Given that our lives are becoming more and more dependent on gadgets and apps, backing up digital data is of paramount importance these days. Being always o
n the internet comes with its own set of unique risks. Your account can be blocked for non-adherence to terms and conditions or it may get hacked or may be your service provider had a goof-up and all your data may get deleted.
I am a big fan of Gmail, till now I used to back it up in my outlook installed on my computer. However, I needed an effortless way which can work behind the scenes and back up my Gmail and other Google account docs in an effortless manner.
Backupify and Spanning are the two cloud based market leaders when it comes to back up for Google Apps and Gmail.
What they have in common -
- Both provide automated backups for your Google Apps, GMail, Google Contacts, Documents, Google Drive, Google Chat.
- Both provide one click data restoration.
- Backupify provides a free 15 day trial while Spanning provides 14 days trial across plans.
- Both are known market leaders and have secured various certificates from security audit firms. We’re yet to hear any incident of data theft from either of these two companies.
How they differ (major differences) -
- Backupify provides two types of plans. Social media plans and Google Apps plans. Under Social media plan type, you can back up Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa etc accounts while Google Apps account is strictly used for a Google Apps domain. Spanning provides backup for Google Apps only.
- While Backupify plans for Google Apps are priced at $36/user/year, Spanning plans for Google apps are priced at $35/user/year. [Social media plans for Backupify starts from $59.88/year.]
- Under Google apps plan, while Spanning provide unlimited storage per user, Backupify provides 35GB of storage per user.
- Spanning takes two backups per day while Backupify takes a single backup of your account per day.
- [Update: Read Note1 below]Backups at Spanning would only help when you delete an email/doc by mistake but you still possess your email account access. Backupify will help even if your account gets hacked and the hacker deletes your email or a personal account. You would still be able to retrieve your account data if you’re on Backupify. [In case of Google apps for domain, this point doesn’t hold good since the domain is controlled by the admin in your organization]
My Choice
[Update Note1:]Having used Spanning for more than 5 months now, I can vouch for Spanning backups whether it is for personal Gmail accounts or for Google Apps domain. It is one of those hassle-free services which you don’t have to remember to use and yet it is available for you whenever you need it.
Charlie from Spanning has assured me that even with personal Gmail accounts, we will be able to get all our data back, in case of account hack etc. [You can use spanning discount code MWBKWH to get $5 off/user/year on Spanning.]
The 5th point above is a deal breaker for me. I didn’t realize this fact when I signed up for Spanning for one of my personal accounts. If I have to choose today, I will choose
Backupify – if I need to backup my personal accounts like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.Spanning – if I need to backup my Google Apps domain. In comparing Google apps solution between the two companies, everything else remains more-or-less the same except storage. Spanning offers unlimited storage per user. [You can use spanning discount code MWBKWH to get $5 off/user/year.]
Update: Don’t miss the official comments from Spanning and Backupify below.
Ankur Jain, founder of a web start-up, long-time blogger and proud owner of the "Learn" series of websites. 
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Ankur,
Thanks for the great review, and the endorsement of Spanning Backup for Google Apps. I feel it’s important though to clear up a misconception on your last point. Spanning Backup will absolutely help if your Google account were hacked. The hacker would not be able to delete the data retained by Spanning Backup, so it would still be safe and you would be able to recover it.
I’d also like to point out a couple of things we think make Spanning Backup clearly better than backupify (beyond the fact that we offer unlimited storage and they don’t):
1. Google Drive backup: Spanning Backup backs up not only the files in Google Drive, but also your folder structure, and changes to both over time. So if a hacker were to delete everything, or you were to accidentally goof something up, Spanning Backup will let you restore your Google Drive to its exact state. Backupify backs up files but not folder structure, so when you restore, you get everything dumped all into a single folder. This may be OK if you only have a few files but it simply doesn’t work for people who have their files organized into folders.
2. Multi-item restore: Spanning Backup lets you select any number of emails, files, or folders to restore in a single operation. With backupify, it’s either one-at-a-time or everything all at once. Again, if you just need to restore a single item, there’s no difference between the two. But if you need to restore a week’s worth of emails (which for me is about 600 messages) that’s a single restore operation with Spanning Backup, but 600 individual restore operations in backupify.
I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. We think that the more people know, the better we look.
Thanks,
Charlie
Founder & CEO, Spanning
Thanks for the clarification Charlie.
>>The hacker would not be able to delete the data retained by Spanning Backup, so it would still be safe and you would be able to recover it.
While I understand the data would remain intact on your servers but how will I retrieve it if the hacker deletes my Gmail id itself? You would only allow me to enter Spanning through my email id OAuth authentication. As per this, I’m at the mercy of Google to give back my deleted Gmail id.
I think this statement maybe wrong in your FAQ “If your Google account gets deleted, you can simply recreate it using the same email address” if a Gmail id gets deleted, the email id is gone for good (unless Google verifies and gives it back to the original account holder.)
While I did notice (and missed mentioning in the review above) the better UI you have, I didn’t notice things you mentioned above. Thanks for that.
For the record, Backupify does offer a free service level for Personal/Social Media users. https://www.backupify.com/social-media-backup
Thanks Jay. Post updated with a note at the bottom.
Hi Ankur,
You should also note that Backupify has been penetration tested by an external security firm, has financial backing from Symantec (a world security leader), allows local download of all your data, has a SLA on the backups themselves (Spanning’s is just on website uptime), and has search functionality to make it easier and faster to find the data you are looking for.
You should also keep in mind that both companies are constantly making product improvements because this market is still in the early stages, and in 3 months much of your analysis is likely to be incorrect, as we both launch new features and functionality.
Thanks
Rob May
CEO
Backupify
Thanks Rob for adding more differences to the list. While Spanning does have a date based search they are yet to come up with a text based search. I like their UI for the Restore pane since it imitates my Gmail account – with all labels neatly arranged on the left side.
>>and in 3 months much of your analysis is likely to be incorrect
Would love to have that sooner than later
Rob-
As I’ve told you before, our SLA covers our backup service, not just the web site. Also FYI Spanning Backup has also been tested by an external security firm, but beyond that has has also completed a full SSAE 16 audit, which backupify has not done.
I’d be happy to jump on the phone with you to correct some of the false information you’ve listed here and elsewhere.
Thanks,
Charlie
Charlie,
Can you respond to the followup to your first post above? You said Spanning could handle it if a hacker stole a gmail account — but it was pointed out in response that your FAQ makes it sound like you can only help AFTER your customer regains access to their gmail account.
If they never regain access, are they sunk?
This seems absolutely, 100% crucial. So I’m surprised you didn’t respond, and hope you will now.
In all other ways, I love Spanning, and I’ve enjoyed your clarity about what it does/doesn’t do.
Thanks!
@Art – Charlie did confirm over an email that it is possible to get the Gmail backups too. You would need to contact Spanning support in such a case. However, it would be nice to see his official reply for the benefit of readers.