Restic Cron vs Restic Mailer
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted backup & recovery options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Restic Cron | Restic Mailer |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 70 · Good | 76 · Good |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Shell | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 715 | ★ 663 |
| First released | 2019 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze |
What are Restic Cron and Restic Mailer?
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
Restic Mailer
A wrapper around restic that runs backups on schedule and emails detailed success or failure reports. It adds visibility to unattended restic deployments.
- Scheduled restic runs
- Email job reports
- systemd integration
- Unattended backups
Restic Cron vs Restic Mailer: key differences
Both projects are written in Shell. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron versus MIT for Restic Mailer.
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 Restic Mailer if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Shell
Frequently asked questions
Is Restic Cron or Restic Mailer better?
Neither is universally better. Restic Cron has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Restic Cron and Restic Mailer free and open-source?
Yes. Restic Cron is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Restic Mailer under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Restic Cron and Restic Mailer with Docker?
Restic Cron: yes. Restic Mailer: yes.