Best Time Machine alternatives: offsite and cloner picks

Product	Best for	Per month, yearly plan	The deciding fact, and the catch	Link
Backblaze Computer Backup	Best offsite copy	$8.25	Unlimited storage, connected external drives included, and files are encrypted before upload. Forever version retention is a paid add-on the page doesn't price.	Visit
Arq Backup	Best with your own storage	$5.83	App-only licensing on Mac and Windows, so you bring your own cloud. Premium bundles 1 TB for 5 computers.	Visit
Kopia	Best free with a GUI	Free	Encrypted and deduplicated, with both a GUI and a CLI. You pay your storage provider.	Visit
Duplicati	Best free, self-managed	Free	Free and open source, with AES-256 encryption before upload. No storage included.	Visit

Don't replace Time Machine. Add to it. Apple's own page describes a backup to an external disk, and a disk on your desk burns down with the Mac.

So the pick is Backblaze. Unlimited storage costs 8.25 USD/mo on the yearly plan (checked November 1, 2026).

What Time Machine doesn't do

Per Apple, the backup disk should ideally have at least twice your Mac's storage. It keeps hourly copies for 24 hours, daily for a month, then weekly, and deletes the oldest when the disk fills. Nothing leaves the building.

That's the rule's missing piece. See how to set up a 3-2-1 backup.

Backblaze

Monthly is 9 USD/mo, and Backblaze lists a two-year plan at $7.88 a month, paid every two years. Connected external drives count. Restores come by web download of zips up to 500 GB, a mailed USB drive refunded if returned within 30 days, or a restore app.

The catch: as I read the page, it's priced per computer, so a household of three Macs would need three. The Backblaze review goes through the limits.

Carbon Copy Cloner

This one is a different job. Its site says it restores single files, copies folders, recovers an entire Mac and migrates to a new one, and schedules runs hourly to monthly or on change. It markets itself as everything you wish Time Machine did.

One Household license covers every Mac in a home for non-commercial use. The site shows no price, so I can't quote one, and it offers a 30-day trial. CCC 7 upgrades are advertised at 25 to 50% off. Mac only.

Arq

You bring storage. Arq 7 is $59.99 per computer on Mac or Windows, and Premium is $69.99 a year for 5 computers with 1 TB, with extra space at $0.00699 per GB a month (Arq pricing, checked Nov 1, 2026). Cheaper than Backblaze for five machines with little data. Dearer once you pass 1 TB.

Kopia and Duplicati

Both are free and encrypt before upload. Both leave storage to you.

Kopia supports Backblaze B2, S3-compatible services, Azure, Google Cloud, WebDAV and SFTP. It has a GUI and a CLI, and its docs say it doesn't allow unencrypted backups. Forget the repository password and the data is gone.

Duplicati's site describes AES-256 encryption before data leaves your machine, and a free tier. I'd point a newcomer to Kopia, which has a GUI.

Weighing Backblaze against a shared quota? Read Backblaze against IDrive. Photographers with terabytes should see best backup for photographers. The whole category is in the backup catalog.