Redmine backup and restore: the complete guide
Back up the Redmine database, files directory and configuration, restore each part, then verify the restore in a throwaway environment. Step by step.
By Jobin Joseph · · Updated
Redmine is free software. Running it is where the money goes. Here is what it is, what it does, and what it costs on your own server or on a managed plan.
Redmine is an open-source web application for managing projects and tracking issues. It was written by Jean-Philippe Lang, first released in 2006, and is built on Ruby on Rails. It is released under the GNU General Public License v2, which means you can download it, run it, change it and redistribute it without paying anyone. As of 1 October 2026 the current releases are 7.0.2 and 6.1.5. The 7.0 line is the latest stable version, 6.1 receives bug fixes and security updates, and 6.0 is listed as legacy.
That first paragraph answers the question most people type into Google. The rest of this page answers the question behind it, which is what Redmine will cost you once it is yours.
Redmine organises work into projects, and projects can hold subprojects. Inside a project, work is tracked as issues. Each issue has a tracker (bug, feature, task, or whatever you define), a status, a priority, an assignee, a due date, and any custom fields you add. Workflows decide which role may move an issue from one status to another, so a developer and a customer can both see the same issue and be allowed to do different things with it.
Around the issue tracker Redmine ships a wiki per project, a news section, document and file storage, a calendar and a Gantt chart drawn from the issues' dates, time logging against issues and projects, and a repository browser for Git, Subversion and others. Roles and permissions are granular and apply per project, so one person can be a manager on one project and a reporter on another. There is a REST API, email notifications, and incoming email that can create and update issues. Everything is extensible through plugins and themes, and the application runs on MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL or SQLite.
That breadth is why Redmine is still chosen in 2026 by engineering teams, IT departments, agencies and public bodies: it is one application that holds the tickets, the documentation and the time, with permissions that a large organisation can live with, and no per-seat licence attached to any of it.
Yes. The software is free, in both senses: it costs nothing and you are free to modify it. There is no community edition and enterprise edition split, no feature behind a paywall, no user cap. What you download from redmine.org is the whole product.
What is not free is everything that turns a download into a service people rely on: a server, a database, backups that are tested, security patches applied the week they appear, upgrades that do not break the plugins you installed, and someone whose job it is to do all of that. That is the cost of running Redmine, and it is the same whether you run it yourself or pay someone to run it for you. The only question is who carries it.
Four line items, every month, for as long as the application exists.
Server and database. Redmine itself is light. A small team runs comfortably on a modest virtual machine with a database on the same box, and a few hundred users with large attachments and repositories want more memory, a separate database and more disk. Whatever the size, the machine needs an operating system that is patched and a Rails stack that is kept current.
Backups and storage. The database and the files directory have to be backed up together, verified, kept off the server, and restored at least once to prove the backup works. Our guide to backing up and restoring Redmine walks through what that involves. It is an afternoon to set up and a recurring task to check.
Administration and patching. Redmine publishes several point releases a year, and some of them carry security fixes. Ruby, Rails, the database and the operating system all have their own cycles. Someone has to read the release notes, test the upgrade against the plugins in use, apply it, and be the person who gets called when the site is slow or an email stops arriving.
Upgrades across major versions. Moving from the 5.x line to 6, or 6 to 7, is where the time goes: plugins that have not been updated for the new version, a Ruby upgrade the new version requires, a database migration that has to be rehearsed. It happens roughly once a year and it is rarely a one-hour job.
Put a number on each of those and you have your monthly cost. Our self-hosted Redmine cost calculator does the arithmetic with every input visible and labelled as an assumption, so you can replace our illustrative figures with yours. With the defaults as shipped it lands at $450 a month, and the honest reading of that figure is not the number itself but how quickly it climbs when the admin time is costed at a real salary.
It is, for some teams. If you already run Rails applications in production and have the people who patch them, Redmine is one more. If your data must stay on hardware you control and no cloud provider's region will satisfy whoever writes your policy, self-hosting is the only option. If you are a few people running a small project and nobody minds doing the upgrade on a Saturday, the cost is close to zero and the calculator will tell you so.
The teams that get this decision wrong are the ones in between: ten to a few hundred users, a Redmine that has become the system of record, and an administrator who has quietly left or moved on. That is the Redmine that is three major versions behind, with a backup nobody has restored, and it is the most common state we find when a company asks us to look at theirs.
Managed Redmine hosting means someone else carries the four line items above and you keep the application. The price is a flat subscription, and what it has to include is the server, the backups, the patching, the upgrades and the support, with you as the administrator of your own Redmine so that nothing you could do on your own server is taken away.
RedminePRO is managed Redmine at a flat $29 a month for 25 users, with full Redmine admin access on every plan. Your workspace runs in the US, Ireland, France or India, your choice at signup, and migration from your current Redmine is done for you. The Plus plan is $79 a month for up to 100 users and Business is $199 a month for up to 250, each of them flat, none of them per seat. Annual billing is ten months' cost. The pricing page has the full comparison and the FAQ, and the Redmine hosting pricing index lists what the other managed providers publish, read on the same day from their own pages, so you can see the whole market before you decide.
For a team that is paying a real salary for an hour or two of Redmine administration a week, the managed plan costs less than the admin time. For a team of three with a volunteer administrator, it does not, and we would rather say so than sell you a plan you do not need.
The current one, unless something stops you. As of October 2026 that is the 7.0 line. 6.1 is still supported with bug fixes and security updates, and 6.0 is legacy. If you are self-hosting on 5.x or earlier, the upgrade is the single most valuable thing you can do for the installation this year, because security fixes only land on supported lines. If you are on a managed plan, the upgrade is the provider's job, and you should ask them which version you are on and when the next one is scheduled.
If you are starting fresh, there is no reason to begin anywhere but the latest release.
If you want to see what Redmine looks like when it is set up well, the live demo has six role logins and sample projects loaded, the login details arrive by email in a few minutes, and nobody calls you. If you already run Redmine and want to know what moving it would involve, the migration service starts with a free assessment and a quote, and the move itself is done for you. If you would rather keep running it yourself, the backup guide and the cost calculator are the two pages worth bookmarking.
Is Redmine free to use?
Yes. Redmine is open-source software released under the GNU General Public License v2. There is no paid edition and no user limit in the software itself. The cost of Redmine is the cost of running it: a server, backups, patching, upgrades and the time of the person who does them.
What is the latest version of Redmine?
As of 1 October 2026 the current releases are Redmine 7.0.2 and 6.1.5. The 7.0 line is the latest stable version, 6.1 continues to receive bug fixes and security updates, and 6.0 is listed as a legacy version.
How much does it cost to self-host Redmine?
It depends on the server you choose and, mostly, on how you value the administrator's time. Our calculator starts from illustrative figures and lands at $450 a month for a small team once admin time is included. Replace the inputs with your own and the number changes accordingly.
What does managed Redmine hosting cost?
RedminePRO's plans are flat: $29 a month for up to 25 users, $79 for up to 100 and $199 for up to 250, each with full Redmine administrator access, with the server, backups, patching, upgrades and support included. Annual billing is ten months' cost.
The demo needs no card. The trial needs one, and billing starts on day 8 unless you cancel.