I have to choose a backup solution for a team of 60 CAD users with no proprietary software dependency. I did research popular and widely used backup options across practical, real-world criteria such as data safety, ransomware resistance, filesystem friendliness (ZFS/Btrfs), reliability, and ease of use.

Credit goes to AI tools that helped me efficiently sort out all available options and pick the best option for my specific use case

Best Choice Per Use-Case

1. Home User

Best: Syncthing + Restic (simple, safe, low maintenance)
Why: Real-time sync + encrypted snapshot backups, very low failure risk, no fragile database.

2. Small Business / Office Server

Best: Nextcloud + Borg
Why: User control, audit logs, append-only backups, strong ransomware protection, stable long-term storage.

3. Homelab / Power User

Best: Borg or Kopia
Why: Immutable / append-only backups, deduplication, extremely reliable, ZFS/Btrfs friendly.

4. CAD / Large Binary File Workflow

Best: Syncthing
Why: True block-level sync, fast delta transfer, handles huge files efficiently.

5. Cloud / Offsite Backup (S3, B2, Wasabi, etc.)

Best: Restic or Kopia
Why: Encrypted snapshots, object-storage native, excellent integrity checking.

6. Maximum Ransomware Protection / Air-gap Style

Best: Borg (append-only)
Close: Restic / Kopia
Why: Immutable backups, versioned snapshots, very high data integrity, resistant to deletion/modification.