CrashPlan vs Amazon S3
A detailed comparison to help you choose between CrashPlan and Amazon S3.
Quick Verdict
3.7/5
CrashPlan
0 reviews
4.1/5
Amazon S3
0 reviews
Amazon S3 is rated higher (4.1 vs 3.7). CrashPlan provides unlimited endpoint backup for businesses. Deploy to employee laptops and workstations centrally. No file size limits, unlimited versioning, and forensic restore capabilities. AWS S3 stores and retrieves unlimited amounts of data via a simple web interface. Built for developers, enterprises, and anyone needing reliable, durable cloud storage with pay-as-you-go pricing.
CrashPlan Unlimited endpoint backup for businesses |  Amazon S3 Scalable object storage for any data size or type | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.7 (0 reviews) | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | pay-as-you-go (per GB-month + per 1,000 requests + retrieval/transfer) |
| Starting price | From $7.33/mo | From $0.023/mo✓ |
| Best for | IT departments at businesses under a few hundred employees that want centrally managed, unlimited-version endpoint backup with self-serve restore | Teams building on AWS who need durable, API-stable object storage for backups, data lakes, static content and archives — and who value tooling compatibility over the lowest per-GB rate |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ✓ | |
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | CrashPlan cloud; enterprise can use Azure, AWS, Wasabi, Backblaze or their own S3 | 39 AWS regions / 123-124 AZs |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | team features | free tiers3 compatibleapi accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenterterraform provider |
| Visit CrashPlan → | Visit Amazon S3 → | |
CrashPlan
Pros
- + Endpoint backup at $7.33/user/month (annual) with unlimited cloud storage and unlimited versioning — retention length and restore count do not change the bill
- + Published small-business pricing with self-serve signup, 14-day full-function trial, and no per-server license on the enterprise tier
- + Long track record: continuous product since 2007 (ex-Code42), 900+ enterprise and 120,000+ small-business customers cited at the 2022 carve-out
- + Enterprise tier supports bring-your-own storage (Azure, AWS, Wasabi, Backblaze or your own S3) plus SSO, legal hold, immutable copies and audit logging
Cons
- - Vendor pages contradict themselves on endpoint storage ('unlimited' on the plan page vs 50 GB pooled in the pricing FAQ) — resolve before rollout
- - Cost scales per user and the governance features (SSO, legal hold, immutable copies, dedicated CSM) sit above the 250-user / quote-only line
- - No personal plan, no free tier, no published uptime SLA, and endpoint deleted-file retention caps at 90 days
- - Server tier's 250 GB pooled storage with $90/year per 250 GB add-ons is stepped pricing that grows quietly with data volume
Amazon S3
Pros
- + Designed for 11 nines durability with cross-AZ replication by default and strong read-after-write consistency
- + The S3 API is the industry standard — code written in 2006 still works, and third-party compatibility is everywhere
- + 23x cost ladder from Standard down to Glacier Deep Archive at $0.00099/GB-month, with lifecycle automation
- + Deepest storage feature set available: versioning, Object Lock, replication, inventory, event notifications, access management
Cons
- - Egress at $0.09/GB and per-request pricing produce surprise bills for chatty or restore-heavy workloads
- - IA and Glacier classes add retrieval fees and latency — the restore path must be priced separately
- - Policy configuration (bucket policies, IAM, Block Public Access, KMS keys) is complex and historically error-prone
- - SLA (99.9%/99.0%) is far below the durability figure — availability and durability are different promises
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