Autorestic vs Restic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Autorestic | Restic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 53 · Fair | 99 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,868 | ★ 36,194 |
| First released | 2019 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, CrashPlan | Backblaze, Carbonite |
What are Autorestic and Restic?
Autorestic
Autorestic is a higher-level wrapper around Restic that makes it easy to manage multiple backups from a single declarative configuration file. It handles backends, locations, and scheduling.
- Declarative backup config
- Multiple backends and locations
- Cron-based scheduling
Restic
Restic is a fast and secure backup program that creates encrypted, deduplicated snapshots to many storage backends. It targets users and admins who want reliable command-line backups. It is deployed as a single binary.
- Encrypted deduplicated snapshots
- Many storage backends
- Fast incremental backups
- Single self-contained binary
Autorestic vs Restic: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Autorestic versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic. Autorestic is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Restic. Restic is the more established project (first released 2015), while Autorestic arrived in 2019. Restic has the considerably larger community, at 36,194 GitHub stars versus 1,868.
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)
Choose Restic if…
- Strong encryption
- Efficient deduplication
- Wide backend support
Watch out for
- Command-line only
- No built-in scheduler
Frequently asked questions
Is Autorestic or Restic better?
Neither is universally better. Restic 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 Restic free and open-source?
Yes. Autorestic is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Autorestic and Restic with Docker?
Autorestic: yes. Restic: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Autorestic or Restic?
Autorestic has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Restic. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.