Rclone vs Rustic
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
VS
Rustic
Fast encrypted deduplicated backup compatible with Restic
| Feature | Rclone | Rustic |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 88 · Excellent |
| Category | Backup & Recovery | Backup & Recovery |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Go | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, docker | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 59,925 | ★ 3,273 |
| First released | 2014 | 2022 |
| Replaces | Backblaze | Backblaze, CrashPlan |
What are Rclone and Rustic?
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
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
Rclone vs Rustic: key differences
Rclone is written in Go, while Rustic is built with Rust. Licensing differs — MIT for Rclone versus Apache-2.0 for Rustic. Rclone is the more established project (first released 2014), while Rustic arrived in 2022. Rclone has the considerably larger community, at 59,925 GitHub stars versus 3,273. Rclone lists first-class Docker deployment; Rustic does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Rclone if…
- Works with almost any cloud
- Extremely versatile
- Reliable
Watch out for
- Not a snapshot backup tool
- Command-line focused
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 Rclone or Rustic better?
Neither is universally better. Rclone has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Rclone and Rustic free and open-source?
Yes. Rclone is licensed under MIT and Rustic under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Rclone and Rustic with Docker?
Rclone: yes. Rustic: check the project docs for container support.