Barman 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?
Compare Barman with
choose an app… Rclone Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy CKAN pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Bareos zrepl ZFS Autobackup Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Minarca Backup
Compare Restic with
choose an app… Syncthing LocalSend MinIO Rclone copyparty Puter croc Spacedrive Nextcloud File Browser SeaweedFS Cloudreve Magic Wormhole Duplicati Kopia BorgBackup Velero bup Backrest Duplicacy CKAN pgBackRest bitmagnet Timeshift WAL-G Docker Volume Backup Sanoid rsnapshot Backup wrapper nono Backup-rsync-time-backup mydumper Rustic Back In Time pgBackWeb SnapRAID Vorta Open Archiver Wayback btrbk mail-archiver Backup tool nono Plakar borgmatic Autorestic BackupPC MySQL backup XtraBackup Restic REST Server Gickup Stash by AppsCode Restic alt MiniBackup Restic Browser rdiff-backup Bareos ElkarBackup alt Snapper zrepl K8up Ganymede Bupstash UrBackup Kanister linux-timemachine ZFS Autobackup MySQL Backup Container Restic Cron ZnapZend Restic Mailer BorgWarehouse Deja Dup Burp Backblaze alt Kopia-UI Standalone Knoxite ArchivesSpace ElkarBackup Collective Access - Providence Duplicacy alt MailpileBackup nono pgmoneta Duplicity Conserve Backup Backblaze alt nono Nxs-backup Amanda Tarsnap GUI Minarca Backup DAR Obnam2 Rdiffweb Restic Exporter Kup Minarca BackupNinja Time Machine Eonvelope Yuno Archive Custom Backup Sosse HashBackup
Feature Barman Restic Category Backup & Recovery Backup & Recovery License GPL-3.0 BSD-2-Clause Language Python Go Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 256 MB Deployment bare-metal binary, docker GitHub stars ★ 3,214 ★ 35,412 First released 2012 2015 Replaces Veeam Backblaze, Carbonite
Why pick each one
Choose Barman if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Active community (3.2k GitHub stars) Written in Python Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM Barman details Choose Restic if… Strong encryption Efficient deduplication Wide backend support Restic details
Frequently asked questions Is Barman or Restic better? Restic is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Barman if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Barman and Restic free and open-source? Yes. Barman is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Barman and Restic with Docker? Barman: check the project docs for container support. Restic: yes.