Duplicacy 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 | Duplicacy | Restic Cron |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 76 · Good | 70 · Good |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | Proprietary | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Go | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,683 | ★ 715 |
| First released | 2016 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, Carbonite | Backblaze |
What are Duplicacy and Restic Cron?
Duplicacy
Duplicacy is a cross-platform cloud backup tool using a novel lock-free deduplication algorithm for efficient encrypted backups. It targets users backing up to cloud storage. It is deployed as a binary with an optional web UI.
- Lock-free deduplication
- Many cloud backends
- Cross-computer deduplication
- Optional web GUI
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
Duplicacy vs Restic Cron: key differences
Duplicacy is written in Go, while Restic Cron is built with Shell. Licensing differs — Proprietary for Duplicacy versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Duplicacy. Duplicacy is the more established project (first released 2016), while Restic Cron arrived in 2019. Duplicacy has the considerably larger community, at 5,683 GitHub stars versus 715.
Why pick each one
Choose Duplicacy if…
- Efficient deduplication
- Good cloud support
- Reliable
Watch out for
- Web edition is paid
- CLI is free but licensed
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 Duplicacy or Restic Cron better?
Neither is universally better. Duplicacy 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 Duplicacy and Restic Cron free and open-source?
Yes. Duplicacy is licensed under Proprietary and Restic Cron under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Duplicacy and Restic Cron with Docker?
Duplicacy: yes. Restic Cron: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Duplicacy or Restic Cron?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Duplicacy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.