But it possibly it did a lot of extra downloads to build a database because it wasn’t given old –dbpath.
I’m not following that concern. The webserver is on your system, as is the CLI. All is on GitHub to get.
The risk with several backends is OAuth, which relies on a remote server, but B2 does not use OAuth.
Independent restore program was the plan for Restore without any other Duplicati code being needed, however by one report it was not working. I suspect it’s caught in the progressing Python 3 transition…
Duplicati is still possibly sensitive to OS crashes and reboots underneath it, however the new Beta will probably do better than 2.0.4.23 did. There is a fix in the upcoming Canary to improve handling of one variety of hard stop. If using the Stop button, use “Stop after current file” (new feature) not “Stop now”.
Stop now results in “Detected non-empty blocksets with no associated blocks!” #4037
There are also reports of SQLite being damaged by hard stops, but that’s not fixable in Duplicati code, and those who say to use another database haven’t given evidence that a different one will break less.
Best practice for backups that really count is generally multiple backups, done using different software. Good luck finding any paid backup whose legal terms (not their sales pitch) will promise all is perfect…
Duplicati is still Beta, is not perfect, is possibly less perfect than average paid product, but is improving. People with less critical needs may find it fine. Those being careful might use it as a secondary backup.
Don’t use it as an archiver, e.g. intentionally deleting source files to save space. Use it as backup copy. Sometimes the easy way to fix a problem is to start backup again. That’s hard if it has your one copy…