Restic vs Kopia: command line or friendly GUI

Want a window to click in? Kopia. Happy with a shell script and a cron job? Restic. Price: restic Free, Kopia Free, checked November 1, 2026 (docs and project pages read Nov 1, 2026). You pay your storage provider either way.

Where they differ in practice

Kopia comes in two variants, per its getting-started guide: a command-line tool and a graphical one, KopiaUI. In KopiaUI you create a repository from a list of storage types, type your credentials and choose a password. That's setup.

Restic is a single executable you can run without a server or complex setup, according to restic.net. Its docs show repository setup with restic init. I found no GUI of its own on restic.net.

That is the choice. Everything below is close.

What both do

Both encrypt and only upload what changed. Kopia says it encrypts before data leaves your machine; restic.net says it uses cryptography in every part of the process. Kopia describes content-addressable snapshots, with deduplication across files and across machines sharing a repository. Restic says it transfers only the parts of files that actually changed.

Platforms match: Windows, Mac, Linux for restic and Windows, Mac, Linux for Kopia. (restic.net lists Linux, BSD, Mac and Windows.)

Storage

Restic's docs list local disks, SFTP, a REST server, Amazon S3, Minio, Wasabi, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage and other services via rclone. Kopia lists S3-compatible storage, Azure, Backblaze B2, Google Cloud Storage, WebDAV, SFTP, local or network storage and a repository server of its own. It calls its rclone support and native Google Drive support experimental.

The lists overlap on the big names. Restic adds a REST server and OpenStack Swift; Kopia adds WebDAV. Kopia also has an optional server mode with an API for managing backups of several machines centrally.

The catch with Kopia

Kopia allows one password per repository, and its features page says there is currently no access control when sharing one. Share a repository and you share the password. Fine for your own laptops, bad for a household with a teenager.

Restic's docs show version 0.19.1, released July 5, 2026 per its blog. They list three ways to hand it the repository password for automation: an environment variable, a password file or a password command. I'd skip the environment variable and use the file.

My pick

For a home NAS with one admin, I'd take restic and write the schedule once. For anyone who'll look at the backup twice a year, Kopia's window earns its place. Score: 8.1, an opinion from the docs, not a benchmark. Kopia's features page says only "Kopia. Is. Fast." and I found no speed numbers for either tool.

Next: the best backup software for a NAS, the Kopia setup guide and Time Machine alternatives. The backup catalog lists both.