Backblaze vs Spanning Backup

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.

Spanning Backup is a cloud-to-cloud backup service for Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. The company started in Austin, Texas, and is now part of Kaseya, which sells it alongside its other backup products for IT teams and managed service providers (MSPs).

Spanning takes automated daily backups, with on-demand backups available, of Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Contacts and Shared Drives; of Exchange Online mail, OneDrive and SharePoint in Microsoft 365; and of Salesforce records, metadata and attachments. Point-in-time restore brings back individual files, emails or records, or whole accounts, to their original location, and end users can restore their own items without opening a support ticket. Audit logs, status reports and encryption help with compliance and ransomware recovery. Pricing is per user, typically bought through resellers and MSPs, with separate products for each platform.

Spanning fits IT teams and MSPs that want proven, low-maintenance protection for the main productivity suites. It is limited to these three platforms, the interface feels dated and restore speed varies with data volume. Native retention and version history in Google and Microsoft cover simple cases for small teams but are not true backups, since they do not protect against every deletion or sync error. Alternatives include Backupify (also owned by Kaseya through Datto), Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, AvePoint and Afi, while Own, now part of Salesforce, specializes in Salesforce data.