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Cloud · head to head

Longhorn vs Restic

Longhorn logo

Longhorn

Cloud

Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Restic logo

Restic

Backup

Fast, secure, and efficient backup program

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.; Restic cold storage is not natively supported; restoring from S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive is only available as an experimental feature behind a feature flag
  • They diverge on capability: Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Restic covers Content-defined chunking.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Longhorn and Restic actually diverge.

Attributes where Longhorn and Restic differ
AttributeLonghornRestic
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feefree
PlatformsLinux, KubernetesWindows, Mac, Linux
CategoryCloudBackup
FoundedUnknown2014

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Longhorn

  • Per-volume controllers
  • Synchronous replication
  • Snapshots and backups
  • Volume expansion
  • Disaster recovery volumes
  • Web interface

Only in Restic

  • Content-defined chunking
  • Cryptographic verification
  • Deduplication
  • Encryption
  • Multiple backends
  • Snapshot management
  • AWS S3
  • Azure

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Longhorn

  • An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot Restic
  • Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot Restic
  • A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot Restic
  • A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot Restic

Restic

  • Encrypted deduplicated backups to S3, B2, SFTP and local disk from the command linenot Longhorn
  • Scripted server backups with snapshot retention policiesnot Longhorn

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Longhorn

  • There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
  • Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
  • Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
  • It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
  • Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.

Restic

  • Cold storage is not natively supported; restoring from S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive is only available as an experimental feature behind a feature flag
  • A Windows file whose name contains a character Windows treats as invalid cannot be read by restic and has to be renamed
  • Antivirus real-time protection degrades performance on Windows unless the restic binary is added to an exclusions list
  • On large repositories the built-in five minute stuck-request timeout fires during file listing and has to be raised manually with --stuck-request-timeout

Pricing, plan by plan

Longhorn

Free
  • LonghornFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
    • Community support via GitHub and Slack only
    • No vendor SLA or escalation path

Restic

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Content-defined chunking
    • Encryption
    • Multiple backends

Which should you pick?

Choose Longhorn if

  • You need per-volume controllers.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
  • You also want synchronous replication.
Longhorn review

Choose Restic if

  • You need content-defined chunking.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Windows, Mac, Linux.
  • You also want cryptographic verification.
Restic review

Questions people ask

Is Longhorn or Restic better?
Neither clearly leads. Longhorn starts at Free and Restic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Longhorn or Restic?
Longhorn starts at Free and Restic at Free.
Does Longhorn or Restic run on more platforms?
Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes. Restic runs on Windows, Mac, Linux.
Can I use Longhorn for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Longhorn best used for?
Longhorn is most often used for an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes, edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster, a k3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloads, a team that wants snapshots and s3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licences. Of those, an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes and edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster are not what Restic is typically brought in for.
What can Longhorn do that Restic cannot?
Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion. Restic covers Content-defined chunking, Cryptographic verification, Deduplication, Encryption.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?

Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.

Restic: How much does restic cost?

Restic is entirely free to use and completely open source. There are no subscription tiers, paid plans, or licensing costs.

Source
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?

Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.

Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?

For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.

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