MinIO vs Restic

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureMinIORestic
CategoryFile Sync & StorageBackup & Recovery
LicenseAGPL-3.0BSD-2-Clause
LanguageGoGo
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, binarybinary, docker
GitHub stars★ 61,387★ 35,412
First released20152015
ReplacesAmazon S3Backblaze, Carbonite

Why pick each one

Choose MinIO if…

  • Excellent performance
  • Drop-in S3 replacement
  • Scales horizontally
MinIO details

Choose Restic if…

  • Strong encryption
  • Efficient deduplication
  • Wide backend support
Restic details

Frequently asked questions

Is MinIO or Restic better?

Neither is universally better. MinIO has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are MinIO and Restic free and open-source?

Yes. MinIO is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Restic under BSD-2-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run MinIO and Restic with Docker?

MinIO: yes. Restic: yes.

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