An rsync.net alternative
priced for actual humans

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 meters per GB (about 1.2 cents/GB/month, less at volume), so your bill moves with your data. ServerCrate is flat - the same price every month within your tier, which is easier to budget against even when it is not the cheaper option.
• You want a free tier and on-chain Bitcoin.ServerCrate has a 10 GB free plan with no card and accepts on-chain Bitcoin via self-hosted BTCPay. rsync.net has neither - no free tier, card or invoice only.
• 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 self-serve plans top out at 2 TB (larger is available on request).
• 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 roughly 1.2 cents per GB per month on standard accounts, dropping toward a fraction of a cent at large volumes, with no egress or bandwidth charges. That puts 100 GB near $1-2/month and 1 TB in the low-to-mid teens - frequently less than our flat tiers. There is no free tier.

ServerCrate pricing is flat: $5/month for 200 GB, $15/month for 1 TB, $29/month for 2 TB. No per-GB metering, no egress fees, no surprises.

For most developers and homelab users, ServerCrate's value is predictability, the free tier, Bitcoin, and zero-knowledge by default - not a lower per-GB price. If raw cost per gigabyte is the only metric, rsync.net usually wins.

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 and simpler option.

Real cost: flat vs metered

rsync.net meters storage per GB with no egress or bandwidth charges, so on raw cost it is usually cheaper than our flat tiers. The honest comparison is predictability and what is bundled, not price:

The honest read: rsync.net is usually cheaper per gigabyte and also charges nothing to restore. ServerCrate's case is a flat, predictable bill, a free tier, Bitcoin, and zero-knowledge by default - not a lower price.

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 self-serve plans top out at 2 TB (larger on request). 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 want a free tier and predictable billing.Start on 10 GB free with no card, then move to a flat tier whose price does not change with usage. rsync.net has no free tier and meters every GB (both of us restore with no egress fee).
• 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.