Compare / restic vs BorgBackup
restic vs BorgBackup
Pick restic if you want the small BSD-2-Clause backup program (the published Backblaze Personal Backup stack). Pick BorgBackup if you want that 3-clause BSD-style deduplicating archiver.
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.
restic in the catalog BorgBackup in the catalogStart on Railway
How they compare
| restic | BorgBackup | |
|---|---|---|
| License | BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License (catalog) source | BSD-3-Clause (catalog) source |
| Language | Go (catalog) | Python (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 36,650 stars in the catalog source | 13,859 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | Published as /stacks/restic-backup. Encrypted repo on disk or S3-compatible storage. | SSH repos and prune policies. Deduplicating archiver. |
| Best for | A small CLI backup to a repo you control. | Borg repos you already know. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Both are ranked on /best/backup. restic and Kopia are on /stacks/restic-backup. BorgBackup is borgbackup/borg. Restore one file as the test. Do not invent a restore-success rate. Object storage stays on /replace/aws-s3.
FAQ
- restic or Kopia?
- Kopia if you want a GUI — /compare/kopia-vs-restic.
- Is this Backblaze B2?
- No. B2 is object storage — /replace/aws-s3. This pair is the backup client.
- Are these free?
- restic is BSD-2-Clause. BorgBackup is BSD-3-Clause. You pay disk.
- How do I deploy restic?
- Open /stacks/restic-backup. Persist the repository. Restore one file.
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