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
