What happens when a website goes down? What should you do if your website crashes and you didn’t back up properly? There are a few options that can help you apart from the almighty himself. If you are facing an issue like this or don’t want to sit with your palm on your face, let’s know if something can be done. Read Our Blog On Best Website Builder Sevices.
So what is the reason to find the best Wayback machine alternatives? In the age of digitization, we are surrounded by thousands of different websites providing online services. With the market being highly competitive the only way of survival for the websites is to consistently modify them and if you are new in the business you have to be the best.
What Are The Top Wayback Machine Alternatives Site?
archive.today
Domaintools
Pagefreezer
WebCite
Resurrect Pages
Alexa Tools
Time Travel
MirrorWeb
CachedView
Message Watcher
Smarsh
perma.cc
TABLE OF CONTENTS
This process is no joke as every successful website adopts unique strategies to upgrade itself. Thus, keeping track of those upgrades is a better option for other websites to analyze their notion of success and replicate it in order to taste the success too. You can do it with Wayback machines or SERP tracking tools.
The Wayback machine helps to keep track of the upgrades an indexed website has done in the past. It also keeps a record of every indexed website even if it is a down one. Internet archive sites allow you to check every content and design of the indexed websites dating back to 1996. This way Wayback machines and websites like the Wayback machines allow the newer websites to follow the pattern of evolution of any successful websites.
What Is Wayback Machine?
Founded by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine is a digital archive that allows users to do website time travel and get a view of how the websites used to look in the past. Wayback machine is designed to crawl and download all publicly available data on web pages.
Dating back to 1996, Wayback Machine is as old as the internet itself. Thus, it has all the public data archived to date. Although, it can be questioned whether sensitive information is publicized by the Wayback Machine? Privacy of the data can be assured as the “crawlers” used by Wayback Machine don’t include all the data, it only takes snapshots of the publicly available files and pages.
Benefits of Wayback Machine
If a particular website is sitting there from the very first days of the internet and still thriving, there must be something more than just useful about it. It is beyond imagination, how many times the Wayback machine has been used by people for different purposes.
- Website Time Travel
Apart from looking back on the old days of a present website and reliving those times, the Wayback Machine is a crucial tool for retrieving data from an obsolete website. Generally, after 100 days on average, a website either gets modified or gets deleted. Many people use Wayback Machine for website time travel to analyze the gradual development of a competitor’s website and use this to create a better strategy to get on the top.
- Retrieving Lost Data
Losing data on a website that hasn’t been backed up could be the worst nightmare for the owner. Even after being careful, nearly 40 zettabytes of data have been lost in 2019 itself. If the website gets crashed and it hasn’t been backed up then the only option remains to use sites like Wayback Machine and retrieve the content of the respective website and start building it again.
Making sure that your data is perfectly backed up is extremely important. Otherwise, websites like Wayback Machine are the only option you remain left with.
- Determining the age of the page
Other than archiving web pages, Wayback Machine is also used for determining how old the page is. It is a very useful feature to prove the originality of the content and keep plagiarisers from stealing your content.
Why Do You Need To Find Wayback Machine Alternative?
Wayback Machine has been serving for the past couple of decades. Even if it has been very reliable that doesn’t mean it is flawless, it has many limitations.
- The lag time of the Wayback Machine is the most concerning issue that makes it incompatible with our fast-paced life. The current lag time of the Wayback Machine is 3 to 10 hours which certainly isn’t affordable in a highly competitive environment you might be working in.
- Web crawlers of the Wayback machine do not include every web page due to its limitations which is a major drawback of it. It also finds difficulty in extracting data from the pages which are not coded in HTML. Thus, it is very possible that you may not find your desired page on the Wayback Machine.
- Another problem that the Wayback Machine is facing regarding the lawsuits made up on the internet archive.
Hence you can see that the Wayback Machine isn’t perfect among the internet archive sites. So it’s better for you to check for better alternatives to the Wayback machine.
Best Wayback Machine alternative and Stillio goes in parallel. Stilio captures website screenshots at the desired interval regularly. Even after coming late in the field, stillio beats the Wayback machine in some sectors as it gives its users additional features which enable them to get control over their website indicators.
Wayback Machine is also incapable of interpreting images and HTML properly which causes a lot of problems for its users as it produces distorted text and images. Stillio, in this case, does that perfectly as it captures the screenshots in PNG format. It ensures a superior end result.
Wayback Machine does not process webpages properly that have javascript in them which causes in getting broken pages when you use Wayback Machine to search them. Stillio doesn’t have that kind of problem which certainly ranks it above Wayback Machine in this section.
You probably don’t have enough time to visit old website archives to check the progress of a certain website. By using Stillio you can save a lot of time as Stillio regularly stores and sends screenshots of the website to your dropbox for you to check which surely gives Stillio an advantage.
Stillio Key Features
- Website Tracking: Stillio enables you to track any website easily by just entering the URL of the desired website and Stillio tracks the website automatically so you can keep an eye on them easily.
- Customized Screenshots: Stillio has the feature that allows you to take screenshots of the desired website at your desired frequency. You can set the frequency even on an hourly basis.
- SERP Tracking: This additional feature of this Wayback Machine alternative allows you to track information like SEO ranking, compliance, and ads validation which could be helpful for your website.
- Time convenient: Stillio saves a lot of time by automatically capturing and storing all the screenshots in your account. You don’t have to do anything manually.
Stillio Pricing:
Stillio comes with 4 types of plans, along with a 14-day free trial
- Snapshot: 29$/month for tracking up to 5 websites
- Big shot: 79$/month for tracking up to 25 websites
- Hot shot: 199$/month for tracking up to 100 websites
- Top shot: 299$/month for tracking any number of websites
archive.today is increasingly getting popular among the masses and giving competition to the internet archive sites used for website time travel. One of the major reasons for its popularity is that it comes with no cost at all.
archive.today contains a sophisticated database and index process yet it is very easy to use. Thus, it is no surprise that it is one of the best Wayback machine alternatives.
This internet archive site takes screenshots of the desired pages on demand and additionally it creates duplicate pages of the websites which are non-existing right now.
It can also support javascript pages and pages that are visual-heavy. It supports web applications like Twitter so that you don’t miss out on anything which you can’t do with the Wayback Machine.
The best thing about this Wayback machine alternative is that it makes two different copies of a webpage, one is the link to the original page and the other one is the screenshot of the page. This certainly gives archive.today an edge among any other alternatives to Wayback machine.
archive.today key features
- Image Salvaging: Wayback machine do not transcript images easily. archive.today does that easily for you as it can salvage images from a domain properly.
- Easy navigation: archive.today comes with a bookmark feature that makes it easy to navigate a website by entering the URL.
- Supports a variety of web pages: Unlike Wayback machine, archive.today supports web pages that are heavy with javascript or visuals. It also supports web applications like Twitter which makes it really one of the best Wayback machine alternatives.
- Making duplicate pages: archive.today creates duplicate pages of certain websites while tracking it. Even if the original pages go down, these duplicate pages remain as it is which sites like the internet archive cannot do.
- Free of cost: Websites like Wayback machine are popular, thus it is non-surprising that it comes with a price but not archive.today, It is completely free for the users. It only accepts donations to make a living.
archive.today Pricing
There is no price to be paid for using the archive.today, it is completely free.
Domain tool is another alternative to the Wayback machine which allows you to take snapshots of any desired website pages and it comes with many useful features that make it one of the best Wayback alternatives.
The feature that makes the Domain tool stand different from other internet archive sites is its Whois website which enables you to find important data like the ownership of the website, its registration date, IP history, and its hosting details.
You can also look at the screenshot history of a certain website and easily analyze the evolution process it has gone through. This feature makes website time travel easy for its users.
DomainTools Key Features
- Free snapshot-based archive: The domain tool is the correct internet archive site for you if you are looking for a free screenshot-based internet archive.
- WHOIS website: WHOIS website is an important feature of the Domain tool as it allows its users to dig up a vast range of historical information on a website that isn’t accessible anymore.
- Threat analyzer: Apart from being an internet archive website, threat analysis is a large part of the domaintools, which may come in extremely handy to analyze and investigate threats on your website.
- Easy domain search: The domain tool allows the users to look up any domain by entering the domain name.
DomainTools Pricing
DomainTools has only one pricing plan which is 99$/month or 999$ when billed annually.
Another alternative to the Wayback machine is Pagefreezer which is a cloud-based web and social media archiving platform. It monitors, captures, and archives online data which is crucial for setting business strategies.
It simplifies archiving process by archiving multiple contents in a single account. Also, it automates the full process of archiving. Can it get any simpler? It uses google-like crawling technology so you don’t need any installation.
Pagefreezer Key Features
- Archives a lot more than webpages: Pagefreezer archives not only webpages but it also archives social media, mobile messages, and enterprise collaboration platforms which Wayback machines don’t cover.
- Simple archiving process: Pagefreezer makes the archiving process super easy for you by automatically archiving multiple contents without needing multiple accounts.
- Cloud-based technology: Being a cloud-based technology it doesn’t require any installation.
- Monitors real-time data: Pagefreezer actively monitors all the data of your platform in real-time and helps you to keep track of any unwelcoming content being uploaded on it.
Pagefreezer Pricing
Pagefreezer comes with a single pricing plan that cost 99$/month
Mostly used by the authors and editors, WebCite is an internet archiving site that archives particular webpages on demand.
Generally, authors and publishers cite several references that in the future don’t exist, WebCite takes detailed screenshots and archives them for future use. As it was created to serve readers and authors mostly, it accommodates a huge range of formats such as PDFs, images, or HTML sites.
This internet archive site comes in Opaque and Transparent format. This enables users to add the Opaque format to an URL and the Transparent format replaces those URLs. With WebCite, the user can either manually introduce a citation to the document or you can just upload the content to the WebCite server and the software goes through the manuscript and reinstate with links that are archived permanently.
The best Wayback machine alternative should be able to do that right?
WebCite Key Features
- User friendly: WebCite is made for most authors and publishers who may not be familiar with the technicalities of a complex website. Thus, it is easy very to use and very easy to access all the archived content.
- Supports a variety of formats: Unlike the Wayback machine, it can properly interpret images, pdfs, HTML, etc.
- Replaces old links with a new one: A distinct feature of WebCite enables the user to replicate older URLs with a permanent new one that stays accessible even after the original URL goes down.
- Comes in two different formats: Opaque and Transparent format makes the WebCite useful for the users to easily add an URL and replace it with a new permanent URL for future use.
- Free to use: WebCite is totally free for its users.
WebCite Pricing
WebCite has no cost for using it as it has been made to help the readers.
Resurrect Pages uses other old website archive sites like archive.org to bring the defunct pages back. This internet archive site can resurrect the view of the desired page of any dead website or broken link just as it was on the original website.
It can also give you access to the archived pages from other internet archive sites like Internet archive or WebCite.
Although it is a very powerful website. It is an add-on to Firefox makes it only compatible with Firefox. Thus, users who are not familiar with the Firefox process cannot use this tool.
Resurrect Pages Key Features
- Covers a lot of ground: Internet archive sites have certain limits of their own. As Resurrect Pages uses other popular archiving sites, it can resurrect a lot of pages that any particular website cannot access.
- Gives access to archived pages: With Resurrect pages you can get access to the archived pages that other internet archive sites have archived.
- Free for usage: Being an extension of Firefox, this Wayback machine alternative is free to use.
Resurrect Pages Pricing
Resurrect page is free for its users.
If you are looking for a powerful alternative to the Wayback machine which also doesn’t have the drawbacks of the Wayback machine then iTools can be perfect for you.
iTool not only stores website history but also can be used for analyzing it. iTools enables you to analyze all the vital information like contact information, traffic, ratings, etc. This allows you to get a better view of a website.
By using iTools you can be assured that you’ll be getting all the analytics tools necessary. Even though it is not the hardest software to work with but it is hard enough to leave the first-time users bewildered. But once you get your grip on it is an extremely powerful internet archive site you can get.
iTools Key Features
- Faster Process: The lag time of the Wayback machine is one of the major causes why people go searching for alternatives to it. iTools gives you a faster and smoother experience.
- Website analyzing: iTools provides you with analyzing tools that help you to get access to the crucial data of a website and give you in-depth insight into it.
- Internet archiving: Not missing the major point of our search, iTool also provides internet archiving, and that too with a better experience.
- Access to the content of Alexa: iTools uses Alexa tools to provide information to its users, so users can get access to the information of the Alexa tools too.
- Free to use: iTools is certainly providing us a better experience, it only gets better as it is free to use.
iTools Pricing
iTools has no cost for using it.
I can assume that we the name all are familiar with the name Alexa. Created by amazon this Wayback machine alternative is used for competitive analysis by retrieving the website history of the desired website.
The main reason for its popularity is that it enables its users to get information by keyword search. It also provides the user with features that allow getting access to vital information like the frequency, previous visits, and duration of visits.
Although Alexa seems a bit old now, it still has to offer a lot more than old internet archive machines like the Wayback Machine. As an example, Alexa provides traffic indication, even though in terms of accuracy it’s not perfect but the industry has shown faith in it. Even if it cannot be called an internet archiving site in a traditional way but it still can compete with the other alternatives to the Wayback machine for its competitive analysis performance.
Alexa Tools Key Features
- Alexa rank: The most distinct and most popular feature of the Alexa Tool is Alexa rank. This feature gives an insight to the user about the popularity of a certain website.
- Toolbar: Alexa Tool has a feature called a toolbar that enables its users to view the external links of relevant sites. It also comes with a popup blocker, a search box, and links to the Alexa homepage and amazon.com.
- Browser extensions: In recent days Alexa Tools have added browser extensions to its toolbar for google chrome and firefox users.
- Certified statistics: You can get access to the “certified statistics” by using Alexa pro services, which gives you access to the traffic data of a website.
Alexa Tool Pricing
Alexa Tool comes with 4 types of pricing plan
- Basic plan: 19.99$/month with 7 days of a free trial
- Insight plan: 79$/month with 7 days of a free trial
- Advanced plan: 149$/month with 14 days free trial
- Agency plan: 299$/month with 30-day free trial
This one is an internet archive site that is popular for giving access to all the business-related information available on the internet.
Unlike many other internet archive sites, this is very easy to use. The using process of this Wayback machine alternative is similar to a search engine. By only entering the URL of the desired website it only takes seconds to get the data you are looking for. It also enables users to develop commands that are linked to a particular web page and allow them to use them, which unquestionably gives it an edge over the other internet archive sites.
Yubnub Key Features
- Easy to use: Yubnub uses an interface that is very simple. It makes this internet archive site extremely easy to use, if you can search on google you can use this one too.
- Command development: Unlike other archive sites, Yubnub comes with a command developing and using the feature, which could be useful to you.
- Free to use: Yubnub is free for its users.
Yubnub Pricing Plans
Yubnub has no pricing plans as it is free for its users.
Another internet archive site is Time travel which could be a great Wayback machine alternative. With this tool, you can do website time travel and look back at a website and see how it used to look at a particular time.
It was built by using the archive.today interface which makes it easy to use and can be used as an amplified internet archive. It also allows you to use the web archive of your preference.
It doesn’t have the drawback that the Wayback machine faces while interpreting complex web pages.
Even though it’s not the best possible site out there, it can surely be one of the better alternatives to Wayback Machine.
Time Travel Key Features
- Extensive search: Time travel searches the whole server set to look for the desired web pages.
- Bar chart: Time travel includes a bar chart that shows components it’s testing and the ones that are missing.
- Time-specific: Time travel allows you to look at the web pages at your requested time.
- Supports a variety of components: Time travel can support components like images, style sheets, and texts which the Wayback machine cannot do properly.
- Self-archive: This feature enables time to travel to self-archive web page materials.
Time Travel Pricing
Time travel s free for you to use.
MirrorWeb is a powerful Wayback machine that is popular in the finance industry.
If you are in the finance industry, this archiving tool can be extremely helpful for you to keep yourself from regulatory bodies. It keeps track of the development of your website by capturing any complex element your team builds.
The feature that makes it popular is its capability to capture pages as it is and show exactly the same when in need. This comes in handy for eDiscovery or in case of litigation.
This Wayback machine also captures social media content which makes it better than the Wayback Machine.
MirrorWeb Key Features
- Scheduled capture: MirrorWeb captures the content of a website at a regular interval.
- Data sovereignty: MirrorWeb allows you to store data in any location which makes the procurement process easy.
- Supports javascript-heavy files: Unlike Wayback, Machine MirrorWeb can easily capture contents that are javascript-heavy.
- Easy search and download: The search function of this tool allows you to search and isolate an archive and download it easily.
- SaaS platform: The Saas platform offers easy access to all archives and it also offers full-text search, reports, interrogation of archives, and user access management.
- Customer support: MirrorWeb provides 24/7 customer support for any issue users might face.
MirrorWeb Pricing Plans
MirrorWeb comes with a single subscription plan that costs 200$/month
CachedView allows you to access web page archives from an array of internet archive sites like google cache and internet archive by using a single platform. It also comes with a three-dimensional index which gives this archive an edge over the Wayback machine.
It contains a chrome app that allows you to read a cache folder of a chrome browser and shows all the files that are in the cache.
Cache files contain functional information like URL, type content, server name, and response and MirrorWeb makes it easy to extract and copy the files you want.
CacheView Key Features
- Three-dimensional index: CachedView provides a three-dimensional index which makes it popular.
- Access to different platforms: Cachedview enables its users to get access to internet archive sites like Google cache, internet archive, and Coral Content Distribution Network from a single platform.
- Chrome app: CachedView contains a chrome app with which you can access the cached folder of a Google chrome browser.
- Extract and Copy files: CachedView lets you extract and copy files from cache files that contain handy information.
CachedView Pricing
CachedView is free for usage.
MessageWatcher is another Wayback machine alternative that monitors and captures screenshots of the desired website. The feature that makes this archiving tool better than the Wayback Machine that its ability to monitor emails, text messages, and social media content. All of this can be done from a single dashboard.
It cannot capture screenshots of the whole version of the website which is to be kept in mind when looking for the best Wayback machine alternative. Some pieces of the desired archive site may go missing for this drawback.
MessageWatcher Key Features
- Covers more than web pages: MessageWatcher not only monitors websites but also can keep track of other peripheral services.
- Easy to use: All the processes can be done from a single dashboard.
- Business cloud platform support: MessageWatcher supports business cloud platforms like Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.
MessageWatcher Pricing
MessageWatcher pricing starts at 300$/month for daily archiving and the cost will increase if you are exporting a large amount of data.
If you are still looking for the best Wayback Machine alternative, then here is another one for you. ChangeTower monitors your website and captures its content. It might sound similar to the Wayback machine but I can assure you it’s not.
The feature that makes it different from the Wayback Machine is that it sends you a notification every time any changes are made to your website and captures screenshots of the modification.
Although, it captures only screenshots of the pages, not the whole website, which makes it no better than MessageWatcher.
ChangeTower Key Features
- Monitoring Web Page URL: Just by entering the URL you can monitor any changes in the website or set it for the archive.
- Real-Time monitoring: ChangeTower actively monitors your website for any changes and immediately detects if any changes are made and take screenshots of it.
- Instant alert: ChangeTower sends you a notification instantly if any changes are made.
- Detailed change alert: Even if any slightest change has been made to your website, ChangeTower detects it and shows you exactly what change has been made.
ChangeTower Pricing
ChangeTower comes with three types of pricing plans
- Free plan: For one month of data archival and 6 checks per day
- Power User plan: 9$/month with 3 months of data archival and up to 50 checks per day
- Enterprise plan: 299$/month with 12 years of data archival and checks at every 3 minutes interval
Smarsh is another Wayback machine alternative that allows you to monitor web and social media from a single dashboard.
Although, it cannot capture archiving sites that contain dynamic data in a large amount. But it can help you in supervising emails, social media, and many other collaboration platforms.
Smarsh Key Features
- Dynamic scaling: This modern cloud archive possesses dynamic scaling to support an increase in data volume and variety all the time.
- Fast throughput: Smarsh uses current infrastructure standards that allow firms to scale components of the system freely.
- Single dashboard access: Smarsh allows you to track desired web and social media activity from a single dashboard.
Smarsh Pricing Plan
Smarsh pricing starts at 10$/month, but it varies according to the requirements of the user.
Developed by Harvard Law School Library, Perma. cc is an application that is used for creating permanent records of websites. The reason why it made to our list is because of an array of features it contains.
Just like WebCite, URLs can be inserted through blogs or paper articles. These links can also be deleted within 24 hours. The feature of adding users to any organization just by putting the respective email in this cloud-based program. Along with all these features, you can visit any website and create a record of the available content of that site for future analysis. If you fail to preserve the desired content in this way, this Wayback machine alternative allows you to create an image or pdf file of it.
Perma.cc Key Features
- Easy to use: Perma.cc has been made to be user-friendly. You can preserve any desired link with Perma.cc with only a few clicks.
- Well preserved Permalinks: Permalinks can ensure you that they will stay intact irrespective of whatever happens with the original link. These will never change or break.
- On-demand Archive: With perma.cc you can visit any website by entering its URL and creating a record of it.
- Free to use: To serve its purpose Perma.cc is free to use
Perma.cc Pricing
Perma.cc has absolutely no cost.
Final Takeaway
Now that we are almost about to end our journey, I hope that you have found the best Wayback Machine alternative that suits your requirements. If not, and you are still looking for a second opinion then I’ll be glad to provide you with some.
there are a lot of free yet powerful internet archive sites here in the list which could be able to meet your requirements if your needs are limited. But it is obvious that if an alternative is charging you with money, then it comes with additional services that the free ones don’t provide.
Also, you got to take care of your pocket, it is not necessary if a Wayback machine alternative costs you a lesser amount of money then it might not work well. Even though I can’t claim to be an expert but according to my personal experience iTools could be a very useful Wayback time Machine website.
It is evidently not easy for newbies to access but once you get your grip on it, it’ll provide you a smooth service, along with that it also comes with an array of powerful tools that might help your cause. That’d be all from my side for now. If you are still left with some questions, feel free to let me know through the comment box down below.
