Free for up to 10 workspaces — funded by donations
Your Google Workspace, backed up with honesty.
Self-hosted backup for Gmail, Drive, Calendars, Contacts and Shared Drives. Your storage, your rules — and never a fake “success” report. Built and maintained as a labour of love by KIKO Solutions.
- No card, no trial clocks
- Runs on your own server
- Funded by people like you
00Latest news
A change to what is free. 31 August 2026.
The free licence now covers ten client workspaces rather than an unlimited number. Nothing else about it changes — same application, same features, no trial clock — and everyone who has already asked for an unlimited licence will still be given one. Release is still 2 September.
Why we changed it
Because we would like this to earn a living eventually, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. An unlimited licence for everyone leaves no route to that, and software with nothing behind it is software that quietly stops being maintained. We would rather say so now than discover it later.
Why ten, and not five
Ten workspaces is enough to run the thing properly and form a real opinion of it, and it covers most small providers outright with room to grow. Above ten you are running a business on it — and that is the point at which we would like to have a conversation, not send you an invoice. There is no price list, because we have not earned one yet: no exposure, no independent testing beyond our own, no track record. Ask, and we will work out something that reflects that.
If you already asked for enterprise
You will get it. That was the offer when you asked, and changing it after the fact is not how we want to start. Every request already on the waitlist is honoured at the tier it was made — there is nothing you need to do, and your key arrives on release day as planned.
Support stays free
For as long as we can manage it. Support costs us time rather than money, so it is the last thing we would put behind a price. First adopters get particular attention: you are the people taking a risk on something unproven, and that should earn you more of our time, not less.
Licences go out on release day
Every key requested before then is issued on 2 September, together with a download link. Nothing is first-come-first-served and there is no queue to jump — ask now and you are on the list.
Nothing to do in the meantime
You do not need to prepare anything. If you want a head start, read the install guide and check your host can run Node 22.5 or newer — that is the one thing worth knowing in advance.
Where we are now
In testing, on real workspaces, with real data. The development roadmap is kept honest — including the things that are not finished.
01A labour of love
Why we built our own Google Workspace backup.
GWS Backup wasn’t cooked up in a boardroom. KIKO Solutions is a managed service provider in Christchurch, Dorset, and this started as our own frustration: we tried what was already out there and kept coming back unsatisfied.
To be fair to them, the tools we tried are good ones. They just weren’t what we needed — we wanted the data sitting in storage we control and can audit, not in somebody else’s cloud on trust, and we wanted to be told plainly when a run went wrong instead of being shown a green tick.
So we built it. Evening after evening, release after release, every screen has been argued over, torn up, and rebuilt until it felt right. You choose your own storage destination — S3, Azure, Google Drive, or a local disk — and your data never touches anyone else’s infrastructure.
We run our own clients’ backups on it every day. Not a demo instance, not a staging copy — the same software you are downloading. When something is wrong with it, it is our weekend too, and that is the only quality guarantee we can honestly offer.
That’s also why it’s free for up to ten workspaces. Software built with this much care deserves to be used. If it saves your day (or your job), a donation keeps it alive.
— Adam Spicer, KIKO Solutions
02Our proudest feature
The end of silent failures.
When you back up a workspace for the first time, every backup tool on earth hits the same wall: Google limits how often you can ask for data and how much you can move.
Other products simply tell you the backup completed successfully. In some cases, that isn’t true.
We show the backup as stopped, explain the exact error, and resume at the next scheduled run. Only when the run has truly completed do we say so.
We hate fake stats. Honesty and transparency are our biggest features — bold engineering, safe hands.
03The grand tour
Every screen, crafted by hand.
No stock dashboards, no bought-in modules. Scroll through the software the way we built it — one obsessed-over screen at a time. Click any screenshot to zoom in.
The Dashboard
Backup health, storage usage and system alerts at a glance — one calm screen that tells you the truth about the state of every workspace you protect.
- Manage one or many Google Workspaces from a single login
- Per-workspace health, storage and alert summaries
- Built for MSPs, IT teams and internal admins
The Backup Console
Every client, every endpoint, every active backup in one unified view. Problems are highlighted the moment they appear — never buried in a log file.
- Snapshot of the last run for every client
- Aggregate stats — data moved, transfer speeds
- Predicted storage needs for the year ahead
Watch the Bots Work, Live
Parallel backup bots read and write your data while staying politely inside Google’s rate limits — and you can literally watch them work on the Live Monitor.
- See every email and file as it transfers
- Schedule and retention policy summary per client
- Full audit trail — prove to clients everything is backed up
Restore Anything, To Anywhere
Entire workspaces, single accounts, or that one file the accounts team deleted on Friday. Every backup keeps the previous copy of a changed file, so you can go back to how things were on a chosen date — including to before ransomware encrypted them.
- Restore whole workspaces, accounts, or single items
- Pick an earlier version of a file by date, or roll a whole account back to a chosen backup
- A change chart per account, so a mass encryption or a mass deletion stands out
- 5-step Recovery Wizard with pre-flight safety checks
Deep Investigations
Find a specific email or Drive file across every backup you hold, in seconds, using deep search indexing — without downloading a single archive.
- Search indexed backups across all clients
- Read emails in basic form for investigations
- Every action is audited and reportable
Reporting That Wins Clients
Every aspect of the software can be reported on — proof of your work for clients, or trends that justify a course of action. Custom-branded, and genuinely engaging.
- Branded reports with stats, charts and tables
- Export to PDF or Word (docx)
- Evidence-grade audit output for compliance
04Behind the scenes
The unglamorous parts, done properly.
Scheduling, retention, admin — the machinery that keeps the promise. This is the short version; the long one is worth a read.
Scheduler
High-frequency incremental backups, overlap detection, and load-aware planning.
Data Retention
Custom compliance policies tuned to your country’s data protection law.
Clients
Multiple Google Workspace domains from one interface — perfect for MSPs.
Workspace Admin
Everyday domain admin tasks handled inside GWS Backup itself.
Settings
Storage destinations, 2FA login security, appearance and team accounts.
Total Backup
Emails, Calendars, Contacts, Shared Drives — even desktop-synced folders.
05Runs where you run
Flexible deployment, no lock-in.
Linux and cPanel are ready today. The other two are built and in testing — we would rather name a date we keep than ship an installer that eats an afternoon of yours.
Available now
Zero-config Linux & cPanel
A lightweight, standalone .zip package. Drop it into cPanel or any Linux VPS and run. No complex dependency installations required.
Coming soon
Native Windows installer
A standard .exe installer that handles everything natively, including bypassing sandbox restrictions and automatically setting up background services.
Coming soon
Official Docker support
The ultimate “easy button” for self-hosting. Use our pre-configured Docker Compose file for instant, perfectly isolated deployment on any OS.
06Editions
Three ways to run it. The first one costs nothing.
Up to ten client workspaces, the complete application, no charge — no trial clock and no feature held back. Beyond ten there is a larger licence by arrangement, and for putting it in front of your own clients under your own name there is the white-label edition.
GWS Backup — the whole application
£0/ up to 10 workspaces
Everything below is included, with no feature withheld. Donations are welcome and never required; they buy no extra features, because there are none to buy.
- Up to 10 client workspaces, unlimited accounts within them
- Gmail, Drive, Shared Drives, Calendars and Contacts
- Your storage: Google Drive, S3-compatible, Azure, or local disk
- Restore to the original account, another account, or download
- Deleted items kept for a year, then pruned automatically
- Scheduling, retention, and a planner to spread the load
- Investigations, audit logging and branded reporting
- Archive a client, and retire one properly when the time comes
More than ten workspaces?
Then you are running a business on this, and so are we. There is no price list yet and no tier ladder — get in touch and we will sort something out that works for both of us. Everyone who has already asked for an unlimited licence will receive one, as promised. Ask about a larger licence.
What a licence key is for
One key runs one installation at a time. It is how we know roughly how many people rely on this and whether a release broke something — not a meter, and not a way to switch your backups off. Verification fails open: if our licence server is unreachable, your console keeps working.
Not open source
Use it commercially, for up to ten client workspaces, at no charge. You may not resell it, rebrand it, or pass it off as your own — that is what the white-label option is for. The licence is short and written in English.
07Some of the fine print, made friendly
What you may and may not do with it.
The short version is below. It is not open source, and the two lists say plainly where the line sits — the licence itself is short, written in English, and worth the two minutes.
- You’re free to…
- Use it indefinitely, at home or commercially
- Back up up to 10 workspaces, unlimited accounts within them
- Run it on any server you control
- Use it in your MSP business for paying clients
- Recommend and share it with anyone
- You may not…
- Rebrand or re-market it as your own product
- Resell, sublicense or redistribute the software
- Run one key on multiple installations at once
- Remove or alter GWS Backup branding
- Reverse-engineer or modify the code
Why not open source? Years of evenings and weekends live in this codebase. Keeping the source closed stops others repackaging that work and selling it as their own — it’s how this stays sustainable. Want it under your brand, legitimately? That’s exactly what the white-label programme is for.
One key, one running installation. Licence keys are actively monitored and can be withdrawn if the licence is abused. Setup doesn’t quite fit — failover, lab rigs, something unusual? Ask us first — we’d much rather work out a solution with you than say no.
Read the current licenceVersion 1.3, effective 31 August 2026. It is versioned and dated, so you can always see what changed and when.
08Powered by you
No investors. No subscriptions. Just people who find it useful.
GWS Backup is developed by a tiny team who genuinely love this thing. Donating unlocks no features and raises no limits — there is nothing held back to sell you. If it protects something you care about, a donation of any size funds bug fixes, new features, and the servers it’s tested on.
Donate
One-off or recurring — every pound goes straight into development time, and into the servers this is tested on. It buys you nothing extra, and that is rather the point.
Report bugs
A good bug report is a gift. Help us keep the “zero silent failures” promise.
Spread the word
Tell another sysadmin, MSP, or parent. Growth by word of mouth keeps us independent.
Prefer bank transfer or a company invoice? Use the contact form — we’ll sort it.
09For MSPs & resellers
Bigger, or under your own name.
Two things sit above the standard licence, and enquiries about either are genuinely welcome — there is no price list, no sales team and no call-booking widget. A short form, answered personally by the developer who built it, usually the same day (UK time).
More than ten workspaces
A larger licence
Everything is the same — same application, same features, just a key that covers the estate you actually run. There is no published price and no tier ladder: tell us roughly how many workspaces you protect and we will work out something that suits both of us. Everyone already on the waitlist for an unlimited licence keeps it, as promised.
Your brand, not ours
White label & custom branding
The standard licence doesn’t allow rebranding — but we do, commercially. Either take it as a full white-label edition sold and supported under your own identity, or for a one-off fee we will fit your branding into the app for you: logo, colour palette and report templates, ready to deploy.
10Ready when you are
Start backing up like you mean it.
Register in under a minute — your licence key and download links arrive by email within 1–2 days. The next release, our latest beta, lands on 2 September 2026 — and your key works on it from day one. Your data will thank you.