btrbk vs Rclone
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?
btrbk
Backup tool for Btrfs subvolume snapshots
VS
Rclone
Sync and copy files to dozens of cloud providers
| Feature | btrbk | Rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Perl | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, binary | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,125 | ★ 58,995 |
| First released | 2014 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Time Machine | Backblaze |
Why pick each one
Choose btrbk if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Active community (2.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Perl
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is btrbk or Rclone better?
Neither is universally better. Rclone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are btrbk and Rclone free and open-source?
Yes. btrbk is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run btrbk and Rclone with Docker?
btrbk: check the project docs for container support. Rclone: yes.