3 Top-Rated Affordable Backup Software
Irrespective of your business size and type, it is crucial to protect your business’s sensitive data against unexpected events, such as hardware failures, cyberattacks, or natural disasters.
IT managers can help you implement backup software to secure important business information against such threats. This data protection helps preserve valuable business information, allowing you to retrieve details as and when necessary.
If you're new to backup software, starting with an affordable option is a practical choice. To help you find the right tool, we have highlighted the three top-rated affordable backup software based on their pricing, as found on vendor websites and verified software reviews. Based on our research, we've considered products priced less than $5.38 per month as affordable software and have arranged them in ascending order. Read more.
The tools listed in this article are dedicated backup software offering cloud backup, compression, and encryption as core features.
1. Comet Backup
Comet Backup offers various backup options, including support for Windows, Linux, macOS, databases, servers, and Microsoft 365. It supports disaster recovery by encrypting the backed-up data, ensuring that only the user profile responsible for the backup can access it. Additionally, Comet Backup supports incremental backups, helping to back up the files that have changed since the last full backup, allowing you to save storage space.
Product features of interest*:
Data deduplication: Minimize storage space usage by identifying and eliminating duplicate copies of the same data across multiple backups. This efficient process reduces storage costs and time to take backups while maintaining data integrity.
Integration: Integrate Comet Backup with third-party services such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. These integration capabilities ensure the tool can efficiently work alongside various components of a business’s IT ecosystem, ensuring a smooth and comprehensive backup and recovery process.
Multi-language support: Configure the software in your preferred language to increase accessibility and usability, especially for non-English speakers. Comet Backup supports over 13 languages, including Danish, German, Italian, Russian, and Thai.
Starting price: $2 per device, per month for standard device backup
Billing cycle: Monthly
Customer support options: Knowledge base, email, and phone support
Who should consider Comet Backup?
As Comet Backup supports Windows, Linux, and macOS, IT managers can opt for this backup platform to protect the data spread across devices operating on different operating systems. Moreover, the tool's support for multiple languages empowers users to work on their preferred devices in their chosen language, promoting flexibility and ease of use for a truly global workforce.
Analysis performed December 2023**
2. Keepit
Keepit is a dedicated cloud data backup software that provides protection across various SaaS platforms [1], including Google Workspace, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Power Platform. It provides vendor independence by storing backup data separately from the data used daily in business operations. This method follows the 3-2-1 backup rule and the NIST standards [2], ensuring data availability when the SaaS vendor's service is down.
Product features of interest*:
Data filtering and sorting: Filter and sort data by type (folders, videos, images, audio, emails, documents, etc.) and use enhanced sorting features such as size, date, and exact match to manage data efficiently. This functionality simplifies the process of finding and restoring needed data.
Access control: Manage user permissions to assign different levels of access to different users, ensuring each user can access the data they need for their role. This feature enhances data security by preventing unauthorized access.
Data monitoring: Track the status of your data, including successful backups and any issues encountered. This real-time monitoring ensures that you are always informed about the health and security of your data.
Starting price: $2.95 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Monthly
Customer support options: Knowledge base, video tutorials, chat, and email support
Who should consider Keepit?
Businesses relying heavily on SaaS platforms for their business operations can consider investing in Keepit to keep their data safe and accessible. While cloud applications promise anytime access to data, the data can be rendered inaccessible if the SaaS vendor’s services are down. Keepit’s vendor-independent cloud can help prevent such a scenario by ensuring data safety. With features such as data monitoring and filtering, the tool allows efficient tracking of backup status and easy location of needed data through various filters. This makes Keepit a comprehensive solution for managing and protecting critical business data.
Analysis performed December 2023**
3. Salesforce Backup
Salesforce Backup, a backup solution by CloudAlly, is a backup and data recovery tool for Salesforce tools. The tool supports automated or on-demand backup of Salesforce data, and Chatter feeds. [3] There are three key recovery options: point-in-time, granular, and cross-organization restore. Point-in-time recovery reverts data to a specific past moment, granular recovery allows for the restoration of specific data elements, and cross-organization restore enables data transfer between different Salesforce organizations. These features ensure flexible and secure data management within Salesforce environments.
Product features of interest*:
Anomaly detection: Get notified about unusual activities or changes in your Salesforce data to identify potential issues such as data breaches or unintended large-scale data modifications. This feature helps in the early detection of issues and prompt resolution by notifying you about such anomalies.
Salesforce data comparison: Compare Salesforce data across different points in time to identify changes and discrepancies in data over time. This comparison aids in understanding and managing data evolution within the Salesforce environment.
Deleted item restore: Recover deleted Salesforce data to retrieve important information that might have been accidentally or intentionally removed. The feature ensures that even after deletion, data remains accessible for restoration, providing an additional layer of data security and protection against data loss.
Starting price: $3 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Monthly
Customer support options: Knowledge base, FAQs, chat, email, and phone support
Who should consider Salesforce Backup?
CloudAlly’s Salesforce Backup is ideal for businesses using Salesforce solutions for their customer relationship management (CRM) and data management needs. It provides data protection with automated or on-demand backups and includes an anomaly detection feature to identify and address unusual data activities quickly. The tool offers flexibility in data recovery with options such as point-in-time, granular, and cross-organization restore, allowing businesses to manage and protect their Salesforce data effectively.
Analysis performed December 2023**
Pro tip
Select a data backup and recovery solution that supports data compression as it reduces the size of the stored data, saving storage space and potentially lowering costs. Additionally, compressed data can be easily transferred, enhancing backup and recovery efficiency and making it a practical choice to manage large volumes of data.
How much does backup software cost?
A backup software solution can cost as low as $2 per month or all the way up to $399+ per month, depending on various factors—features, number of users, infrastructure requirements, business size/type, training availability, deployment options, integrations, and storage. Most backup solutions typically include the following pricing plans:
Free trial: No-cost trial plans ranging from 15 to 30 days, giving users access to either all or limited features of the software. These are ideal for businesses that wish to try out a tool before purchasing it.
Free version: Free software plans offer basic features and limited premium features access. These are ideal for small business owners with a limited budget.
Entry-level: Starts at $2 per month and offers limited features, such as data backup, automatic backup, and file history. These are ideal for small businesses with basic needs.
Mid-tier: Range from $8 to $79 per month and offers advanced features such as expanded storage, incremental backup, and data recovery. These are ideal for businesses that have outgrown basic backup solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.
High-end: Advanced plans going up to $399 per month offer disaster recovery, audits, and priority support. These are ideal for large enterprises.
Hidden costs associated with affordable backup software
Besides the software license itself, there may be additional costs associated with the affordable backup tool, including:
Storage overages: One common hidden cost is exceeding the allotted storage capacity in your backup plan. If your data volume grows significantly, you may incur additional charges for exceeding the initial storage limits.
Data transfer fees: Some backup services may charge for data transfer between your devices and their servers. This can become costly if you frequently restore or access your backed-up data.
Data retrieval fees: Some backup providers charge fees when you need to retrieve large amounts of data from your backups. It's important to understand these costs, especially in case of a disaster recovery scenario.
Frequently asked questions when selecting backup software
What is the pricing model of the tool?
Subscription-based, pay-per-use, and lifetime licenses are a few types of pricing models for data backup and recovery solutions. Understanding these models helps you align tool costs with your budget and usage requirements. Different pricing models may vary in storage limits, features, and scalability options. Knowing this ensures you select a service that offers the best value and functionality for your specific data backup needs, avoiding unexpected expenses.
Does the tool support compliance and auditing?
Choosing a backup tool with compliance and auditing features is important to ensure adherence to legal and industry standards for data handling and privacy. These features facilitate regular audits and reporting, helping you maintain regulatory compliance, manage risks effectively, and provide transparency in data management practices.
Does the tool have version control capabilities?
Version control capabilities allow you to keep track of and revert to earlier versions of your data. This is particularly useful in scenarios of accidental deletions, unintended changes, or data corruption. Version control provides a safety net, ensuring that earlier, unaltered versions of data are always retrievable, enhancing data integrity and reliability.
Methodology
For this article, we selected the top three products that met the following criteria:
Each product should be a part of Software Advice’s Frontrunners report 2023 for backup software.
We assessed all 22 products in the Frontrunners report for their monthly pricing (as of Dec. 19, 2023) and considered the products with publicly available pricing information. Based on the assessment, the average price was calculated to be $5.38. Products with a monthly subscription price lower than $5.38 were then shortlisted to be included in this list and arranged in ascending order.
Each product must include cloud backup, compression, and encryption as core features.
Each product must meet our market definition for backup software: “Backup software ensures the security of critical data by creating redundant copies that can be restored to replace corrupted or lost data in the event of any physical disaster or any other event that could render the data inaccessible.”
*Our research team identified these features from vendor websites (as of Dec. 19, 2023) based on their analysis of what users find valuable in or expect from back software. This list is not exhaustive. For additional features, refer to the vendor's website.
**We selected products for this article based on their average ratings as of December 2023; however, the article displays each product’s current average rating, which may differ if more reviews have been left since our analysis.
We select and rank products based on an objective methodology developed by our research team. While some vendors may pay us when they receive web traffic or leads, this has no influence on our methodology.
Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Software Advice’s backup software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Software Advice directory that offer them.
Definitions:
SaaS platforms, short for Software-as-a-Service platform, are cloud-based software delivery models where applications are hosted and managed by a service provider and made available to users over the internet.
NIST standards or framework, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, provides guidelines and standards for information technology, including cybersecurity. In the context of data backup, following the NIST framework implies adhering to recognized standards for data security and integrity.
Chatter feeds, in Salesforce, are streams of user comments and activities, similar to a social media feed, used for collaboration and communication within the platform.