Compare / Kopia vs restic
Kopia vs restic
Pick restic if you want the small CLI (the published Backblaze Personal Backup stack). Pick Kopia if you want Apache-2.0 snapshots with client-side encryption and a GUI.
Facts checked 20 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
Kopia in the catalog restic in the catalogStart on Railway
How they compare
| Kopia | restic | |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache License 2.0 (catalog) source | BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License (catalog) source |
| Language | Go (catalog) | Go (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 14,378 stars in the catalog source | 36,650 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | Snapshots, encryption, compression, GUI. | Published as /stacks/restic-backup. Small encrypted CLI. |
| Best for | A backup tool with a desktop UI. | Scripted backups to a repo you control. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Both are on /stacks/restic-backup. Duplicati is the web-UI sibling. BorgBackup is /compare/restic-vs-borgbackup. Pick one repository format on day one.
FAQ
- Can I switch later?
- Not without a new repository. Pick one format on day one.
- Where do the blobs go?
- A volume, S3-compatible storage, or another disk. /best/object-storage.
- Are these free?
- Kopia is Apache License 2.0. restic is BSD-2-Clause. You pay disk.
- How do I deploy Kopia?
- Open /stacks/restic-backup. Persist the repo. Restore one file as the test.
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