Backrest vs croc

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureBackrestcroc
CategoryBackup & RecoveryFile Sync & Storage
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageTypeScriptGo
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB32 MB
Deploymentdocker, binarybinary
GitHub stars★ 7,071★ 39,485
First released20242018
ReplacesBackblazeWeTransfer, AirDrop

Why pick each one

Choose Backrest if…

  • Makes Restic approachable
  • Good scheduling
  • Lightweight
Backrest details

Choose croc if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Mature project with 39.5k GitHub stars
  • Written in Go
croc details

Frequently asked questions

Is Backrest or croc better?

Neither is universally better. croc has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Backrest and croc free and open-source?

Yes. Backrest is licensed under GPL-3.0 and croc under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Backrest and croc with Docker?

Backrest: yes. croc: check the project docs for container support.

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