The Best Free Backup Software and Why it is Difficult to Find One

The definition of free backup software solution

The process of figuring out what is the best backup software for your company can be extremely complicated for a number of reasons. The market itself is massive, and the number of available solutions are at an all-time high, offering a wealth of features for different client types.

Extensive research certainly helps when it comes to figuring out a suitable backup solution for yourself, and there may be many circumstances that limit your choice of backup solutions in some way. For example, a lot of the more comprehensive backup solutions offer many features that you would perhaps never use, which makes choosing one of these solutions a questionable decision on its own.

Luckily, there are many backup solutions that are aimed at the smaller companies with lower requirements for their backup systems – and some of these backup solutions are even free. However, picking a free backup solution is even more complicated than the premium one.

We will discuss why it is so hard to pick the correct free backup software for yourself later in the article. However, it would be beneficial for the overall article to discuss the differences between a free backup solution and an open-source backup solution.

An open-source backup software has a publicly accessible source code that can be inspected or modified by anyone with little to no limitations. Most of the open-source applications are managed by the community itself and are completely free of charge. Unfortunately, open-source solutions do not have a good track record when it comes to ease of use from an inexperienced user’s standpoint. This means that picking up an open-source backup solution where the user has no technical expertise, or ability in the topic of managing or modifying these solutions, may not be a good idea.

A free backup solution is supposed to be offered free of charge by the solution provider. The definition of a free solution is quite wide, covering both smaller backup software that is completely free, to larger software providers that offer a free, limited version of their software as a way to have users experience some of the software’s capabilities, and perhaps make them interested in purchasing the fully-featured version.

These two definitions tend to overlap quite a lot, but they also have quite a lot of differences. Not all of the open-source solutions are free, and not every free backup solution on the market is open-source. Free backup software often has a much lower entry level in terms of technical knowledge when compared with an open-source backup solution, but the capabilities of the majority of free software are also somewhat limited in comparison. It is also worth bearing in mind that a free software may need (paid) development work doing on it to have it fit into your technical environment.

9 best free backup solutions in 2023 for corporate use

Now that we covered the necessary part of the terminology, it is time to present our list of top 9 best free backup software of this year. The order of this list does not represent the superiority of one solution over another, it is simply here for the purpose of easier navigation.

BackupPC

BackupPC is a simple yet effective cross-platform backup tool that offers high performance and can work with all of the different types of operating systems. Aside from its main purpose of creating backups of multiple client instances to a server, it also offers a convenient web interface, data deduplication capabilities, as well as data compression, flexible configuration, and no need for any client-side software to be installed. It is an open-source solution that has its source code available at both SourceForge and Github.

Customer ratings:

• Sourceforge – 4.9/5 stars based on 37 customer reviews

Key features:

• Optional backup compression capability
• Compatible with Windows and Linux systems
• A variety of customization options
• Detailed product documentation
• A versatile web interface

Pricing:

• BackupPC is a completely free and open-source solution.

Customer reviews:

• arzitek – “Excellent solution once the setup difficulties have been solved. I didn't find a good step by step document but I found answers to my setup questions one by one. I now back up Windows and Linux laptops and desktops using different methods (rsync+ssh, SMB mostly) and both backups AND restores work flawlessly. Adding new hosts easy once you know what you need to set up on the client side.”
• noahspam – “PCBackup is a great free solution to backing up PC files over a network to a UNIX/Linux server. Note that I helped its development (in a very minor form) in 1995-98 when it was the home-gown PERL script solution to backing up our company Windows 3.11 PCs over the network to a central UNIX server.”
• spindash – “It's very powerful and customizable.You could do almost every scheme of backup. It works very well for Notebook in a DHCP environment. It saves a lot of disk space. Works very well (with CYGWIN) on Windows environment through rsync daemon. The email feature is really good and useful. Sadly, it's user-friendly, lacks a backup progress indicator and there is not an easy and secure way of launching backup jobs from the client without loging in to the server.”

Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Amanda)

Amanda, or Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver, works in a similar fashion as the previous example, offering the ability for system administrators to arrange and schedule backups of multiple user systems to one backup server. It supports optical media, tape drives, disks and changers and has native clients for both Windows and Linux users to be able to backup Linux, Unix and Windows desktops or servers with no issues whatsoever. Its source code is available at Sourceforge, making Amanda a solution that is both free and open-source.

Key features:

• Capable of creating backups of a large number of workstations and servers that run on Linux or Unix
• Has a native Windows client that can back up both servers and regular desktops
• Creates a single master backup server for a multitude of backups transferred over the network
• Supports different backup storage types, from disks and optical media to tape drives

Pricing:

• The Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver is a completely free and open-source backup solution.

Clonezilla

Clonezilla claims to be a similar software solution to what Acronis True Image and other programs offered – a disk imaging/cloning program with unimpressive capabilities but with an amazing operation speed. Clonezilla has different versions of itself for regular users and servers with large numbers of machines – Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE, respectively. It can perform bare metal recovery, simplifies system deployment, uses an efficient way of cloning existing information (reading and copying only those memory blocks that were used in some way), and can work with about 40 machines at the same time, or more.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.7/5 stars based on 22 customer reviews
• Sourceforge – 4.7/5 stars based on 118 customer reviews
• G2 – 4.3/5 stars based on 15 customer reviews

Advantages:

• Extremely fast operation speed
• Can be booted using a multitude of different mediums
• Completely free and open-source

Shortcomings:

• GUI is not particularly nice or user-friendly
• Some parts of the official documentation are somewhat unclear and may be interpreted incorrectly
• The overall functionality may be limited for some cases

Pricing:

• Clonezilla is created and distributed as a free software, there are CDs and USB keys that are created with the solution, but neither of those are official – they’re created and distributed by third-party vendors instead

Customer reviews:

• Matt M. – “We recently purchased new machines to replace a handful of old ones, and they all needed an identical configuration. Clonezilla made it really easy to make an image and deploy it to all the new machines. I saved a lot of time that would have been spent tediously installing software and running configurations on all of them.”
• Nicolas P. – “I previously used Norton Ghost, but licencing was a pain to deal with and so we tried CloneZilla. Free, easy to understand how that work and of course, quick to restore entire rooms PCs (installed into high school to restore PC each new school year)”
• Marco F. – “Powerful and straightforward solution for professional disk cloning. Working with servers and workstation, this piece of software becomes a must in terms of reliability. Clonezilla works at low level on disk blocks to guarantee a 1:1 clone, preserving boot sectors and file structures on any disk.”

Bacula Community

Bacula Community is the free open-source counterpart of a popular premium enterprise-level backup solution – Bacula Enterprise. Bacula Community is capable of working with multiple different operating systems, can work through a web interface or via a command line console, and is completely free as a backup software. It is capable of creating backups on multiple different storage types, offers vast scheduling capabilities, and is relatively easy to set up and work with. It is worth noting that, while Bacula Community is considered more user-friendly than its alternatives in the field of free open-source backup solutions, it is still preferential that a user has at least minimal experience of how to use basic command line inputs (although GUI interfaces are available, too). With over five million downloads of Bacula, the result is an especially reliable, stable software that is used by thousands of organizations across the globe.

Key features:

• A variety of plugins for different storage types and systems, from Kubernetes to MS Exchange
• Multiple backup types, such as differential, incremental, synthetic, etc.
• Cloud storage support
• Data encryption and compression
• High security levels

Pricing:

• Bacula Community is a free and open-source backup solution distributed at no cost

Rsync

Rsync is the very definition of bare-bones backup software. It is a backup tool that is made for Unix systems with the ability to operate it both via the graphic interface and the command line. It allows for its users to perform local and remote backups on multiple devices, including incremental backups. Rsync also has the capability to sync systems across the internet with other hosts and has the ability to update the entire file system and the directory tree of the user.

Key features:

• Its own algorithm for synchronizing data with remote files on Unix systems
• Does not have the requirement of special privileges or access permissions to be installed
• Extremely fast due to its internal pipelining ability
• Can use direct sockets, ssh, or rsh for data transfer

Pricing:

• Rsync is a file transfer utility that is distributed using the GNU General Public License, it is completely free and open-source

UrBackup

UrBackup is another example of a client/server backup solution that is free, open-source and has a very narrow scope in terms of what it is capable of performing. In this case, UrBackup is capable of performing both image-level and file backups without interrupting the system. It can also perform incremental backups with an astonishing speed and has multiple different locations to restore your backups to – using the client, the web interface or even the basic Windows explorer. It can also create backups of drive volumes and is capable of restoring them with bootable appliances – be it a USB drive or a CD disk.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 5.0/5 stars based on 5 customer reviews
• Sourceforge – 4.7/5 stars based on 18 customer reviews
• G2 – 4.0/5 stars based on 12 customer reviews

Key features:

• Backups of either files or complete system images
• Multiple backup types, including full and incremental
• Little to no configuration is necessary before initiating the backup process
• File and image restore capabilities, with an option to create a restoration USB stick

Pricing:

• UrBackup is a free and open-source backup solution with plenty of different features, the overwhelming majority of which are available completely free of charge
• There are only two parts of this solution that require some form of purchase at all
  • CBT (Changed Block Tracking) feature for Windows clients, can greatly improve the overall backup speed, costs $17 per Client device
  • Hyper-V support from UrBackup is its own different client of the software, costs $68.11 per Client device

Customer reviews:

• Miguel A. – “I've been using it to provide clients with reliable backups for a couple of years without problems. Some clients have on site servers others (most) internet stored servers. After being set up it has gone for years without a problem. The feature to keep the server form filling up the disk space is very good, compression makes backups fast and small (which allows frequent copies), and the windows client works very well to copy databases.”
• Chris J. – “Security & ease of knowing that I can fully restore a client computer within about an hour or two, once there is an issue. The price is nice too!”
• Michael B. – “I've used other backup services in the past. They were slow, clunky, and I had little faith in what I was getting. UrBackup changes all of that. I can see exactly what I'm looking for. The environment is simple. It is easy to get access to what you need. It works on both servers, and on desktops. Cross platform. It can access my MS Sql Servers, and it can also grab stuff from my linux boxes. It has images, file backups, and PXE boot. All the features I want. It gives me piece of mind. Originally I got for just covering some select servers that I wanted some simplified backup for, but I anticipate expanding the deployment.”

Duplicati

As the name suggests, the main purpose of Duplicati is to duplicate data – in other words, to create backups. Duplicati can work on all of the modern operating systems such as Linux, Windows and MacOS, and it also supports a variety of data sharing protocols – SSH, FTP and WebDAV. It allows its users to store encrypted backups in their compressed form either on one of the cloud storage servers or within a remote file server. Other features include transfer customization, filtering, deletion rules, and so on.

Customer ratings:

• G2 – 4.1/5 stars based on 8 customer reviews

Advantages:

• Highly customizable backup destinations
• Vast flexibility options
• Compressed incremental backup capabilities
• Not as complicated as most of the open source backup solutions

Shortcomings:

• While it may not be the most sophisticated solution on the market, it is still substantially difficult to set up and use
• There are not that many features to choose from
• Cloud backup storage is not provided with the solution, it has to be managed and paid for separately

Pricing:

• Duplicati is a free and open source backup software with no additional costs attached, but there is an option to donate to the creators of the solution on the official website.

AOMEI Backupper

AOMEI Backupper may not work with operating systems other than Windows, but it packs enough features to make up for it – including backup, system cloning, file syncing, and more. Some of the more detailed features of AOMEI Backupper include various scheduling options, file-level backup and restore capabilities, partition backup, partition cloning, as well as imaging and backup automatization packed into a user-friendly interface. It is worth noting that AOMEI Backupper Standard only allows its usage for free in non-commercial environments.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.3/5 stars based on 42 customer reviews
• G2 – 4.5/5 stars based on 15 customer reviews

Advantages:

• Easy-to-use GUI
• Plenty of different use cases the solution can cover
• Easy to perform first-time setup
• text

Shortcomings:

• Consumes an extraordinary amount of resources to perform backups
• May sometimes be slow
• Limited customization

Pricing:

• AOMEI Backupper (Standard) is distributed using a “freeware” licensing model, with a basic version of the software that is completely free – with the ability to upgrade to a number of paid versions for a price
• AOMEI Backupper Professional starts at $39.95, offering 24/7 support, different backup types, data encryption, etc.
• AOMEI Backupper Workstation starts at $49.95, the only solution out of the three that can be used in a business environment

Customer reviews:

• Victor A. – “Overall, I would tell anyone to give it a try to see if it fits there needs. I did find other software a bit more lightweight but I guess the others fit my need a bit more as I focus more on backup/sync files and did not need the cloning feature as much.”
• James Z. – “The best data recovery software for all who needs protection against physical data loss. It helps in disaster data recovery and data protection needs. One of the most liked feature of this software is easy to clone a complete hard drive and restore it back. I can also set up scheduled backups and it depends on days and hours of most convenience for my ease. It is a must for every home and business needs. It saves me hours of time.”
• Fred P. – “Until recently I was very happy. I had been running their latest addition for about a month. I installed System Mechanic Ultimate Defense about 10 days ago and now having nothing but issues with Aomei Backupper Pro. Recently it has been responsible for freezing programs, slowing down programs and even clipping video and audio on Zoom. All this seems to be due to the fact that it doesn't agree with System Mechanic as the timing of the introduction of System Mechanic seems to match the issues I have received. I have tried removing and reinstalling. However, it has a mind of its own and won't allow me to shut it down or remove it as it continues to run in the background.”

Cobian Backup

Cobian Backup is a rather complicated backup solution, definitely not the most user-friendly one on this list. It offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to backup creation – with multiple backup operations performing simultaneously, several possible backup locations (network, local storage, FTP server, etc.), as well as scheduling, encryption and compression. However, its biggest downside is that Cobian Backup cannot restore its own backups – all of that needs to be done manually, making it fairly inconvenient for some of the more laid back use cases.

Key features:

• Feature-rich file backup solution
• Completely free, even for commercial environments
• Can be used remotely, if necessary
• Interface is somewhat outdated, but still relatively easy to work with

Pricing:

• Both Cobian Backup and its .NET-based successor Cobian Reflector are distributed as freeware, meaning that they can be used free of charge for anyone, including both individuals and commercial environments.

The difficulty in picking the right free backup solution for your use case

You may have noticed that the last two solutions on the list have a dedicated part in their description that clearly prohibits the usage of these solutions in a commercial environment. This is one of the biggest reasons why finding a suitable free backup solution is so problematic – a lot of overlap with other software types.

AOMEI and Paragon are not the only examples on the market – there are many different backup solutions that offer free versions of their products and/or free trials in an attempt to attract more customers towards their premium products. As such, both of the aforementioned examples have business versions of the same software that is a paid software with a price tag.

Additionally, it is extremely easy to find entire articles dedicated to free backup solutions for personal use (and with restrictions in terms of commercial usage) while searching for the best free backup software for your company, which makes the process even harder.

This is why this part of our article focuses on the best free backup software that can be used specifically in commercial environments. However, these solutions are at their best when interacting with smaller or middle-sized companies and systems, meaning that it is highly recommended to look for a full-fledged premium enterprise-level backup solution if your company is big enough to be considered an enterprise. For example, Bacula offers a low cost, enterprise version for even the largest companies, that has modular components so that users only pay for what they need.

9 best free backup software in 2023 for personal use

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a personal free backup software – we can help you with that, as well. Here is another top 9 of free backup software solutions in 2022 to add to the last two points on our previous list. Most of these examples are exclusively for personal use and cannot be used for commercial purposes, such as to backup company devices.

Personal Backup

A relatively simple solution with a straightforward name – Personal Backup is a free backup software that has the basic package of a personal backup solution. It can backup directories and single files (even though adding multiple single files at once is not possible), as well as backup scheduling, data compression, data encryption, as well as several different backup target locations – FTP, network share, external drive, local storage or even another folder within the same system. At the same time, Personal Backup’s interface is not the most convenient or user-friendly in the world, which might be somewhat inconvenient for some users.

Key features:

• Simple new backup task creation with the help of a wizard
• Both complete directories and single files could be backed up
• VSS support, extensive customization
• Backup via FTP, multiple backup file options to choose from

Pricing:

• Personal Backup is a free solution that can be used by anyone, and there are only two conditions that the author has in a software license agreement
  • The software itself can be used by anyone free of charge, there is no warranty for the results of the program’s operation, the author is not liable for any possible hardware or software damages that may be caused by the software.
  • The software can be distributed by any means without modifying the original files, and only distribution costs could be added to the solution as the form of a price. The software cannot be distributed as a part of any commercial solution without prior agreement with the author.

Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition

Claiming that Paragon Backup & Recovery is just that – a backup and recovery tool – would be a massive understatement, since it is basically a data management solution with backup capabilities. The list of features that Paragon provides includes targeted backups, backup scheduling, disk space management features, versioning, the capability to backup an entire OS and even the capability to restore backups from the Windows PE environment. It is worth noting that the free version of Paragon Backup & Recovery (Community Edition) is only available for non-commercial usage.

Key features:

• Extensive automated backup capabilities
• Customizable backup scenarios
• Backup scheduling
• Versioning

Pricing:

• Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition is a free version of the solution that can only be used for non-commercial purposes

MiniTool ShadowMaker

MiniTool ShadowMaker is a tool that has a rather impressive feature set for a free version – one of the few solutions on the list that can offer both file-level backup and the capability to backup entire hard drives. This software can run incremental backups on a schedule with a variable time frame between backups (a day, a week or a month), it can save backups to external or local storage drives or to network locations, and it can even set custom backup file size for specific storage drives (CDs, for example). Other features include password protection, email alerts, data compression and backup verification.

Key features:

• Can create backups of both specific files and entire systems, perform disk cloning, and sync files
• Supports all Windows versions from 7 to 11
• Both versioning and scheduling are supported for free
• The solution itself is free and only some of the features are locked behind a paywall

Pricing:

• MiniTool ShadowMaker is a backup software that can be used for personal backup purposes for free, while also having a number of paid versions to choose from that include features the free version does not have – SSL encryption, Universal restore, WinPE support, and so on

Editor reviews:

• techradar. – “MiniTool ShadowMaker is a backup management software solution designed to simplify the creation and management of backups. It enables users to effortlessly create backups and restore them completely without any issue or problem such as data loss or missing information.”
• ghacks.net – “MiniTool ShadowMaker Free is a handy backup program for Windows. It is compatible with all recent versions of the system, and can be used to create individual or regular backups of disks (including the system disk).”
• PCWorld – “I’m always happy when a program makes backup quick and easy. MiniTool ShadowMaker makes me very happy. Being available in a free version that has all the features the average user needs makes me even happier.”

EaseUS Todo Backup Free

EaseUS Todo Backup has a surprisingly long list of features for a free backup solution, with different backup types and only some of the more sophisticated features being locked behind a paywall – such as backups triggered by events, Outlook backups and data transfer from one PC to another. Aside from those, EaseUS Todo Backup offers several different backup types, as well as scheduling capabilities, different backup targets in the form of partitions, drives or individual files.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.5/5 stars based on 90 customer reviews
• TrustRadius – 8.1/10 stars based on 13 customer reviews

Key features:

• Can perform file-level backups and back up entire systems or disks
• Capable of restoring all of its own backups with surprising speed
• Multiple backup types – incremental, differential, full
• Cloud Drive backup capabilities

Pricing:

• EaseUS Todo Backup Free is a free-of-charge version of the backup solution that provides an essential set of features for personal backup creation. Some of the features of EaseUS Todo Backup are only available in paid versions of the software, such as email backups, dick cloning, Image Reserve Strategy, and so on

Customer reviews:

• Michael A. – “I highly recommend this software as a backup solution in small medium business. It saves our company when we're attacked by ransomware and the downtime is only one day to recover all the files.”
• Chris B. – “The interface itself is very user friendly with your main options stacked in a column on the left side of the gui. The main user backup options are partition, system, file, and email. This is all around very robust software with multiple tool options to service all of your disk needs. You cant go wrong with this software for the functionality and the price. Watch for the frequent sales and discounts EaseUS offers.”
• Hicham S. – “If you're looking for a data backup solution, EaseUS Todo Backup is a great option. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before you decide to use this software. One con is that if you experience data loss or corruption, the recovery process can be difficult. You'll need to contact customer support and go through a lengthy process to get your data back. Additionally, the free version of the software only allows you to back up 2 GB of data, so if you have a lot of data to backup, you'll need to upgrade to the paid version. Another thing to note is that the free version has some limits on what types of files it will allow you to back up. For example, it does not allow you to back up Windows system files. In order to do this, you'll need to purchase the full version of the software for $49.99 from their website. The program also doesn't come with an installer file, which means that you may have difficulty installing the program on certain computers without Administrator privileges. Finally, one other issue is that there's no scheduled backup feature included with EaseUS Todo Backup-one big downside considering all of its other features.”

Iperius Backup

Iperius Backup combines a medium-sized set of features with a user-friendly interface in this free backup software. It can transfer backups to several different locations, the software itself is convenient and easy to use, and there are three different backup types available. Iperius Backup can also provide password protection, data compression into ZIP archives, and even some of the more uncommon features such as backing up system and hidden files or performing specific actions after the backup process is complete (such as turning off the machine).

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.1/5 stars based on 47 customer reviews
• TrustRadius – 6.5/10 stars based on 6 customer reviews
• G2 – 4.5/5 stars based on 49 customer reviews

Advantages:

• User-friendly interface
• Backup scheduling
• Data encryption and compression
• Advanced data filtering capabilities

Shortcomings:

• Specific configuration steps may not be particularly clear
• Plenty of features are not available in the free version, including FTP backup, cloud backup, disk imaging, etc.
• No Linux support

Pricing:

• Iperius Backup has multiple different paid versions of its software – Basic, Advanced, Full, and so on. There is also a Free version, which is somewhat limited in its feature set – while also having the ultimate advantage of costing $0 to use

Customer reviews:

• Terry S. – “We needed a reliable inexpensive backup solution to fit many scenarios and Iperius fits that very well. We backup data, VMs, full hard drives, I've restored VMs in a matter of hours, restored individual databases in minutes, its great software, and the free version works for most needs but we use paid for VMs. Support has always been responsive”
• Bill B. – “We are rolling Iperius out to our production systems (AOI, PnP, Vibe, etc.). Currently testing on a Paste machine.Also used to image HHD before swapping them out, or moving to an SSD.”
• Jamie S. – “Several test installations for backups were put in place while our team was testing for a potential new backup software. 2 of them, after a few weeks, had somehow not backed anything up and there was no indication as to why. Integrates with Backblaze B2, but majority of our servers are configured with an ioSafe, so it ultimately didn't meet our requirements. It might be a decent piece of software for simpler backup solutions.”

Redo Rescue

Another example of an extremely specific backup solution is Redo Rescue. Once again, it is fairly easy to surmise the nature of the service from its name – it would act as a “rescue” tool for your system. Redo Rescue can only backup your entire hard drive when loaded from a bootable device of sorts (it also means that you cannot launch it from within your OS at all), and it can be used to transfer your backup to multiple different locations, be it FTP, SSH, NFS, or just a shared network folder. The files created with this software also cannot be read by a regular file explorer and would have to be unpacked and restored with Redo Rescue for them to be useful to you.

Customer ratings:

• Sourceforge – 4.7/5 stars based on 89 customer reviews

Key features:

• Free bare metal recovery solution
• Easy to use and relatively easy to set up the boot drive
• Works for both virtual and real machines
• Provides detailed logs

Pricing:

• Redo Rescue is a free backup solution distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0

Customer reviews:

• spernicus – “Simple yet effective. This is an older system image backup solution, which could be bad for newer computers but has worked great for me because some of my equipment software runs on very old versions of Linux . Newer versions of Clonezilla and Ubuntu-based live CD's have problems with AHCI power management on these computers, e.g. HP xw4300 Didn't find my SAMBA network share automatically via name resolution but a-okay when give the IP number. Linux Kernel Version: 3.2 GPARTED Version, 0.11”
• slackyman76 – “After years of silence, rhis new release is perfect! Quick, easy, effective. The backup function creates a .img compressed file in few minutes, that you can restore... in few minutes. Consider that my Debian on a 10 yo PC is about 8,6 Gb. The image was created on an external HD in less than 3 minutes and its size is 2.9 Gb! So, like Partclone in Clonezilla, you don't have to use the whole space but in a easier way, especially for newbies. I've been using Clonezilla for many years but Redo is even better in many ways. I haven't yet tried the other features to backup data but I'm sure they work like the system backup feature does. GUI is good (minimal and VERY easy to understand) and I like the additional tools in the menu (e.g. Gparted). Good job! I hope Redo will be developed and updated in the future.”
• wtwlzg – “Been using it for a while now. Lots of features I will never use but backup/recovery works great for me. Found out today however that creating a bootable USB has it's problems. Awaiting fix. Thanks for Redo.”

FBackup

While FBackup’s interface might not be the most visually appealing on the list, it packs a relatively capable backup utility that can work in manual mode and also has a helpful wizard to assist someone who is less knowledgeable in the topic. FBackup can create backups of files and folders to one of several locations – from local storage to network drives or Google Drive cloud storage. You can also schedule these backups, but this is about where the limits of the free version of the software end. Unfortunately, the list of paid features of FBackup also includes encryption, incremental backups and FTP backups, which might be crucial for some people.

Customer ratings:

• Download.com – 3.6/5 stars based on 128 customer reviews
• fileforum – 3.7/5 stars based on 170 customer reviews

Key features:

• User-friendly interface without complicated features
• Convenient backup wizard
• A lot of customization for backups – including backup location, backup sources, backup type, backup scheduling, etc.
• Supports both local and cloud locations as backup sources or backup destinations

Pricing:

• FBackup is a free backup solution with no additional payments attached, but there is also a premium version of the software called Backup4all that can be purchased using the same website

Customer reviews:

• Hjharris – “Easy to use and able to specify just what is to be backed up. I have it set up to do 7 different jobs, Videos, Documents, Music, Desktop, Outlook and Photos. Options of "zip, mirror and full" backup formats provide flexibility when capacity constraints are a factor. Can't do incremental backups, i.e. only new or changed files. This is available in the "upgrade" versions. Takes quite a long time to do the complete backups because it tests each backup as well. I am very pleased with the app and it has improved steadily with occasional updates during the year I have been using it.”
• breebree – “Have been using this for quite awhile, recently the puter took a surge [and let lots of blue smoke out the back of the power supply]. One new PS later and a new Hard Drive that had died, I turned to my back ups on a removable hard drive.. installed windows 7 from cd and got the system stable with all updates and drivers ect. I don't use FB for disk imaging as it's not meant for that and I knew that going in, it's meant to backup data/pics/music files ect.. well got the stuff installed then got out the FB backups. they went right into the data folders where I had backed them up originally. All my pics, music, and most importantly my banking was restored perfectly. This program is for just that. backup of your data files.. it does this perfectly and reliably as the media you put it on. I has never let me down . I use its big brother Backup4All for full disk images and it to has done its job.. ,, why 2 Backup programs. well for short i don't NEED a huge program to backup just data files. FBackup is a simple way to keep your personal files backed up and that just in case happens, and it WILL happen .So for me it's a great program. It works as intended , it's fast and simple. it just does its job.. They one thing i Wish they would add is a incremental back up mode.IE just backup what has changed in the folders you tell it to.”
• raidenzxz – “Free. Means you don't pay for anything. Simple and easy to use interface Does everything most users will need as a backup software. Backup speed is reasonably fast.  Only advanced user who are crazy about their PC will go nuts about the lack of features. Very useful piece of software for any user. Simple to use and easily backups your files and protects from corruption. I recommend this to anybody looking for a simple and easy to use software for backing up their important files.”

Google Drive

While Google Drive cannot be called a backup solution in a traditional sense, it doesn’t change the fact that its synchronization capabilities are impressive for a free cloud storage solution. It has free space limitations that can be raised in several ways, even though it is at its best when backing up specific folders and directories with small-size files, not entire systems and storage locations. It is also extremely easy to set up – all you have to do is specify which folder to “synchronize” and it would do just that and keep doing it with every change in the aforementioned folder within your storage.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.8/5 stars based on 27,206 customer reviews
• TrustRadius – 8.8/10 stars based on 5,893 customer reviews

Key features:

• Reusable free cloud storage
• Hosted by one of the biggest technological companies on the planet
• Great way to create backups of files or folders
• Easy to integrate with modern Windows systems

Pricing:

• Google Drive provides 15 Gb of cloud storage for free to all new and existing accounts, and this storage can be reused many times if necessary. It is also possible to expand this storage by subscribing to one of the Google One subscription tiers
• “Basic” – $1.99 a month for 100 Gb of storage
• “Standard” – $2.99 a month for 200 Gb of storage
• “Premium” – $9.99 a month for 2 TB of storage

Customer reviews:

• Angelica B. – “As an intern in the pharmaceutical development and research department at the University, Google Drive was an invaluable tool. We use Google Drive to store and share documents, presentations and spreadsheets related to our project. The ability to collaborate in real time and keep all the files organized in one place facilitated the communication and productivity of the team. In addition, the integration with other Google applications allowed us to create and edit documents directly on the platform without having to download them or worry about the latest versions. In general, Google Drive was fundamental to our daily work and contributed to simplifying our research and development tasks.”
• John J. – “During my internship in the pharmaceutical product development and research department at the University, I had the opportunity to use Google Drive to share and collaborate on documents related to research projects. The platform was very useful for teamwork, as all team members could access and edit documents in real-time. Additionally, integration with other Google applications, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, allowed for more effective and organized communication.”
• Hannah C. – “I'm a new user of Google Drive and some of the other products. It's not what I'm used to so it's been difficult but I do like a few things about it and because I'm running a church it's really important to get things done for the least amount of money possible. It's also important that whatever we use will allow us to work together and Google Drive has settings to control that.”

pCloud

Following the same logic as with the aforementioned Google Drive, pCloud is not a backup software per se, but it can act as one by providing limited cloud storage to its users for free. It offers file sharing for multiple devices and different users, as well as collaboration within those files, data encryption, the ability to set individual or group permissions, as well as a detailed activity report and digital asset management. The cloud storage limitations might be detrimental for some storage-heavy backup operations, but it is a great solution for smaller important files with the ability to collaborate without leaving the website in question.

Customer ratings:

• Capterra – 4.5/5 stars based on 165 customer reviews
• TrustRadius – 9.0/10 stars based on 28 customer reviews
• G2 – 4.3/5 stars based on 151 customer reviews

Advantages:

• Cloud storage space that acts as the extension of the physical storage
• Great performance with data exporting/importing
• Works as a collaboration solution for file sharing purposes

Shortcomings:

• Relatively small storage size for the free plan
• Difficult to locate duplicate files
• User interface may be confusing for new users

Pricing:

• The simple process of registration provides every new user with 10 Gb of free storage to all new users, there are also several different premium plans that offer a lot more storage space and several new features
  • “Premium” – $59.88 a year or $570 permanently for 500 Gb of both storage and shared link traffic
  • “Premium Plus” – $119.88 a year or $1,140 permanently for 2 TB of both storage and shared link traffic
  • “Custom Plan” – $6,000 for a permanent access to 10 TB of storage and 2 TB of shared link traffic

Customer reviews:

• Domingo Antonio A. – “I really like the ability to store, sync, and collaborate on my business files with ease, no matter where I am or what device I'm using at the time.”
• Eduardo R. – “the interface was very easy to use and I was quickly able to start storing and sharing files with my team. The option to organize employees into teams and control access levels and user activity allowed me to collaborate and work together more efficiently and securely. I really liked the option to access my files from any device with an internet connection, which allowed me to work from anywhere and at any time. My overall experience with pCloud Business has been very positive. It is a complete and reliable solution for cloud storage and team collaboration, and I would recommend this service to anyone or business looking for a secure and easy-to-use solution.”
• Wiktor P. – “I already moved all my data, documents and files into the pCloud. Thanks to the Restore feature I stopped making endless backups and different versions of the documents. I am already planning on moving all my personal data into the pcloud too.”

Conclusions

As with any other backup variation, figuring out the best free backup software solution for your specific use case is going to be a unique process for each and every company on the market. This is why it is hard to say that one specific backup solution is the best for everyone, since there are many different companies that have different storage types, different backup goals and different business markets with a lot of variation in terms of RPO, RTO and other parameters – and the same could be said for individual users.

The process of picking the best free backup solution for your company can be boiled down to two important steps – figuring out what features you are looking for and picking up a backup solution based on those features. For example, if data encryption is one of your biggest priorities in backups then you may consider Duplicato as a good backup solution. At the same time, if you want a versatile, flexible solution that can work with many different systems and is relatively user-friendly, Bacula Community would be the top pick for you.

Figuring out what backup software features would be the most important for your use case is important - it would be difficult to find a suitable solution for yourself or your organization if you were not clear on what your needs are from a backup solution.

Why you can trust us

Bacula is all about accuracy and consistency, our materials always try to provide the most objective point of view on different technologies, products, and companies. In our reviews, we use many different methods such as product info and expert insights to generate the most informative content possible.

Our materials offer all kinds of factors about every single solution presented, be it feature sets, pricing, customer reviews, etc. Bacula’s product strategy is overlooked and controlled by the Marketing Director Rob Morrison.

Rob started his IT marketing career with Silicon Graphics in Switzerland, performing strongly in various marketing management roles for almost 10 years. In the next 10 years, Rob also held various marketing management positions in JBoss, Red Hat, and Pentaho ensuring market share growth for these well-known companies. He is a graduate of Plymouth University and holds an Honours Digital Media and Communications degree, and completed an Overseas Studies Program.