<p>In our latest episode, co-hosts <a href="https://x.com/robby_mtf" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Robby </a>and <a href="https://x.com/tnachen" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Tim </a>talk with <a href="https://linkedin.com/in/julienmangeard?originalSubdomain=nl" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Julien Mangeard</a>, Co-Founder of open source backup platform <a href="https://plakar.io" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Plakar</a>. Plakar's open source, also called <a href="https://github.com/PlakarKorp/plakar" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">plakar</a>, has 1.5K stars on GitHub and provides a backup solution powered by open source, immutable data store Kloset.</p><p>The podcast discusses why data backup remains a critical but unsolved problem, especially as the number of data sources has exploded across SaaS applications, cloud databases, and on-prem systems. For CISOs and CTOs, this complexity makes it increasingly difficult to ensure everything is done “the right way.” The core argument is that the only truly safe approach is maintaining an independent, secure copy of your data - without vendor lock-in and with guaranteed long-term access, sometimes for decades. End-to-end encryption, immutable storage, and compatibility with different storage backends are emphasized as essential foundations rather than optional features.</p><p>The conversation contrasts hype-driven cloud-only backup companies like Eon with Plakar’s back-to-basics approach: an open source, resilience-focused system designed to handle large and diverse datasets securely. Built around an immutable storage engine (Kloset), Plakar aims to let individuals or small teams manage their own backups while also supporting collaboration at scale. The founder’s motivation is rooted in personal experience- having previously lost critical data as a CTO - which reinforced the need for security, openness, and community involvement to continuously add and validate new data sources in a rapidly evolving data landscape.</p>