BorgBackup vs Restic Exporter
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?
BorgBackup
Deduplicating archiver with compression and encryption
VS
Restic Exporter
Prometheus exporter for restic repository status
| Feature | BorgBackup | Restic Exporter |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,588 | ★ 158 |
| First released | 2015 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Carbonite, Backblaze | Datadog |
Why pick each one
Choose Restic Exporter if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is BorgBackup or Restic Exporter better?
Neither is universally better. BorgBackup has the larger community, while Restic Exporter is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are BorgBackup and Restic Exporter free and open-source?
Yes. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Restic Exporter under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BorgBackup and Restic Exporter with Docker?
BorgBackup: check the project docs for container support. Restic Exporter: yes.