I understand your position, though I always have access to a terminal pretty much so I still don’t see the point of a web UI.

Though I realize I’m in the minority here.

I don’t care about stuff working OOTB - half the fun is messing around with things IMO.

I also don’t care about web UIs and similar features (I always got the impression from selfhosting communities that this is considered important but I never really understood why - I don’t spend all day staring at statistics, and when I need some info I can get it through the terminal usually).

Also, first sentence on Git Annex’s website:

git-annex allows managing large files with git, without storing the file contents in git. It can sync, backup, and archive your data, offline and online. Checksums and encryption keep your data safe and secure.

Not sure why you’re saying it’s not a backup solution.

Efit: I guess the “what git-annex is not” page says this.

To quote a comment by the creator on the same page:

It’s definitely possible to use git-annex in backup-like ways, but what I want to discourage is users thinking that just putting files into git-annex means that they have a backup. Proper backups need to be designed, and tested. It helps to use software that is explicitly designed as a backup solution. git-annex is more about file distribution, and some archiving, than backups.

So basically he says this just so people won’t yell at him when they fail to use it as a backup solution correctly.

Once you actually start using it it is dead simple and integrates extremely well with stuff you (might) already do.

I have a Git repo which contains my dotfiles + every “large” (annexed) file I want to back up under my home directory.

Git annex automatically tracks where all annexed files are, how many copies there are on various repos, etc.

I add and modify files using mostly standard git commands.

It supports pretty much anything as a “remote”.

It’s extremely simple to restore backups locally or remotely.

Basically Git annex is the Git of backup solutions IME, allowing you extreme flexibility to do exactly what you want, provided you take the time to learn how to do what you want.

Git Annex.

Took me a while to wrap my head around it, but nothing comes close to it once you set it up.

Edit: should have read the post more carefully, I use Git Annex both locally and on a VPS I rent from openbsd.amsterdam for off-site backups.