Alternatives to Restic
Fast deduplicated CLI backup
Restic ranks #4 of 12 in Backup software, with an Alt Score of 96. It is licensed under BSD-2-Clause, free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Developers, sysadmins, and technically comfortable individuals who back up servers, workstations, or NAS devices from the command line and want strong encryption without running dedicated backup infrastructure.
A single self-contained binary that creates encrypted, deduplicated snapshots of files and directories. Only changed data is transferred and stored, keeping backups fast and space-efficient. It supports many storage backends, including local disks, SFTP, and cloud/object storage like S3, Backblaze B2, and Azure. Built-in integrity checks let you verify a repository and its snapshots before you actually need to restore.
You initialize an encrypted repository on a chosen backend, then run `restic backup` on target directories to create a snapshot; repeated backups only add changed data. Snapshots can be listed, mounted as a browsable filesystem, or restored in full or in part with `restic restore`, and old snapshots can be pruned according to a retention policy.
Where Restic stands out
Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.
Why people leave Restic
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Backup software checklist (14 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Backup software checklist | Restic | Duplicati | Kopia | Duplicacy | Arq | Vorta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Incremental backups | ||||||
| E2E encryption | ||||||
| Deduplication | ||||||
| Cloud targets supported | ||||||
| Local / NAS targets | ||||||
| Scheduling | ||||||
| Versioning & retention policies | ||||||
| Restore granularity | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| Compression |
Every fact and feature listed for Restic is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License BSD-2-Clause verified 2026-07-11
BSD 2-Clause License
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/LICENSE -
Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-11
Restic is licensed under [BSD 2-Clause License](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause).
https://github.com/restic/restic#license -
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux verified 2026-07-11
It supports the three major operating systems (Linux, macOS, Windows) and a few smaller ones (FreeBSD, OpenBSD).
https://github.com/restic/restic#introduction -
Status active verified 2026-07-11
Changelog for restic 0.19.1 (2026-07-05)
https://github.com/restic/restic/releases -
Incremental backups Yes verified 2026-07-11
With the growth of data, additional snapshots should only take the storage of the actual increment.
https://github.com/restic/restic#design-principles -
E2E encryption Yes verified 2026-07-11
All data stored by restic in the repository is encrypted with AES-256 in counter mode and authenticated using Poly1305-AES.
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/design.rst -
Deduplication Yes verified 2026-07-11
duplicate data should be de-duplicated before it is actually written to the storage back end to save precious backup space.
https://github.com/restic/restic#design-principles -
Cloud targets supported Yes verified 2026-07-11
Amazon S3 (either from Amazon or using the Minio server)
https://github.com/restic/restic#backends -
Local / NAS targets Yes verified 2026-07-11
Local directory
https://github.com/restic/restic#backends -
Scheduling Partial verified 2026-07-11
Restic does not have a built-in way of scheduling backups, as it's a tool that runs when executed rather than a daemon.
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/040_backup.rst -
Versioning & retention policies Yes verified 2026-07-11
restic allows specifying a policy (one or more ``--keep-*`` options) for which snapshots to keep.
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/060_forget.rst -
Restore granularity Yes verified 2026-07-11
Use either --exclude or --include to restrict the restore to a subset of files in the snapshot.
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/050_restore.rst -
Open source Yes verified 2026-07-11
BSD 2-Clause License
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/LICENSE -
Compression Yes verified 2026-07-11
Data and tree blobs may be compressed with the zstandard compression algorithm.
https://github.com/restic/restic/blob/master/doc/design.rst
FAQ
Yes. Kopia, Vorta and IDrive have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
Duplicati, Kopia and Vorta — every license claim links its source.