CKAN vs Restic Mailer

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?
FeatureCKANRestic Mailer
CategoryBackup & RecoveryBackup & Recovery
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePythonShell
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB64 MB
Deploymentbare-metaldocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 5,088★ 661
First released20262018
ReplacesBackblaze

Why pick each one

Choose CKAN if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
CKAN details

Choose Restic Mailer if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in Shell
Restic Mailer details

Frequently asked questions

Is CKAN or Restic Mailer better?

Neither is universally better. CKAN has the larger community, while Restic Mailer is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are CKAN and Restic Mailer free and open-source?

Yes. CKAN is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Restic Mailer under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run CKAN and Restic Mailer with Docker?

CKAN: check the project docs for container support. Restic Mailer: yes.

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