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Wayback Machine Alternative

Marketing Team

What is the Wayback Machine?

The Wayback Machine, founded by Internet Archive, is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to 492 billion archived web pages.

It works as a time machine archive allowing users to go "back in time" and see what websites looked like in the past, making it perfect for:

  • Finding lost content and information from previous versions of your site
  • Evaluating how competitor websites have progressed
  • Keeping records of content and promotions for non-regulatory purposes

When to use a Wayback Machine Alternative

The Internet Archive Time Machine is a fantastic free resource. However, you may want to look at sites similar to Wayback Machine for:

  • Greater control over how often your site is archived and who has access
  • Increased security features such as multi-factor authentication and single sign-on
  • Improved accuracy; especially where your site contains dynamic content
  • Advanced archive tools such as search, compare and replay

What do you lose with a free solution

Tools like archive.org are an incredible resource but come with a number of limitations:

  • Accuracy - go to almost any website on Wayback Time Machine and you'll find missing content, links and images
  • Ownership - should the service become gated or stop altogether, all of your data could be permanently lost
  • Control - how often, by who and even how much of your website is crawled is completely out of your hands
  • Functionality - limited search, replay and content comparison as well as little to no security features

1. MirrorWeb

The leading Wayback Machine Alternative for financial services firms, MirrorWeb is a website archiving and monitoring solution which helps you capture legally admissible records of your websites for compliance & eDiscovery.

  • Best for: Financial services firms looking to comply with SEC, FINRA and FCA regulations
  • Features:
  • Daily archiving from just $200 per month
  • Replay your archived website exactly as if it was live
  • Search and compare content for eDiscovery and litigation
  • Indisputable ISO/WORM compliant archives
  • Download and share unlimited archived content at no extra cost
  • Good to know:
  • Only solution currently able to accurately capture complex dynamic content such as financial services fund pages
  • Specialist tool for capturing web and social media channels
  • Website: mirrorweb.com/website-archiving

2. archive.today

Similar to Wayback Machine, archive.today is a free time machine archive which stores snapshots of web pages and allows you to retrieve them.

  • Best for: Firms looking for a like for like Wayback Machine Alternative
  • Features:
  • View snapshots of websites over time
  • Replay text and graphical copies of old webpages
  • Chrome Extension
  • Good to know:
  • Archiving frequency cannot be dictated so your site may not be archived for months at a time
  • Your firm does not own the data so access could be revoked at any time
  • Website: archive.is

3. Memento Time Travel

Memento expands on the offering of the Internet Archive Time Machine by pulling snapshots from multiple digital archives (including the Wayback Machine) to allow you to view a web page as it looked in the past.

  • Best for: Searching for previous versions of webpages using archives from multiple sites like Wayback Machine
  • Features:
  • Search for archived content on Internet Archive, Archive-It, The British Library, archive.today, GitHub and more
  • Use 'Reconstruct' to combine components from various web archives
  • Chrome Extension
  • Good to know:
  • Time Travel offers a consolidated way to search existing archives rather than an alternative way to archive your site
  • Limited advanced features such as content comparison and search
  • Website: timetravel.mementoweb.org

4. Reurrect Pages

Another tool that harnesses the archive data already stored on archive.org as well as multiple other web archives, Resurrect Pages is a quick and easy way to bring a dead page back to life.

  • Best for: Viewing content from dead pages and broken links while browsing the internet
  • Features:
  • Search for old versions of web pages including on competitor sites
  • Access archived content from Google Cache, Internet Archive, WebCite and archive.is
  • Good to know:
  • Only compatible with Firefox
  • Limited by the quality and accuracy of the archives it harnesses
  • Website: Resurrect Pages Add-On

5. CachedView

A convenient alternative to the Wayback Machine, CachedView allows you to pull web page archives from Google Cache, Coral Content Distribution Network and Internet archive in one platform.

  • Best for: Time machine website archives from multiple sources including archive.org
  • Features:
  • Archives from sites similar to Wayback Time Machine including Coral and Google Caches
  • Good to know:
  • For complex websites, the accuracy of the archives can be spotty even when using multiple archive sources
  • Content from non-secure archives may not be legally admissible and therefore isn't suitable for compliance archiving
  • Website: cachedview.com

6. MessageWatcher

Similar to Wayback Machine, MessageWatcher offers a web content record-keeping solution for archiving snapshots of your website; as well as tools for email, text and social media monitoring and surveillance.

  • Best for: All-in-one web, email and social archiving and surveillance
  • Features:
  • Email, social, web & text screenshots for monitoring and surveillance
  • Single dashboard for all archived content
  • Good to know:
  • Prices start at $300 per month for daily website archiving (up to 300 pages)
  • Additional fees apply if exporting large amounts of data
  • Captures screenshots rather than full web archives so search and replay may be limited
  • Website: messagewatcher.com

7. ChangeTower

Maybe better described as a change monitoring time machine archive, ChangeTower monitors your website for changes and provides real-time alerts.

  • Best for: Real-time website change monitoring and notifications
  • Features:
  • Track web content changes using keyword and phrase rules
  • Capture snapshots of pages when changes are detected
  • Monitor website availability
  • Good to know:
  • Enterprise plans start from $299 per month
  • Captures screenshots rather than full web archives so search and replay may be limited
  • Other alternatives may be more suitable if archiving for regulatory compliance purposes
  • Website: changetower.com

8. Page Vault

A Wayback Time Machine for legal professionals, PageVault captures full-page screenshots of web pages, videos, Facebook and more.

  • Best for: One off outsourced or DIY screen capture projects
  • Features:
  • Capture screenshots of your webpages and export to pdf
  • Facebook and video snapshot archives
  • Good to know:
  • Web archiving projects cost an average of $299-$499
  • Limited search and reply due to not being full interactive archives
  • Screenshot technology may not be suitable for sites that contain lots of dynamic and/or hidden content
  • Website: page-vault.com

9. Stillio

A screenshot archiving alternative to Wayback Machine, Stillio gives you the power to capture web snapshots as often as every 5 minutes as well as offering additional web monitoring tools.

  • Best for: Screenshot projects which require snapshots more than once per day
  • Features:
  • Captures screenshots as often as once every 5 minutes
  • Additional SEO, trend and competition tracking tools
  • Good to know:
  • Not suitable for compliance archiving as records are only retained for 36 months
  • Multi-capture daily screen grab archiving starts at $299 per month
  • Limited search and replay functionality due to not being full interactive archives
  • Website: stillio.com

10. Smarsh

Wayback Machine Alternative offering archiving and monitoring across web, social media and collaboration platforms.

  • Best for: Employee supervision across social and collaboration platforms
  • Features:
  • Content archiving tools for web, social media and collaboration platforms
  • Supervision tools for email, text and collaboration channels
  • Good to know:
  • Premium pricing plans compared to similar alternatives
  • Additional fees may apply when importing and exporting data
  • Customer service wait times are reportedly significant at times
  • More suitable alternatives are available if archiving complex sites with large amounts of dynamic content
  • Website: smarsh.com

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