Restic Cron vs Rustic
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 | Rustic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 70 · Good | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Shell | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 715 | ★ 3,273 |
| First released | 2019 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze, CrashPlan |
What are Restic Cron and Rustic?
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
Rustic
Rustic is a backup tool written in Rust that creates fast, encrypted, and deduplicated backups. It is fully compatible with Restic repositories while offering lower memory usage.
- Restic-compatible repositories
- Low memory footprint
- Cold storage support
Restic Cron vs Rustic: key differences
Restic Cron is written in Shell, while Rustic is built with Rust. Licensing differs — BSD-2-Clause for Restic Cron versus Apache-2.0 for Rustic. Restic Cron is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Rustic. Restic Cron is the more established project (first released 2019), while Rustic arrived in 2022. Rustic has the considerably larger community, at 3,273 GitHub stars versus 715. Restic Cron lists first-class Docker deployment; Rustic does not.
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 Rustic if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- Active community (3.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Restic Cron or Rustic better?
Neither is universally better. Rustic 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 Rustic free and open-source?
Yes. Restic Cron is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Rustic under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Restic Cron and Rustic with Docker?
Restic Cron: yes. Rustic: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Restic Cron or Rustic?
Restic Cron has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Rustic. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.