BorgBackup vs Rustic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | BorgBackup | Rustic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 94 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Python | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,762 | ★ 3,273 |
| First released | 2015 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Carbonite, Backblaze | Backblaze, CrashPlan |
What are BorgBackup and Rustic?
BorgBackup
BorgBackup is a deduplicating backup program with compression and authenticated encryption for efficient, secure archives. It targets technical users backing up to local or remote storage. It is deployed as a binary or package.
- Deduplication and compression
- Authenticated encryption
- Append-only repos for ransomware safety
- Efficient remote backups over SSH
Rustic
Rustic is a backup tool written in Rust that creates fast, encrypted, and deduplicated backups. It is fully compatible with Restic repositories while offering lower memory usage.
- Restic-compatible repositories
- Low memory footprint
- Cold storage support
BorgBackup vs Rustic: key differences
BorgBackup is written in Python, while Rustic is built with Rust. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for BorgBackup versus Apache-2.0 for Rustic. Rustic is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for BorgBackup. BorgBackup is the more established project (first released 2015), while Rustic arrived in 2022. BorgBackup has the considerably larger community, at 13,762 GitHub stars versus 3,273.
Why pick each one
Choose BorgBackup if…
- Excellent space efficiency
- Strong security
- Battle-tested
Watch out for
- Command-line oriented
- Repo not directly mountable everywhere
Choose Rustic if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Active community (3.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is BorgBackup or Rustic better?
Neither is universally better. BorgBackup has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are BorgBackup and Rustic free and open-source?
Yes. BorgBackup is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Rustic under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BorgBackup and Rustic with Docker?
BorgBackup: check the project docs for container support. Rustic: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, BorgBackup or Rustic?
Rustic has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for BorgBackup. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.