A technique for replicating file systems to any number of targets includes obtaining a writeable snapshot of a file system on a source, performing cloud tiering of files in the snapshot, replacing the file contents of the snapshot with stubs pointing to the cloud, and generating a namespace backup of the snapshot that includes directories and stubs. The source system ships the namespace backup to the cloud, allowing any authorized target system to restore from the namespace backup to a local file-system replica, such that contents of the cloud-tiered files are made accessible on the target system from the restored namespace via the stubs.