Restic Cron 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 | Restic Cron | Rclone |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 70 · Good | 100 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Shell | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 715 | ★ 59,925 |
| First released | 2019 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze |
What are Restic Cron and Rclone?
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
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
Restic Cron vs Rclone: key differences
Restic Cron is written in Shell, while Rclone is built with Go. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron versus MIT for Rclone. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Rclone. Rclone is the more established project (first released 2014), while Restic Cron arrived in 2019. Rclone has the considerably larger community, at 59,925 GitHub stars versus 715.
Why pick each one
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
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 Restic Cron or Rclone better?
Neither is universally better. Rclone 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 Restic Cron and Rclone free and open-source?
Yes. Restic Cron is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Rclone under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Restic Cron and Rclone with Docker?
Restic Cron: yes. Rclone: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Restic Cron or Rclone?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Rclone. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.