Techniques are disclosed for backup and restore in a distributed database utilizing consistent database snapshots. In particular, a distributed database system configured in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a plurality of interconnected database nodes that collectively define a database having no single point of failure and that can be “viewed” by a SQL client as a single, logical database. In the course of executing such transactions, the distributed database system enables clients to declare snapshots that, when the transaction is committed, cause the distributed database system to logically freeze a consistent and complete copy of the state of the database at the point in time the transaction completed. Such snapshots enable clients to execute so-called “point-in-time” queries against those past states to return a result set that is essentially a reconstructed version of the database “as of” a particular point in time.