Kopia 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.
Kopia
Fast, encrypted backup with a clean interface
VS
Restic Cron
Containerized scheduled restic backup runner
| Feature | Kopia | Restic Cron |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 94 · Excellent | 70 · Good |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Go | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 14,188 | ★ 715 |
| First released | 2019 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Backblaze, Carbonite | Backblaze |
What are Kopia and Restic Cron?
Kopia
Kopia is a fast and secure backup tool that creates encrypted, deduplicated snapshots and offers both a CLI and a desktop GUI. It targets users who want modern backups with a clean interface. It is deployed as a binary or via Docker.
- Encrypted deduplicated snapshots
- Both CLI and desktop GUI
- Many storage backends
- Compression and policies
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
Kopia vs Restic Cron: key differences
Kopia is written in Go, while Restic Cron is built with Shell. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Kopia versus BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Kopia. Kopia has the considerably larger community, at 14,188 GitHub stars versus 715.
Why pick each one
Choose Kopia if…
- GUI and CLI both available
- Fast and efficient
- Modern design
Watch out for
- Younger than Restic
- Advanced options can confuse
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 Kopia or Restic Cron better?
Neither is universally better. Kopia has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Kopia and Restic Cron free and open-source?
Yes. Kopia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Restic Cron under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Kopia and Restic Cron with Docker?
Kopia: yes. Restic Cron: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Kopia or Restic Cron?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Kopia. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.