Tink vs Amanda
Amanda copies dumps, holding disks, and tape catalogs. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Amanda runs the dump. Tink answers “why is this VPS sick?”
Accidental sysadmins land on Amanda because a tape catalog looks cheaper than a NAS. Then the host volume fills, nginx dies, and amstatus still looks complete — no dump match for host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not an Amanda job unless you scraped amreport mail and watched it.
Tink is the other job: detect the issue on the machine, say why it happened in plain English, propose the command, and run it only after you approve. Keep using Amanda if you already run dumps. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | Amanda |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — amanda.conf, disklist, holding disk, vtape or changer, xinetd/amanda, then a host that still has no mechanic after the last amdump reports 0 dumps failed |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | Dumps, holding disks, and a tape catalog. Disk fill, nginx, Postgres, and certs stay your problem until you SSH past amstatus |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | BSD/GPL mix and free. You still pay the person who owns the VPS after the last amreport stays clean |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | A quiet overnight amdump, a healthy catalog that is not host fill, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick while amstatus still looks complete |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Amanda server, clients, holding disk, and tapes. Amanda does not watch a quiet cert or host auth.log after the last dump finished |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | amanda.conf, disklist, dumptypes, tapetypes, holding disk, and which amcheck actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You read amstatus and amreport, then SSH into the host to change the Linux box Amanda already sits on |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | systemctl restart xinetd and amdump — Amanda cannot free host disk, rotate a cert, or stop SSH brute-force unless you wrote that dump |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not an Amanda job — mail from amreport plus a separate monitoring tool have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not an Amanda job — a dump date does not forecast a quiet host filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — Amanda does not read host auth.log, journald, or firewall state after the last dump landed |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the Amanda client dies after the last timer — unless you built a separate uptime check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — Amanda has no customer-facing status page for the Linux host |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — an amreport recap is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire failed amdump mail into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | amstatus and SSH. No mechanic you text when /var filled and the last dump still showed 0 dumps failed |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — amanda.conf, disklist, holding disks, vtape, changers, and which failure is Amanda vs the running host |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run Amanda for backup dumps, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
When Amanda is the right choice
Keep using Amanda when you already want that exact job:
- Network dumps with an Amanda catalog — you need amanda.conf, disklist, holding disk, and vtape, not a mechanic.
- An existing backup stack — amdump timers, tapes, and amrecover matter more than guest nginx, certs, and SSH on a quiet VPS.
- An existing lab or nested setup — Amanda already starts, the catalog already ships, and someone owns the Amanda box.
- Hosts that only page on dump or tape death — you already run amreport mail, not a sick-box SSH loop.
The real cost of “just watch amstatus”
Amanda runs dumps and tapes. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
- A healthy dump still means you SSH into the host and change the box by hand when it gets sick later
- Host fill, nginx, certs, and SSH brute-force never appear unless a separate tool scraped those signals and a rule fired
- A filling /var is a Tink disk warning on every scan — Amanda will stay quiet until the next amdump fails
- A single VPS with a dead agent still needs a mechanic, not another dump date
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who keeps failed-dump notifications alive after a free Amanda install, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet amstatus will not type.
No amanda.conf homework. No silent host. One command install.
Start MechanicAlso compare: Tink vs Kopia · Tink vs restic · Tink vs Borg