restic

restic/resticReviewed by AI

What it does

restic is a backup program you run from the terminal. It creates an encrypted "repository" on a local disk, an SSH server, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Azure, Google Cloud Storage or anything rclone reaches, then saves snapshots of your folders; repeated data is stored only once, so later backups are small. You can list snapshots, restore files or mount a backup as a folder to browse it. One ready binary of about 10 MB per system, no other software needed.

How easy it is to install

C · install 1 or 2 tools · Windows

Windows C
macOS C
Linux C

Equal on the three platforms: each release has a single ready binary (restic_0.19.1_windows_amd64.zip, _darwin_arm64.bz2, _linux_amd64.bz2) with nothing else to install, but there is no window or buttons — you type commands such as `restic init --repo` and `restic backup ~/work` and set a password. Scheduling it to run every day is up to you.

Numbers on GitHub

Stars: 36,911on Oct 31, 2026
Downloads: 36,725,596238,807 this week
Growth: +92stars in 5 days

Stars over time

Facts

Runs on: Windows, macOS, Linux
You need to install: Nothing extra
To build from source: Go
Disk space: 11 MB–32 MB · from the installer
Accounts or keys: Amazon S3 or S3-compatible storage, Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage
Cost: Free · BSD 2-Clause, free. You still pay whatever the storage costs if you back up to a cloud service.
License: BSD-2-Clause (Permissive)
Can replace: Arq Backup, Dropbox
Last update: Oct 18, 2026

Risk signals (3)

Attentionlost password means lost backup
The README's own quick start prints: "Please note that knowledge of your password is required to access the repository. Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost." There is no recovery path if you forget it.
AI review
Inforeproducible release builds
README: "The binaries released with each restic version starting at 0.6.1 are reproducible, which means that you can reproduce a byte identical version from the source code for that release", with instructions in the project's builder repository.
AI review
Inforelease older than last commit
The newest release v0.19.1 is from 2026-07-05 while the last commit is 2026-10-18, so fixes made since July are only in the source code, not in the downloadable binary.
AI review

Evidence is shown in its original language.

What Radar could not check

Whether a restore brings back everything on your own system, especially Windows permissions and special files
How long a first backup takes and how much space it uses with your data
What a cloud provider will charge for the storage and the transfers
Whether the encryption holds up to review, which needs a security audit