Bareos vs Restic

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?
FeatureBareosRestic
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseAGPL-3.0BSD-2-Clause
LanguageC++Go
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metalbinary, docker
GitHub stars★ 1,232★ 35,412
First released20102015
ReplacesVeeam, CommVaultBackblaze, Carbonite

Why pick each one

Choose Bareos if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (1.2k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C++
Bareos details

Choose Restic if…

  • Strong encryption
  • Efficient deduplication
  • Wide backend support
Restic details

Frequently asked questions

Is Bareos or Restic better?

Restic is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Bareos if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are Bareos and Restic free and open-source?

Yes. Bareos is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Bareos and Restic with Docker?

Bareos: yes. Restic: yes.

Related comparisons