diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/xtrabackup-compact-disable-8ae9215207147ebc.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/xtrabackup-compact-disable-8ae9215207147ebc.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..96e211f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/xtrabackup-compact-disable-8ae9215207147ebc.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+fixes:
+  - The ``--compact`` flag has been removed from xtrabackup options. This had been
+    shown to cause crashes in some SST situations
diff --git a/templates/cluster.cnf.j2 b/templates/cluster.cnf.j2
index 73291e30..8a2050c3 100644
--- a/templates/cluster.cnf.j2
+++ b/templates/cluster.cnf.j2
@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ wsrep_retry_autocommit = {{ galera_wsrep_retry_autocommit }}
 
 [xtrabackup]
 compress
-compact
 parallel = {{ galera_xtrabackup_threads }}
 compress-threads = {{ galera_xtrabackup_threads }}
 rebuild-threads = {{ galera_xtrabackup_threads }}