Backblaze vs pCloud

Backblaze is a publicly traded storage company from San Mateo, California, founded in 2007, that runs its own data centers and sells two products. Computer Backup continuously backs up an entire Mac or Windows PC, including attached external drives, for a flat monthly price with no data cap. B2 Cloud Storage is S3-compatible object storage priced per terabyte, positioned as a much cheaper alternative to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage and Azure Blob Storage.

Computer Backup offers version history, restores through the web and the app, and the option to have data shipped on a USB drive. B2 includes free egress up to three times the data stored each month, free transfer through partners such as Cloudflare, object lock for immutable, ransomware-resistant backups, and integrations with tools like Veeam, Synology, QNAP, rclone and media asset managers. The first 10 GB of B2 storage is free, and billing beyond that is simple and predictable.

Backblaze suits individuals and creatives who want set-and-forget workstation backup, and developers or IT teams storing backups, media archives and app uploads cheaply. It is not a sync or collaboration tool like Dropbox, it offers far fewer regions and services than AWS, and very large Computer Backup restores can be slow. Against Wasabi it competes on egress terms and ecosystem, and against IDrive on simplicity. The company is also known for publishing quarterly hard drive reliability statistics from its own fleet.

pCloud is a cloud storage service founded in 2013 and headquartered in Switzerland, with its development team in Bulgaria. Users choose at sign-up whether their data is stored in data centers in the United States or in Luxembourg in the EU. It is best known for lifetime plans, where storage is bought once instead of paid every year, and for a virtual drive that shows the whole cloud on a computer without using local disk space.

pCloud Drive works on Windows, macOS and Linux, with mobile apps that offer automatic photo upload. Built-in audio and video players stream media directly from storage, file versioning and a rewind feature recover earlier states, and sharing works through download links, upload links and shared folders. pCloud Encryption is a paid add-on that provides client-side, zero-knowledge encryption for a dedicated folder. Plans include a free tier of up to 10 GB, Premium and Premium Plus storage as yearly or lifetime purchases, family plans and Business plans for teams.

pCloud suits individuals and freelancers who want large personal storage and prefer a one-time payment, especially for photo archives and media libraries. Collaboration features are basic compared with Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, encryption costs extra while Proton Drive and Sync.com include it by default, and the value of a lifetime plan depends on the company's long-term survival. Icedrive is another provider that offers lifetime pricing.