SimpleBackups vs BackupDrill — breadth vs verified restorability

Both are legitimate tools, and for Supabase they get compared often. Their centers of gravity are different: SimpleBackups backs up more of the Supabase stack across more sources; BackupDrill backs up the data and then automatically proves it restores. Here is the honest version.

Side by side

Pricing as of July 2026 — check their site for current numbers.

Choose SimpleBackups if

• You want the whole Supabase surface backed up. Their OAuth integration covers Edge Functions source, Auth configuration, PostgREST config, and secret names alongside the database and Storage files. BackupDrill does not back those up — this is a real coverage gap, stated plainly.
• You have many backup sources beyond Supabase and want them in one dashboard. Their per-backup-job pricing is built for exactly that.
• You value the OAuth convenience — authorize once and the stack is connected, no bucket setup required (they also offer bundled storage).
• You need compliance automation and a disaster-recovery audit dashboard to show stakeholders — that is what their Plus and Max tiers are for.

Choose BackupDrill if

• You want proof your backups restore without running the test yourself. SimpleBackups hands you the file and the commands; whether it restores is your homework. BackupDrill does the homework on a schedule — every drill restores the latest snapshot into a throwaway Postgres and verifies the archive sha256, pg_restore completion, post-data objects, table counts, no missing tables, and that populated tables are non-empty. Failures land in your inbox.
• You want a lower paid entry point. Solo is $19/month with daily backups and monthly restore drills; their paid plans start at $49/month, and restore testing is not part of any tier.
• You run client projects. Team and Agency drill weekly, and Agency produces client-ready PDF reports — evidence you can forward instead of a dashboard screenshot.
• You want an inspectable engine. The backup engine is an MIT open-source CLI (github.com/backupdrill/cli), so you can read exactly what a backup contains and run it yourself — see restore & recovery.

The one-sentence difference

SimpleBackups is the broader backup tool; BackupDrill is the tool that proves the backup restores — breadth versus verified restorability, so pick by which failure worries you more: an uncovered surface, or a backup that turns out unrestorable the day you need it. If that second failure is the one that keeps you up, start with the quickstart — the free plan covers one project — or see the wider picture in every Supabase backup option compared.

FAQ