt every file before dropping anything, integrity checks after each run.Automatic restores from the dashboard.
Where your data goesStraight from your server to the storage you choose. Nothing passes through a third party.Over SSH or the agent the dump goes from your server to your storage; serverless backups of managed databases run on SnapShooter's workers.
NotificationsEmail, Telegram, Slack, Discord and HMAC-signed webhooks.Email alerts; two-factor login for the dashboard.

Choose SnapShooter if

  • You are on DigitalOcean and also want Droplet and volume snapshots in the same place.
  • One small daily backup is enough, and the free plan covers it.
  • You want automatic restores without running anything yourself.

Choose DumpCat if

  • You want a project that is open source and does not depend on one vendor's roadmap.
  • You need storage beyond S3: Google Drive, OneDrive, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV or local disk.
  • You want full point-in-time recovery to a second or a GTID, plus hot physical backups for large databases.
  • You want backups to run without any third-party service in the loop.

Switching from SnapShooter

  1. Install DumpCat on the database server.
  2. Add the same S3 bucket (in a new folder) or any other storage to DumpCat.
  3. Recreate each job, turn on binlog archiving if you used SnapShooter's binlog backups, and run it once.
  4. Keep the SnapShooter backups until DumpCat's retention covers the same period.

Sources

Facts about SnapShooter were checked on October 18, 2026 against the sources below. Products change: if something here is out of date, please open an issue on GitHub.

  1. DigitalOcean acquires SnapShooter (January 2023)
  2. SnapShooter docs on DigitalOcean (product updates)
  3. SnapShooter docs: features
  4. SnapShooter pricing
  5. SnapShooter: MySQL backups
  6. SnapShooter features

SnapShooter is a trademark of its owner. DumpCat is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with it.

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