Knoxite vs Rclone
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Rclone
Sync and copy files to dozens of cloud providers
| Feature | Knoxite | Rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 13 · At risk | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 493 | ★ 59,925 |
| First released | 2016 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze |
What are Knoxite and Rclone?
Knoxite
Knoxite is a flexible data storage and backup tool that supports deduplication, encryption, and many storage backends. It can back up to local disk, SFTP, and S3-compatible targets.
- Deduplicated backups
- Encryption
- Multiple storage backends
- Cross-platform
Rclone
Rclone is a command-line program to manage, sync, and copy files across more than seventy cloud storage providers. It targets users moving or backing up data between storage systems. It is deployed as a single binary.
- Supports 70+ cloud providers
- Encryption and mount support
- Powerful sync and copy
- Single self-contained binary
Knoxite vs Rclone: key differences
Both projects are written in Go. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Knoxite versus MIT for Rclone. Rclone is the more established project (first released 2014), while Knoxite arrived in 2016. Rclone has the considerably larger community, at 59,925 GitHub stars versus 493. Rclone lists first-class Docker deployment; Knoxite does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Knoxite if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Written in Go
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose Rclone if…
- Works with almost any cloud
- Extremely versatile
- Reliable
Watch out for
- Not a snapshot backup tool
- Command-line focused
Frequently asked questions
Is Knoxite or Rclone better?
Neither is universally better. Rclone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Knoxite and Rclone free and open-source?
Yes. Knoxite is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Knoxite and Rclone with Docker?
Knoxite: check the project docs for container support. Rclone: yes.