Duplicati vs Restic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Duplicati
Free backup software with a friendly web UI
VS
Restic
Fast, secure, efficient backup program
| Feature | Duplicati | Restic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 99 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | MIT | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | C# | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 15,020 | ★ 36,213 |
| First released | 2008 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, Carbonite | Backblaze, Carbonite |
What are Duplicati and Restic?
Duplicati
Duplicati is free backup software that stores encrypted, incremental backups to cloud and local destinations through a web interface. It targets users who want scheduled GUI-driven backups. It is deployed via Docker or installers.
- Web-based backup management
- Encrypted incremental backups
- Many cloud storage targets
- Scheduling built in
Restic
Restic is a fast and secure backup program that creates encrypted, deduplicated snapshots to many storage backends. It targets users and admins who want reliable command-line backups. It is deployed as a single binary.
- Encrypted deduplicated snapshots
- Many storage backends
- Fast incremental backups
- Single self-contained binary
Duplicati vs Restic: key differences
Duplicati is written in C#, while Restic is built with Go. Licensing differs — MIT for Duplicati versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic. Duplicati is the more established project (first released 2008), while Restic arrived in 2015. Restic has the considerably larger community, at 36,213 GitHub stars versus 15,020.
Why pick each one
Choose Duplicati if…
- Friendly GUI
- Broad storage support
- Free
Watch out for
- Restores can be slow
- Long beta history
Choose Restic if…
- Strong encryption
- Efficient deduplication
- Wide backend support
Watch out for
- Command-line only
- No built-in scheduler
Frequently asked questions
Is Duplicati or Restic better?
Neither is universally better. Restic has the larger community, while Duplicati is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Duplicati and Restic free and open-source?
Yes. Duplicati is licensed under MIT and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Duplicati and Restic with Docker?
Duplicati: yes. Restic: yes.