Syncthing might we worth to have a look for your use case.
There were two things that were really nice about CrashPlan in doing thisā
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Everything was easy to set up. You identified another user who was also using CP, and CP would find that User, then the other user would Allow you to save to their system, and they would setup a backup location on their network for you to save/backup to. The Users are cooperative in making it work, but CP had the facility for making it easy.
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You can have a pretty high level of confidence that what you are participating in is secure. Everything is [was] done within CPās realm, they control the security, they are established, etc.
In the current use of Duplicati to do this, you have to use other sources, for exampleāto create the secure server. If you (I) am not adept with the other software, I might not get things set up as securely as I would like, and perhaps not even know it! So, if this is going to involve two or more sources, I need to make sure they will play together, and be sure I am not opening up a security hole unwittingly. So far as I know, CP was the only one that was supplying such a turnkey system for doing this very thing. If Duplicati could do something similar, you would be filling an open niche, and probably get a lot more users. Of course, with CP, you could also back up to their cloud,ā¦but if you chose not to use that, you still have a secure off-site backup (for free) with a trusted source (if you presume family is trusted!)
Iām not concerned so much about scheduled backup time, I can just call up my brother-in-law and ask, āWhen is your computer most likely to be on?ā We can also have our computers start up at scheduled times. Once per day would be plenty for me for an off-site backup.
BTW, it doesnāt matter whether you want to synch to the other trusted comuter, or back up to compressed files; the real issue is how to set up the backup channel safely.
Iām no expert but I canāt think of an all-non-tech setup like CP had without also having a central server to coordinate.
That being said, I believe it might be possible to do a one-tech-to-many-non-tech solution where as long as one person can expose a āDuplicati master serverā port to they internet, it could then handle coordination of the rest of the clients.
A side benefit is this also allows for centralized and non-run reporting possibilities.
Unfortunately itās not currently a core design feature so thereās probably a fair (though likely not major) but of coding necessary for such a feature.
Thanks for that thoughtful reply, JonMikeIV. I wouldnāt expect Duplicati to be able to reproduce the exact same thing as CP. The question that follows is what is the easiest substitute that a not very tech-savvy user could do to create a secure setup that allows the same sort of āpersonal cloudā setup. It sounds from your previous reply that you think combining Duplicati with a Minio server setup would be the best option. Are there other alternatives that are also worth looking into to do this?
The main ones I know of are Duplicati with:
- Minio (easy setup)
- SFTP server (various software options, likely lower resources usage than Minio)
- FTP server (various software options, likely lower resources usage than Minio but less secure than Minio or SFTP unless routed through something like an SSH tunnel, which works great but is one more thing to configure)
In all three cases at least one port will likely need to be manually opened in your internet router and pointed to your machine. This can be easy or hard depending on your router, internal IP configuration (static vs dynamic), and potential machine firewall.
Personally I like SFTP the best, feel Minio is the easiest to configure, and think FTP is too insecure to be considered.
For what itās worth Bitvise WinSSH (How to Set Up WinSSHD SFTP Server On Windows) on windows will automatically add entries into the Windows Firewall and will also forward a port for you on your router if it supports UPNP. I always manually set up port forwarding but might be worth trying?
In addition to Minio, SFTP, and FTP already mentioned, you can set up WebDAV. It was very easy with my NAS, and you can secure the traffic with TLS/SSL. It still does require a port to be opened on the gateway/router though.
Yeah, WebDAV is pretty easy to set up but can be tricky to get security right. And due to Duplicati fetching file lists in XML from WebDAV I think itās the least efficient of the bunch (personal opinion, no data to back that up).
So with a NAS or turnkey solution WebDAV is ok (i use it with NextCloud), but for a less tech inclined person doing it from scratch (IIS anyone?) itās probably safer to go with one of the others.
Thanks! I finally got around to looking at Syncthing and have started a Duplicati vs. Syncthing (with versioning) Comparison.
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People wanting to use duplicati to backup to other computers might consider this arrangement:
- duplicati on both computers
- neorouter free to link the computers into a virtual network (this provides the secure channel between them)
- then setup an SMB share or FTP service or something on both computers so that they can be used as a destination for each other.
There may be other ways to do this but this was the simplest that came to mind.
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I second this setup, and in fact it is exactly how Iām running Duplicati for reciprocal off-site backups between two PCs
Instead of Neorouter, Iām using Hamachi, but both are similar enough that either one should work.
Iām actually using the āShared Folderā (SMB share) alternative, which is even simpler than the FTP server one
If anyone wants to set up their backups this way and needs some additional instructions, let me know and Iāll describe in more detail the steps and configurations needed to make it work. It really is not complicated at all.
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Thanks for the offer! Perhaps you and @Stephen could compare notes in a How-To topic for setting up backups across VPNs! 
Sure, @JonMikelV, Iāll start a new How To topic with some instructions to set up backups through a VPN
Writing manuals is not my area of expertise but at least Iāll describe how I set it up and what software and settings are needed to make it work
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Donāt worry about that. If you look at some of the other posts there youāll see three are lots of different ways to share the knowledge.
Besides, one of the best ways to get better at something is to do it. And a great way to make sure you understand something is to try and teach it to others! Or so Iāve heard. 
@city_zen I donāt have time to write anything, but if you ping me when youāve done it Iād be happy to review and fill in any blanks I can.
@Stephen, that sounds great!
Iām currently half way through writing the How To topic. Itās taking longer than I thought and I donāt have much free time to devote to it. But I think Iāll have it done in a couple of days. Iāll ping you when I publish it so you can review and contribute to it