> I’m not sure why one would use rsync when dedicated solutions like restic exists that are superior in almost all aspects
I've used both. Perhaps restic is superior when backing up to the cloud but it's a complex program, it's local cache can be enormous, it requires at least restic itself and perhaps fuse file systems, it can be very slow to find a file.
rsync is drop dead simple, requires no special tools to restore as it's just a copy of the file system, and thus needs no caches and is always fast. A task like "compare or restore a single file from the backup" is trivial. With a wrapper script [0] it offers most of the same features as restic, bar encrypted storage. Restic's killer feature is the number of backends it supports I guess, but for local backup that doesn't matter. For local backups an rsync backup over restic every time.
I've used both. Perhaps restic is superior when backing up to the cloud but it's a complex program, it's local cache can be enormous, it requires at least restic itself and perhaps fuse file systems, it can be very slow to find a file.
rsync is drop dead simple, requires no special tools to restore as it's just a copy of the file system, and thus needs no caches and is always fast. A task like "compare or restore a single file from the backup" is trivial. With a wrapper script [0] it offers most of the same features as restic, bar encrypted storage. Restic's killer feature is the number of backends it supports I guess, but for local backup that doesn't matter. For local backups an rsync backup over restic every time.
[0] https://rsync-backup-ras.sourceforge.io/