borgmatic vs Restic Cron
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
borgmatic
Simple configuration-driven frontend for BorgBackup
VS
Restic Cron
Containerized scheduled restic backup runner
| Feature | borgmatic | Restic Cron |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Python | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,000 | ★ 715 |
| First released | 2013 | 2019 |
| Replaces | CrashPlan, Backblaze | Backblaze |
What are borgmatic and Restic Cron?
borgmatic
borgmatic is a command-line tool that wraps BorgBackup to make it easy to schedule and configure backups. It adds features like database dumps, monitoring hooks, and consistency checks.
- Declarative YAML configuration
- Database backup integration
- Monitoring service hooks
Restic Cron
A containerized scheduler that runs restic backups on a cron schedule and prunes old snapshots. It is designed to be a drop-in backup sidecar for self-hosted stacks.
- Cron-scheduled backups
- Automatic pruning
- restic backend
- Sidecar container
borgmatic vs Restic Cron: key differences
Borgmatic is written in Python, while Restic Cron is built with Shell. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for borgmatic versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for borgmatic. Borgmatic is the more established project (first released 2013), while Restic Cron arrived in 2019. Borgmatic has the considerably larger community, at 2,000 GitHub stars versus 715.
Why pick each one
Choose borgmatic if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Choose Restic Cron if…
- Released under the BSD-2-Clause license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Shell
Frequently asked questions
Is borgmatic or Restic Cron better?
Neither is universally better. borgmatic has the larger community, while Restic Cron is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are borgmatic and Restic Cron free and open-source?
Yes. borgmatic is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Restic Cron under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run borgmatic and Restic Cron with Docker?
borgmatic: yes. Restic Cron: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, borgmatic or Restic Cron?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for borgmatic. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.