Bupstash 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 | Bupstash | Rustic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 13 · At risk | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Rust | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 924 | ★ 3,273 |
| First released | 2020 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, CrashPlan | Backblaze, CrashPlan |
What are Bupstash and Rustic?
Bupstash
Bupstash is a tool for encrypted, deduplicated, and compressed backups. It is designed to be simple, secure, and efficient, storing backups locally or over SSH.
- Encrypted deduplicated backups
- Works over SSH
- Simple command-line interface
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
Bupstash vs Rustic: key differences
Both projects are written in Rust. Licensing differs — MIT for Bupstash versus Apache-2.0 for Rustic. Bupstash is the more established project (first released 2020), while Rustic arrived in 2022. Rustic has the considerably larger community, at 3,273 GitHub stars versus 924.
Why pick each one
Choose Bupstash if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
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 Bupstash or Rustic better?
Neither is universally better. Rustic has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Bupstash and Rustic free and open-source?
Yes. Bupstash is licensed under MIT and Rustic under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Bupstash and Rustic with Docker?
Bupstash: check the project docs for container support. Rustic: check the project docs for container support.