If you're like me, then you've probably resorted to using The Wayback Machine out of desperation when you realized you needed access to a previous version of a website you maintain. You're in a panic and are praying that they'll have an archive of what you need since you don't have a backup of your site.
As a web developer with 10 years of experience, I can tell you that I've found myself in this situation more times than I'd like to admit. Whether I'm working on a client site or a personal project, there always comes a time where I need to review a previous version of a particular webpage, but I either don't have a reliable backup or can't be burdened with the time it will take to restore from one. I've even gone as far as to create my own archiving solution to help me avoid getting stuck in this situation again.
Because I know how stressful this can be, I've compiled a list of services and platforms that are good alternatives to The Wayback Machine along with their features and prices.
As a web developer with 10 years of experience, I can tell you that I've found myself in this situation more times than I'd like to admit. Whether I'm working on a client site or a personal project, there always comes a time where I need to review a previous version of a particular webpage, but I either don't have a reliable backup or can't be burdened with the time it will take to restore from one. I've even gone as far as to create my own archiving solution to help me avoid getting stuck in this situation again.
Because I know how stressful this can be, I've compiled a list of services and platforms that are good alternatives to The Wayback Machine along with their features and prices.
Wayback Machine Alternatives
Stillio
With Stillio you can capture website screenshots and archive them automatically. Stillio helps you to archive important web pages, keep records for regulatory compliance, track competitors, improve SEO ranking insights, verify ads, monitor copyright infringements, track trends and capture your online digital heritage and brand management.
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Price
- $29.00 to $299.00 per month
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Best For
- Freelancers or small agencies who want to easily capture and organize screenshots of their websites.
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Notes
- Screenshots are deleted after 36 months.
- Screenshots can be emailed to you.
Pagefreezer
Pagefreezer provides website, social media, and enterprise collaboration archiving and compliance solutions across a wide range of industries, including finance, legal, telecom, retail, utilities, government, and post-secondary education. As a SaaS application, Pagefreezer enables organizations of any size to permanently preserve their website and social media content in evidentiary quality, then access those archives and replay them as if they were still live.
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Price
- Not provided by the vendor
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Best For
- Enterprise, Financial, or Government organizations that need to archive for compliance purposes.
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Notes
- Replay your archived website exactly as if it was live.
- Meets regulatory compliance (FINRA, SEC, FDA, FTC) and eDiscovery requirements.
Archive.today
Archive.today is a time capsule for web pages! It takes a 'snapshot' of a webpage that will always be online even if the original page disappears. It saves a text and a graphical copy of the page for better accuracy and provides a short and reliable link to an unalterable record of any web page
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Price
- Free
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Best For
- Anyone who wants to review previous versions of a website.
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Notes
- You have no control over when or even if your website will be archived.
- Archives are stored forever.
MirrorWeb
MirrorWeb delivers cloud-based digital archiving and monitoring solutions for the information-driven enterprise. Trusted by the UK government, the website and social media archiving solution allows organizations to create permanent, unalterable records of all online communications. This ensures your organization meets compliance obligations and information of commercial, cultural, or historical value is never lost.
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Price
- Starting at $200 per month
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Best For
- Financial services firms who need accurate, regulatory compliant web and social archives.
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Notes
- Replay your archived website exactly as if it was live.
- Specialist tool for capturing web and social media channels.
Memento Time Travel
Memento Time Travel helps you find and view versions of web pages that existed at some time in the past. It uses multiple web archive and version control systems to find or reconstruct a webpage.
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Price
- Free
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Best For
- Anyone who wants to review previous versions of a website.
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Notes
- Is different than other archiving software in that it attempts to "reconstruct" a webpage from different archived sources.
- Offers an API
What should I consider when choosing website archiving software?
Although The Wayback Machine has archived over 525 billion web pages on the Internet, it may not be the perfect solution for your archiving needs. You have no control over when or even if your website will be archived. Even if your website is archived, it's common for the archive to contain broken links and images. Before you invest in any website archiving software, you should consider the following:
- What exactly is being archived? (Screenshots, source code, anything else?)
- How many webpages can I archive?
- How frequently are archives being created?
- How long are archives kept?
- Can I easily access and download my archives?
If you're interested in seeing how My Site Archive has solved the website archiving dilemma, checkout out the features or FAQs or reach out directly to me at stevepolito@hey.com.