CrashPlan vs Backblaze Cloud Storage Comparison

Cloud storage is increasingly relevant to individuals and businesses alike as storage sizes increase and data becomes increasingly sensitive. The threat of disaster wiping out all of your data can be devastating to a lot of people. Choosing the correct plan for you or your business from the sea of choices, however, can be quite challenging. So in this CrashPlan vs Backblaze article, we’ll take a look at two prominent cloud backup services and compare them on several factors like price and features.

CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Overview

CrashPlan Overview

CrashPlan is a large name in the cloud storage industry that has been around for quite some time, and its name is well-deserved. CrashPlan is known as a powerful backup solution used to back up your personal data in the event of crashes, weather events, or other disasters. They do not offer business plans under the CrashPlan name, but they do have an affiliate company that handles storage for businesses.

CrashPlan offers unlimited storage on all their plans and great security as their main selling points. As a backup option, CrashPlan does its job really well. But that’s about all they do. They do, however, offer a free version for local backups only. This does fall short of other competitors though that may offer a small amount of storage for free.

Backblaze Overview

Backblaze is an award-winning cloud backup solution. But despite their awards, they are still relatively unknown compared to behemoths like Carbonite or CrashPlan. That being said, what they do have to offer is at least superficially on par with what all the other backup providers offer as well.

In function, Backblaze is very similar to CrashPlan, even in terms of its software. Like CrashPlan, Backblaze also offers unlimited storage in their plan. Yes, a single plan. They have only one plan for individual users. They do offer some convenient and cool features though that may sway some to their side. It’s truly in the details that you can see how these two diverge.

CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Prices & Features

CrashPlan Pricing Plans

Backblaze Pricing Plans

If you were to look at it simply from a price per GB standpoint for an individual user, the plans are fairly equal. For families though, CrashPlan is going to come in a lot cheaper, as Backblaze does not offer family plans at a discount. It’s $50/yr/computer period.

For business users, Backblaze is your only option, as CrashPlan does not have commercial use plans available (although their parent company does offer them under a different name).

CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Security

The security features of Backblaze and CrashPlan are quite a bit different. Backblaze offers SSL transfer encryption and 256-bit AES encryption for files stored on their servers. This is pretty much the industry standard at this point. They do, however, offer a personal key option which further secures your data and is not offered by some competitors.

CrashPlan offers a more secure 448-bit encryption system with a private key option also available. Their data centers are also extremely well guarded by men and machines, with military standards in place to keep the physical servers and drives away from unwanted intruders. CrashPlan has clearly made security a prime focus, and the paranoid can rest easy knowing their data is in good hands.

CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Additional Features

CrashPlan does what it does, and that’s about it. The service excels at backing up your data and making it easily accessible and restorable, but aside from that, there aren’t many bells and whistles. A mobile app gives you access to your data from wherever you’d like. There is also deleted file recovery and options to keep multiple file versions going all the way back to when the file was first uploaded if you get into the settings and tweak it a little. It’s also very much set it and forget it, with easy-to-use software and backups running automatically once set up.

Backblaze is very similar in this regard. They don’t have file integrations or sharing, much like CrashPlan, and they have a mobile app. Backblaze, however, does have the ability to order your backups restored to a flash drive or external hard drive and shipped to you. This can be useful in certain situations, but for the cost, it would be cheaper to buy your own drive and download the data there instead. Backblaze also suffers the unfortunate “feature” of incredibly slow upload speeds, which would be a massive problem for those with a lot of data or those who access their data often.

CrashPlan vs Backblaze – Pros & Cons

CrashPlan Pros & Cons

Pros

• Fast data transfer
• Extremely secure
• Set it and forget it capability

Cons

• No real exciting extra features

Backblaze Pros & Cons

Pros

• Unlimited storage
• Ability to order physical backup copies
• Personal key option

Cons

• Slow

Verdict

CrashPlan, while admittedly very similar to Backblaze in features, takes the cake for personal users. Due to the blazing fast upload speed and more attention to security CrashPlan is a clear winner. Backblaze’s turtle speeds and lower security do not command the high price you would have to pay to secure multiple computers with it.

Of course, for business users, Backblaze is the only one of these options with a business plan, but honestly, there are much better options out there with similar or better prices than Backblaze.