rustic
Shares rank 18 of 19 backup tools by recommenders
Free Rust rewrite of restic, recommended for encrypted, deduplicated backups and as a first choice among backup tools.
Free Rust rewrite of restic, recommended for encrypted, deduplicated backups and as a first choice among backup tools.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Rust clone of restic
“Restic (and it's Rust clone Rustic) are better.”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Time Machine-style Backups with rsync (2018)” “the rustic clone of restic”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “Backblaze has stopped backing up your data” Preferred backup tool choice
“If I had to start over I'd go with rustic-rs or borg backup.”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “TIL: Apple Broke Time Machine Again on Tahoe” “Use restic or rustic for backup and dedupe and encryption.”
Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: What is the current state of the art in BIG (>5TB) cloud backups?”
Other backup tools people recommend
The four most recommended other backup tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| restic | 83 | 5 | 94% | 12 | — | Approved |
| pgBackRest | 32 | 6 | 84% | 6 | 1 yr4 owners | Approved |
| Borg Backup | 30 | 8 | 79% | 12 | — | Approved |
| iCloud Photos Downloader | 18 | 4 | 82% | 2 | — | — |
| rusticThis page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 5 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The most polished Glacier backup/restore mechanism I know”
“the rustic clone of restic”
“If I had to start over I'd go with rustic-rs or borg backup.”
“Restic (and it's Rust clone Rustic) are better.”
“Use restic or rustic for backup and dedupe and encryption.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.