BackupKit vs Iperius Backup

Iperius Backup is an Italian software product that's been quietly popular with small businesses across Europe (and increasingly elsewhere) for over a decade. It's feature-rich, runs reliably, supports basically every backup type imaginable, and has a passionate user base.

It also looks like a Windows XP utility. The interface, the documentation, and the website have a distinctly mid-2000s feel — not as a stylistic choice, but as a result of incremental updates on an old foundation.

BackupKit is a more modern take on the same core idea: backup your stuff, anywhere, on a schedule, with sensible defaults.

Feature coverage

Iperius is genuinely feature-dense. File backup, disk image, VM backup (Hyper-V/VMware), database backup (SQL Server, MySQL, MariaDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL), Exchange backup, Microsoft 365 backup, sync to FTP, sync to cloud, drive cloning — the list goes on. For a small IT shop running mixed infrastructure, this breadth is a real selling point.

BackupKit focuses on file-level backup to any storage destination, on a schedule, with encryption and notifications. Database backup, VM backup, and Exchange backup are explicitly out of scope. If your infrastructure runs SQL Server and you need application-aware backups, BackupKit isn't the tool.

UI and learning curve

Iperius's main window is a tabbed multi-panel layout with dozens of options visible at once. New users tend to find it overwhelming; experienced users find it efficient. It's the “all controls on one dashboard” school of UI.

BackupKit uses progressive disclosure: only the relevant options for the current step are shown, advanced settings are tucked behind explicit toggles, and the main view is a clean backup list with status. Less power-density per screen, less cognitive load to get started.

Pricing model

Iperius is sold in tiers (Free, Desktop, Essential, Advanced, Web, Tape, DB), each unlocks specific backup types. The free version is genuinely useful but limited; the paid tiers are 79€-299€ per machine.

BackupKit is one tier, all features included, on the standard monthly/yearly/lifetime structure described in our pricing page.

Cloud destination support

Iperius supports S3, Azure, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, plus FTP/SFTP/WebDAV. Comparable to BackupKit's coverage.

Where they differ: BackupKit treats each storage destination as equal — same configuration flow, same scheduling, same UI. Iperius has historically separated file-to-cloud (one screen), file-to-FTP (another screen), file-to-Azure (another screen), with subtle UX differences between them.

Reliability

Iperius's longevity is its own endorsement — it has worked for many users for many years, even when the UI feels stuck in time. The underlying backup engine is solid.

BackupKit is newer (launching late 2026), so it doesn't have Iperius's decade-plus track record yet. We address this with the 30-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee, but it's a real difference if “been around forever” is what you care about.

Bottom line

Pick Iperius if you run a small business with mixed infrastructure (SQL, Hyper-V, Exchange) that needs application-aware backup, or you specifically want a tool with a long European track record.

Pick BackupKit if you're backing up files (not VMs or databases), you want a modern interface that doesn't require a manual to learn, and the single all-features pricing is what you want.