rdiff-backup copies reverse diffs, increment files, and a live mirror. That is not a mechanic. Tink installs in one command, watches the Linux host, explains what is wrong, and helps you fix it.
Accidental sysadmins land on rdiff-backup because a reverse-diff mirror looks cheaper than a NAS. Then the host volume fills, nginx dies, and --list-increments still looks Current — no increment match for host fill. A filling /var is a Tink warning; it is not an rdiff-backup job unless you scraped cron 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 rdiff-backup if you already run reverse increments. Use Tink if you run Linux servers and want a mechanic.
| Feature | Tink | rdiff-backup |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 seconds (one curl | sh command) | Hours — rdiff-backup source dest, exclude globs, rdiff-backup-data, then a host that still has no mechanic after the last increment lands |
| What you get | Working monitoring, diagnosis, and approved fixes | A reverse-diff mirror and increment files. Disk fill, nginx, Postgres, and certs stay your problem until you SSH past --list-increments |
| Pricing | Free (Scout) / $9 / $29 per machine per month | GPL and free. You still pay the person who owns the VPS after the last increment date stays listed |
| Hidden costs | None — fully managed | A quiet overnight rdiff-backup, a healthy rdiff-backup-data that is not host fill, and a second tool to tell you the box is sick while --list-increments still looks Current |
| Monitoring approach | Agent on the server — CPU, disk, services, logs, certs, ports | Mirror, increments, and rdiff signatures. rdiff-backup does not watch a quiet cert or host auth.log after the last increment finished |
| Configuration | None after install — heuristics and AI | source dest, --exclude, --verbosity, increment retention, and which cron actually pages you |
| Plain-English diagnosis | Yes — AI explains root cause, impact, and fix | You read --list-increments, then SSH into the host to change the Linux box rdiff-backup already sits on |
| Fix execution | Proposes and executes approved commands with an audit trail | Retry rdiff-backup or --restore-as-of — rdiff-backup cannot free host disk, rotate a cert, or stop SSH brute-force unless you wrote that path |
| Alerting | Built-in across 8 channels | Not an rdiff-backup job — cron mail plus a separate monitoring tool have to fire |
| Predictive alerts | Yes — disk fills in ~6 days, memory and CPU trends | Not an rdiff-backup job — an increment date does not forecast a quiet host filling up |
| SSH brute-force detection | Built-in — parses auth.log every scan | Never — rdiff-backup does not read host auth.log, journald, or firewall state after the last increment landed |
| Machine offline detection | Agent presence monitoring with multi-channel alerts | Silence if the guest dies after the last Current mirror — unless you built a separate uptime check |
| Public status page | Shareable URL with 90-day history | None — rdiff-backup has no customer-facing status page for the Linux host |
| Weekly fleet digest | Automated Monday digest + daily brief when issues are open | None — a --list-increments recap is not a plain-English fleet narrative |
| On-call tracking | Built-in /oncall command + incident acknowledgment | Not included — wire failed rdiff-backup cron into PagerDuty or another incident tool |
| Conversation interface | Telegram, WhatsApp, web dashboard, CLI | --list-increments and SSH. No mechanic you text when /var filled and the last increment still showed Current |
| Learning curve | None — works after install | Steep — reverse diffs, rdiff-backup-data, --restore-as-of, and which failure is the mirror vs the running host |
| Best for | Freelancers, small teams, accidental sysadmins (1-50 Linux servers) | Teams that already run rdiff-backup for reverse increments, not a sick-VPS mechanic |
Keep using rdiff-backup when you already want that exact job:
rdiff-backup keeps reverse diffs and a live mirror. A working ops loop for five Linux boxes is not:
For a 5-server team, Tink Mechanic at $45/month is cheaper than the engineer who keeps failed-cron notifications alive after an rdiff-backup install, and every scan includes a diagnosis a quiet --list-increments Current will not type.
No rdiff-backup-data homework. No silent host. One command install.
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