Restic Cron vs Restic
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 70 · Good | 99 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | BSD-2-Clause |
| Language | Shell | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 715 | ★ 36,213 |
| First released | 2019 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze, Carbonite |
What are Restic Cron and Restic?
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
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
Restic Cron vs Restic: key differences
Restic Cron is written in Shell, while Restic is built with Go. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Restic. Restic is the more established project (first released 2015), while Restic Cron arrived in 2019. Restic has the considerably larger community, at 36,213 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 Restic if…
- Strong encryption
- Efficient deduplication
- Wide backend support
Watch out for
- Command-line only
- No built-in scheduler
Frequently asked questions
Is Restic Cron or Restic better?
Neither is universally better. Restic 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 Restic free and open-source?
Yes. Restic Cron is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Restic Cron and Restic with Docker?
Restic Cron: yes. Restic: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Restic Cron or Restic?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Restic. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.