CrashPlan is one of the best cloud backup options for businesses out there, but many find its high cost a bit hard to swallow. Sure, its excellent security and unlimited storage make it more than worth it, as you can read in our CrashPlan review. However, if your budget is tight and you need more features than it offers, you might be better off going with a CrashPlan alternative.
Key Takeaways:
- CrashPlan is an excellent backup service with unlimited backup space, but you can get better features for a lower price by going for an alternative.
- The best alternative to CrashPlan is Acronis Cyber Protect — an affordable unlimited backup service with a full suite of online safety features.
- IDrive is our second choice, offering a host of backup options, but it might get pricey if you need to backup more than a few devices.
Our top choice is Acronis Cyber Protect, a low-cost and high-value online backup service with an extensive feature set and airtight security. Keep reading to discover what our CrashPlan alternatives have to offer.
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10/07/2021 Facts checked
Full rewrite, including detailed reviews of each backup service.
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07/30/2022
Updated IDrive’s Pricing table
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Updated IDrive’s pricing information.
Top CrashPlan Alternatives
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The 5 Best CrashPlan Alternative Options
The first thing to look for in an alternative to CrashPlan is unlimited backup, which is CrashPlan’s chief draw. Of course, you’ll want a service that improves upon CrashPlan in areas where it lacks: namely, a good feature set and a price that won’t break the bank. It’s hard to one-up CrashPlan in terms of security, but the service you go for should at least match it. Here are our top picks.
- Acronis Cyber Protect — Unlimited storage and an online security toolkit
- IDrive Business — Affordable backup service for unlimited devices and users
- Zoolz Cloud Backup — Simple and capable online backup solution
- Backblaze for Business — Inexpensive unlimited backup provider with flawed private encryption
- BigMIND Business — Provides file streaming, but limits storage and users
Now that you know what to look for, let’s jump right into our number one alternative to Crashplan — Acronis Cyber Protect.
1. Acronis Cyber Protect
More Details About Acronis Cyber Protect:
- Pricing: From $59 per device per year; unlimited storage
- Provider website: acronis.com
Pros:
- Zero-knowledge encryption
- Unlimited storage
- Malware & ransomware protection
Cons:
- Complicated pricing & product catalog
Acronis Cyber Protect is the go-to service if you need more than just a simple backup utility. We’ve long touted its rich feature set, which includes a full online protection suite with zero-knowledge encryption, malware and ransomware protection. Add to that unlimited backup, good speeds and competitive pricing and you have yourself one of the best CrashPlan alternatives.
Depending on which license you go for, you get access to full disk backups, NAS backups, server backups and pretty much any other kind of backup you can think of. However, it can be difficult for a beginner to even get past the purchase and installation. There are too many different products, too many options for licenses, and different clients for each of them.
Thankfully, the per-workstation price for a one-year license is affordable compared to CrashPlan. The various subscriptions come with different features, but luckily you get a 30-day free trial to help you figure out what you need.
- For 3 computers No-limit hard drive backup No cloud storage
- For 3 computers No-limit hard drive backup
- 50GB
- For 3 computers No-limit hard drive backup
- 1TB
More plans
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 50GB
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 50GB
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 50GB
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 250GB
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 250GB
- No-limit hard drive backup
- 250GB
2. IDrive Business
More Details About IDrive:
- Pricing: From $69.65 per year for unlimited users; 250GB storage
- Provider website: idrive.com
Pros:
- Unlimited users
- Private encryption
- Many backup options
Cons:
- Limited storage
- Can get expensive
- Poor speeds
If cost is no issue for your business, and you mostly want more features than CrashPlan offers, then IDrive Business might be what you need. The Personal edition of IDrive is our number one online backup service, and the Business version comes with all the same functionality, plus some business-specific goodies.
IDrive Business offers almost every type of backup, including disk image, server and NAS backup (it’s one of the best CrashPlan Alternatives for Synology). It also adds useful features like continuous backup and single sign-on, as well as a sync folder for quick access to files. Unfortunately, IDrive’s speeds aren’t impressive and the initial backup may take upwards of a week to finish.
While IDrive Personal is one of the cheapest online backup services, IDrive Business could cost you a pretty penny. A single license covers unlimited users, but with limited storage. It’s quite a bargain if you only need to back up a few devices, but if you have a lot of data, the storage costs could easily rack up.
- No credit card required.
- 10GB
- One user.
- 100GB
- One user, multiple computers. Plans starting from 5TB up to 100TB. Big discount for first-time signup.
- 5TB
More plans
- 5 computers, 5 users. Starting at 5TB up to 500TB. Big discount for first-time signup.
- 5TB
- Unlimited users, multiple computers and servers. NAS devices. 250GB storage. Starting at 250GB up to 50TB. Large discount for first-time signup.
- 250GB
3. Zoolz Cloud Backup
More Details About Zoolz Cloud Backup:
- Pricing: From $99 per year for unlimited devices, 1TB storage
- Provider website: zoolz.com
Pros:
- Private encryption
- Cold storage option
Cons:
- No unlimited storage
- Expensive
Zoolz Cloud Backup is a secure and easy-to-use online backup solution. It features private encryption, and even offers HIPAA compliance as a guarantee of its security. Unfortunately, it’s one of the more expensive alternatives to CrashPlan, and doesn’t offer unlimited storage (you do get unlimited users, though).
Like all our other CrashPlan alternatives, Zoolz lets you back up servers and NAS devices, though it lacks continuous backup and disk imaging. If you have files you want to archive and don’t need to access frequently, you can use Zoolz’s cold storage option. It comes at an extra cost, but it’s a very cheap alternative to other cold storages, like Amazon S3.
Zoolz’s payment plans all let you back up unlimited devices, though storage is limited. Like IDrive, it pays off if you only have a few devices to back up, but otherwise Acronis is still the most affordable option.
4. Backblaze for Business
More Details About Backblaze for Business:
- Pricing: From $70 per user per year, unlimited storage
- Provider website: backblaze.com
Pros:
- Unlimited backup
- Very affordable
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Not truly zero-knowledge
- No disk imaging
Backblaze for Business finally takes us back to the realm of unlimited storage. This business backup solution is easy to use and easy on the wallet, and is probably the closest CrashPlan replacement in terms of simplicity. You can backup NAS systems and servers, though there’s no option for a full disk image backup. As its name suggests, it’s blazing fast, but it comes with one serious fault.
Backblaze offers what it claims to be private encryption, but implements it poorly. Instead of offering an in-app restore option, it forces you to use the website to restore your backup. In turn, this forces you to hand over your private encryption key to Backblaze.
The company claims to immediately delete your key after the request has been handled, but this is an unnecessary compromise. Despite all this, the service is still secure, and we do still recommend it for its ease of use.
Pricing is where Backblaze really excels: It offers only one plan, with the option to pay per month, per year or every two years (the longer, the cheaper). The price is per device, and it’s even cheaper than Acronis’ fully featured plans. Server and NAS backups let you pay only for the amount of space you use, which makes Backblaze an affordable option for server storage.
- Unlimited GB
5. BigMIND Business
More Details About BigMIND Business:
- Pricing: From $15 per month per user, 100GB storage
- Provider website: zoolz.com/bigmind
Pros:
- AI-powered image search
- Cloud storage features
Cons:
- Very expensive
- No private encryption
BigMIND Business, our final option in our list of alternatives to CrashPlan, hails from the same family as Zoolz, though it’s different in a few key ways. Its name comes from the fact that it uses AI to help sort through your images by letting you search for what’s in the specific photo (like “dog” or “drink”). BigMIND also features server backups (limited depending on your subscription), but no disk imaging or continuous backup.
Although its sibling lets you control your own encryption key, BigMIND doesn’t come with the option for private encryption. However, it’s a fast service with a ton of useful features, such as backing up your cloud storage accounts. Speaking of which, BigMIND also comes with its own cloud storage, though it eats into your backup space.
All of this might sound tempting, but BigMIND’s price will be a little too hard to digest for most people. It starts at $15 per month for a paltry 100GB, shared among 10 users. The pricier plans let you increase your backup space, but they just can’t compare to more affordable services like Acronis and IDrive, especially with no unlimited storage on offer.
- 10 Users
- 100GB
- 100 Users
- 250GB
- 500 Users
- 250GB
- 500 Users
- 1TB
Final Thoughts: CrashPlan Alternatives
That’s all for our CrashPlan cloud alternatives. To sum up, Acronis Cyber Protect beat the competition by a country mile, offering a combo of unlimited storage, rich feature set and a low price. IDrive is a decent alternative if your company only needs to back up a few computers, though it can get expensive past that point.
What’s your favorite CrashPlan alternative? Which cloud backup does your company use? Do you need unlimited backup, or could you make due with less than a terabyte of storage? Let us know in the comments below, and as always, thank you for reading.
FAQ
CrashPlan decided to focus on providing backup for businesses and canned its individual backup plans altogether.
If you need a professional alternative to CrashPlan, Acronis Cyber Protect is your best choice. It offers better features and it’s cheaper, while still providing unlimited backup.
Code42 is the name of CrashPlan’s parent company, and you’ll see it tacked onto its apps for Windows and Mac.
The best unlimited cloud backup service is Backblaze, though Acronis and Carbonite are good choices as well.