Conserve Backup 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.
| Feature | Conserve Backup | Restic Cron |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 58 · Fair | 70 · Good |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Rust | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 278 | ★ 715 |
| First released | 2015 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze |
What are Conserve Backup and Restic Cron?
Conserve Backup
Conserve is a robust backup program written in Rust that creates deduplicated, versioned archives to local or remote storage. It emphasizes data safety and resumable operations.
- Deduplicated archives
- Versioned backups
- Resumable operations
- Data-safety focus
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
Conserve Backup vs Restic Cron: key differences
Conserve Backup is written in Rust, while Restic Cron is built with Shell. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Conserve Backup versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Conserve Backup. Conserve Backup is the more established project (first released 2015), while Restic Cron arrived in 2019. Restic Cron has the considerably larger community, at 715 GitHub stars versus 278. Restic Cron lists first-class Docker deployment; Conserve Backup does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Conserve Backup if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
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 Conserve Backup or Restic Cron better?
Restic Cron is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Conserve Backup if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Conserve Backup and Restic Cron free and open-source?
Yes. Conserve Backup is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Restic Cron under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Conserve Backup and Restic Cron with Docker?
Conserve Backup: check the project docs for container support. Restic Cron: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Conserve Backup or Restic Cron?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Conserve Backup. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.