Amanda Community: Open-Source Backup Ledger 2026

Part of the Open-Source Backup Ledger (edition 2026-10-02). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Kind: Backup platform
Licence: BSD-style (University of Maryland, Zmanda, Carbonite copyrights)
Backer: BETSOL (owner of Zmanda since 2018); effort goes to the proprietary Zmanda Enterprise
Paid edition or support: None for the community edition; Zmanda Enterprise is a separate commercial product
Latest release: 3.5.4, 2023-07-26
Next signal: None: no roadmap, milestones or development branch
Archetype: Dormant
Evidence grade: A. GitHub API: last release July 2023, last commit January 2024.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	39.8 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+0.0 points	higher is better
Credibility	6.0 / 25	higher is better
Sustainability risk	21.0 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	5.0 / 25	lower is better
Support and ecosystem	6.0 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	0.5 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	31.6 / 100	balanced weights

Capability by domain

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2016	2019	2022	Today
Virtual and physical servers (12)	2	2	2	2
Databases and applications (12)	1	1	1	1
Recovery (14)	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
Cyber resilience (14)	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5
Storage efficiency and targets (10)	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
Long-term retention and tape (6)	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5
Replication and DR (10)	2.5	2.5	2.5	2.5
Security and compliance (8)	2	2	2	2
New-platform support (VMware exit) (8)	1	1	1	1
Management at scale and automation (6)	2	2	2	2
Total / 100	39.8	39.8	39.8	39.8

Year by year: 2016: 39.8 · 2017: 39.8 · 2018: 39.8 · 2019: 39.8 · 2020: 39.8 · 2021: 39.8 · 2022: 39.8 · 2023: 39.8 · 2024: 39.8 · 2025: 39.8 · 2026: 39.8

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	No change since the first scored year

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2023-04	3.5.3 packaging update	D12 Packaging and licensing	C
2023-07	3.5.4 maintenance fix	D12 Packaging and licensing	C

Centre of gravity: Packaging and licensing (2)
Driver mix: Vision 0%, Customer need 100%, Market window 0%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 0%

Credibility: 6.0 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	1	No release since July 2023
Roadmap transparency	2	Public repository; no roadmap
Say-do	1.5	2 of 5 items shipped; the 3.6 release and a web UI were dropped
Velocity	0.5	Zero commits since January 2024
Lifecycle stability	1	No maintenance; build fixes for current compilers left open

Say-do record, 2023 to 2026: 5 items: 2 shipped (3.5.3 and 3.5.4 packaging releases), 3 dropped, including a 3.6 release tagged as pre-release since 2018.

Sustainability risk: 21.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Maintainer concentration	5	No active maintainers
Backer health	4.5	BETSOL develops only the proprietary Zmanda product
Licence-change risk	2	Permissive licence; corporate copyright holders
Abandonment signs	5	Fails both near-dormant tests: 38 months without a release, no committers
Security response	4.5	No security process

Project health: Near-dormant. Last release 2023-07-26, last commit 2024-01-31. 70 open issues with a median age of 742 days; 32 open PRs (median 1,086 days). 272 stars.

Technical lock-in: 5.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	0.5	Standard tar and dump archives
Export path	0.5	Restorable with dd and tar, without Amanda
Stack coupling	1	Simple C and Perl stack
Hardware / cloud coupling	0	Any tape, disk or S3
Skills and tooling coupling	3	Legacy, scarce skills

Support and ecosystem: 6.0 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Paid support	0.5	No paid support for the community edition
Consultants and partners	1	A few legacy consultants
Documentation	2	Man pages; wiki largely unmaintained
Community and packaging	2.5	Still packaged by Linux distributions; forums quiet

AI leverage: 0.5 / 20

Strand	Today	Latest step
AI for protection / protecting AI	0	none
AI platform stack	0	none
AI-assisted operations	0	none
Agent openness	0.5	2016: Command line only

No AI features; the project is not developing.

Reading

Amanda was once a reference for tape backup, and its plain tar format still makes old backups easy to read. The community project has not released since July 2023 or committed since January 2024, and its owner invests only in the proprietary Zmanda product. Do not start new deployments on it; plan a migration for existing ones.

Open questions and evidence caveats

Distribution packages may keep it installable for a while, but security fixes are unlikely.