Snapshots as a reliable backup facility

Hi! I’ve searched through Google and this forum, but couldn’t really find the information I’m looking for.

Like most people, I want to create backups of my containers and I want to be able to restore them. I’ve read that it’s possible to create an image of a container, then export it and then move it to some kind of backup storage.

But doesn’t this use way more storage than when I’d just create a snapshot of the container? Or are snapshots not as reliable as exporting and importing an image of a container?