A Backblaze B2 alternative for Restic.
One flat price, no egress bill.
Backblaze B2 is good, cheap object storage. If you mainly use it as a Restic target, our backup vaults trade a slightly higher per-terabyte price for a bill that never changes: no egress, no restore fees, no API transaction charges. Free to start, paid plans from $2 a month.
The honest version
B2 is cheaper per terabyte. Here is when that matters.
We will start with the part most comparison pages leave out. Backblaze B2 is general-purpose object storage priced at about $6 per TB per month. Our Standard vault is $9 for 1 TB and Pro is $17 for 2 TB. On storage alone, B2 costs less, and the gap widens as your data grows. Past 2 TB, our largest plan, B2 simply keeps going and we do not.
The difference is in how the bill is built. B2 charges for what you store, then for downloads beyond its free egress allowance, then for certain API transactions. For a Restic repository those extra lines are not hypothetical. Restic lists, reads and writes many small objects, restic check --read-data downloads the whole repository, and a full restore after a disk failure is exactly the kind of large download that can push you past an allowance in the worst week to be watching costs. Backblaze publishes its current allowance and transaction rates on its own pricing page, and they are worth reading before you rely on a number.
Our vaults are priced per plan. Uploads, downloads, checks and restores are included, with no egress or restore fees and no per-request charges. You know the bill before the month starts.
Choose B2 if
- You store several terabytes and want the lowest price per TB.
- You rarely restore or verify, and you are comfortable estimating usage-based charges.
- You want one bucket that also serves files, hosts static assets or feeds other tools.
Choose ServerCrate if
- Your repositories fit within 2 TB and you want a flat, predictable bill.
- You want to run
restic check --read-dataand test restores as often as you like without counting downloads. - You prefer a native Restic REST endpoint over S3 credentials and bucket policies.
- You want to pay by card, PayPal, or Bitcoin through our self-hosted BTCPay Server.
Side by side.
| Backblaze B2 | ServerCrate vault | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type | General object storage | Backup vault for Restic |
| Storage price | About $6 per TB per month | Flat plans: 100 GB $2, 250 GB $3, 1 TB $9, 2 TB $17 |
| Downloads and restores | Free up to an allowance, then charged | No egress or restore fees |
| API transactions | Some classes charged | Not charged |
| Restic backend | Native B2 or S3-compatible | Native REST over HTTPS |
| Encryption | Client-side by Restic in both cases: the provider stores ciphertext | |
| Largest size | No practical ceiling | 2 TB per Pro plan |
| Free tier | Check Backblaze's current terms | 10 GB, 2 devices, 7-day history |
Prices for B2 are approximate and change over time. Ours are listed on pricing and are locked at signup, so your renewal never rises. If you are weighing Restic itself against other tools, see Restic vs Borg.
Moving a repository from B2.
You do not have to start over. Restic can create a new repository that shares the old one's chunker parameters, so deduplication keeps working, and then copy your existing snapshots across. Your vault's repository address is shown in the portal.
The copy reads every snapshot from B2, which may count toward your B2 download allowance, so check it first or copy only recent snapshots. Once the new repository passes restic check, point your scheduled backups at it. Our setup guide covers the first backup, and our recovery drill shows a complete restore. How the vaults are built and isolated is on our security page.
Backup vault plans.
Flat monthly prices with no egress or restore fees. Yearly billing is 10 times monthly, two months free. Renewal is always your signup price, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- 100 GB storage
- 3 devices
- 14-day history
- Restic over HTTPS
- No egress or restore fees
- $20/yr billed yearly, 2 months free
- 250 GB storage
- 10 devices
- 30-day history
- Restic over HTTPS
- No egress or restore fees
- $30/yr billed yearly, 2 months free
- 1 TB storage
- 25 devices
- 60-day history
- Restic over HTTPS
- No egress or restore fees
- $90/yr billed yearly, 2 months free
- 2 TB storage
- 50 devices
- 90-day history
- Restic over HTTPS
- No egress or restore fees
- $170/yr billed yearly, 2 months free
Vaults run on ZFS-backed storage. Running servers too? Every cloud server includes a vault of its own.
B2 alternative questions.
Is ServerCrate cheaper than Backblaze B2?
Not per terabyte of storage. B2 lists storage at about $6 per TB per month, and our Standard plan is $9 for 1 TB. What you get for the difference is a flat bill with no egress, restore or API transaction charges, and a Restic REST endpoint built for backups.
When is B2 the better choice?
When you store several terabytes, restore rarely, and are comfortable estimating usage-based bills. Our largest plan is 2 TB, and B2 keeps scaling past that.
Does Restic work with ServerCrate without plugins?
Yes. Restic supports the REST backend natively. Your repository address starts with rest:https:// and works with any recent Restic release, no rclone or S3 credentials needed.
Can you read my backups?
No. Restic encrypts every file on your machine before upload, and the repository password never reaches us. We store ciphertext. That is equally true of Restic on B2, and it is the reason both are reasonable places for a repository.
Can I copy my existing B2 repository?
Yes. Restic can initialize a new repository with the same chunker parameters and copy snapshots across with restic copy. Reading from B2 during the copy may count toward your B2 egress, so check your allowance first.
Do you charge to restore?
No. There are no egress or restore fees on any plan. Restoring your whole repository costs the same as not restoring it.