Autorestic vs Rclone
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Autorestic
Config-driven wrapper for Restic backups
VS
Rclone
Sync and copy files to dozens of cloud providers
| Feature | Autorestic | Rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,855 | ★ 58,995 |
| First released | 2019 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, CrashPlan | Backblaze |
Why pick each one
Choose Autorestic if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
Frequently asked questions
Is Autorestic or Rclone better?
Neither is universally better. Rclone has the larger community, while Autorestic is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Autorestic and Rclone free and open-source?
Yes. Autorestic is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Autorestic and Rclone with Docker?
Autorestic: yes. Rclone: yes.