ServerCrate vs rsync.net
What's Actually Different

About rsync.net

rsync.net is one of the oldest and most trusted remote storage providers, founded in 2001. It provides raw cloud storage with full SSH access and supports rsync, Restic, Borg, and other tools. It's well-regarded for reliability and is popular with users who need large amounts of raw storage with SSH access.

rsync.net is positioned at enterprise and high-volume storage users. Its pricing is usage-based (per GB) and it doesn't offer a free tier. It's genuinely a good product - it's just designed for a different customer than most homelab operators and individual developers.

Where ServerCrate Is a Better Fit Than rsync.net

• You want to try before committing.ServerCrate has a 10 GB free plan with no credit card required. rsync.net has no free tier.
• You want flat predictable pricing.rsync.net charges around $0.08/GB/month. A 100 GB repository costs about $8/month and grows with your data. ServerCrate is flat - same price every month regardless of how often you restore or how your storage grows within your tier.
• You want zero egress fees.rsync.net charges for data egress when you restore. ServerCrate never charges egress fees on any plan.
• You want a web portal to monitor backups.ServerCrate provides a dashboard showing vault status, snapshot history, storage usage, and device management. rsync.net is primarily CLI-driven with limited portal tooling.
• You want a focused backup-first interface.ServerCrate is built specifically around the encrypted backup use case, not raw storage with backup as a secondary feature.

Where rsync.net Is a Better Fit

• You need very large storage volumes.rsync.net scales to petabyte-class storage. ServerCrate's largest plan is 1 TB.
• You need full SSH shell access to the storage server.rsync.net provides full shell access. ServerCrate provides SFTP access for Restic only.
• You're an enterprise user needing SLA guarantees.rsync.net has enterprise contracts and SLAs. ServerCrate is designed for individual developers and small teams.
• You use rsync directly rather than Restic.rsync.net supports native rsync. ServerCrate's workflow is Restic over SFTP.

Pricing: rsync.net vs ServerCrate

rsync.net charges approximately $0.08 per GB per month on their standard ZFS accounts. That makes 100 GB around $8/month, 500 GB around $40/month, and 1 TB around $80/month. Egress is charged separately on top of storage. There is no free tier.

ServerCrate pricing is flat: $5/month for 100 GB, $15/month for 500 GB, $29/month for 1 TB. No per-GB metering, no egress fees, no surprises.

For most developers and homelab users with under 500 GB of backup data, ServerCrate's flat pricing is predictable and often cheaper once you factor in restore costs.

The Bottom Line

rsync.net and ServerCrate serve different customers. rsync.net is a mature, battle-tested raw storage platform suited for large-scale enterprise workloads. ServerCrate is a purpose-built encrypted backup service designed for developers, homelab operators, and small teams who want Restic over SFTP with a clean portal and flat pricing.

If your primary use case is Restic-based encrypted offsite backup and you don't need petabyte-scale storage or full shell access, ServerCrate is the more focused, more affordable, and simpler option.

Real-world pricing: what 500 GB actually costs

The sticker prices tell only part of the story. Here's what you actually pay at common backup sizes, including restore scenarios:

The key insight: rsync.net's per-GB model makes sense if you treat storage as a utility and rarely restore. The moment you actually use your backups (which is the whole point), the cost diverges quickly.

Feature deep dive: what each service actually gives you

SSH shell vs SFTP-only

rsync.net gives you a real SSH shell on their storage box. You can ssh in, run ls, check disk usage, and execute commands remotely. That's useful for power users who want to script operations server-side or use it as a general-purpose remote shell.

ServerCrate is SFTP-only. Your vault container doesn't expose a shell - just SFTP for Restic. That's a deliberate security tradeoff: smaller attack surface, no remote command execution path, fewer things to misconfigure. If you need shell access for backup scripting, rsync.net is the right tool. If you just need Restic to have a place to write encrypted blobs, SFTP-only is cleaner.

Storage quota model

rsync.net bills per GB used. If your actual usage is 347 GB this month, that's what you pay for. If it grows to 402 GB next month, you pay more. That's flexible and honest but unpredictable - your bill moves with your data.

ServerCrate uses flat tiers. You pick the tier that fits your size, and your bill is the same whether you're at 5% or 95% of quota. Simpler to budget against, especially for freelancers billing clients or small teams with fixed budgets.

Operating history and trust

rsync.net has been running since 2001. Twenty-plus years of uptime is a genuine moat - they've survived every cloud generation, stayed independent, and built a reputation with privacy-focused customers. For users who weight "how long will this company be around" heavily, that's hard to compete with.

ServerCrate is newer. Our pitch is focused scope, transparency on infrastructure, and pricing that doesn't play games. The tradeoff is real and worth acknowledging honestly.

Data center footprint

rsync.net has multiple US and European data centers, plus Swiss options for European privacy requirements. If you need EU data residency or multi-region redundancy, they offer that natively.

ServerCrate is in Los Angeles only, currently. That's great for US West Coast and Asia Pacific latency. It's fine for US East Coast (you're upload-bound, not latency-bound). It's not ideal if you specifically need EU-based storage for compliance reasons.

When to pick rsync.net over ServerCrate

• You need multi-TB or PB-scale storage.ServerCrate's largest plan is 1 TB. rsync.net scales essentially unlimited and is built for large storage customers.
• You want SSH shell access.Useful if your backup pipeline needs to execute server-side commands or you prefer managing things via shell.
• You need EU data residency.rsync.net has Switzerland and other EU options. ServerCrate is US-only.
• You use multiple backup tools (Borg, Restic, rsync, raw file sync).rsync.net is intentionally protocol-agnostic - any SSH-compatible tool works.
• You value operator longevity above all other factors.20+ years of continuous operation is a legitimate signal for some use cases.

When to pick ServerCrate over rsync.net

• You want flat, predictable pricing.No per-GB metering, no surprise egress charges, same bill every month.
• You restore frequently or as part of disaster recovery testing.rsync.net's egress fees add up on large restores. ServerCrate has no egress charges.
• You want a free tier to test-drive.rsync.net has no free tier. ServerCrate offers 10 GB free with no card required.
• You specifically use Restic and want a portal built around that workflow.The vault page gives you connection strings, Restic env vars, and copy-paste commands for free.
• You want ZFS integrity checksumming documented explicitly.ServerCrate calls out the storage architecture on the About page. rsync.net uses ZFS too but documents it differently.

Migrating from rsync.net to ServerCrate

If you're running Restic on rsync.net today and want to try ServerCrate, here's the playbook. Since Restic repositories are portable at the file level (unlike between Restic and Borg), you have two migration paths:

Option A: Fresh backup (simpler, recommended)

1. Sign up for ServerCrate, get new vault credentials.
2. Run restic init against the new endpoint.
3. Run a full backup to the new location.
4. Verify with restic check --read-data.
5. Keep rsync.net running for 2-4 weeks as an insurance policy.
6. Cancel rsync.net after you're confident ServerCrate is handling your workload.

The only real cost here is the overlap period and the initial re-upload bandwidth.

Option B: Repository copy (preserves snapshot history)

1. Sign up for ServerCrate.
2. From a machine with access to both endpoints, use rsync -av or restic copy to mirror the repo to the new vault.
3. This keeps all your snapshot history from rsync.net intact at the new location.
4. Verify with restic snapshots - you should see every snapshot from the old repo.
5. Update your backup automation to point at the new endpoint.

Option B is more complex but preserves your snapshot timeline, which matters if you have compliance requirements or want restore-to-a-year-ago capability from day one.