File Storage · ranked shortlist
Best File Storage software in 2026
18 approved file storage listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed.
- Tools ranked
- 18
- Entry price range
- $0-$250
- Publish a $0 plan
- 3 of 18
How this ranking is derived
The sort key
Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.
Where the ratings come from
No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.
What the pool is
Approved file storage listings, capped at 20 per page; 18 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the file storage category page.
The ranking
Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.
- #1
Arq Backup
Highest rated hereMac and Windows backup to your own cloud storage
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $50 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- personal, byos, encrypted, automatic
- #2
Backblaze
Unlimited cloud backup at an affordable price
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $6 a month, with no free plan.
- 2 published tiers, topping out at $9.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- unlimited-backup, affordable, personal, simple
- #3
Barracuda Backup
Complete backup solution with built-in ransomware protection
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- subscription
- Tags
- appliance, ransomware-protection, unlimited-storage, liveboot
- #4
Box
Cloud content management for the enterprise
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $5 a month.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #5
Carbonite
Simple and reliable cloud backup for businesses
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $6 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- cloud-backup, smb, automatic-backup, simple
- #6
CrashPlan
Endpoint backup designed for work-from-anywhere
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $8 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $158.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- endpoint-backup, Remote Work, legal-hold, unlimited
- #7
Duplicati
Free open-source backup with encryption
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- Free, Open Source, encrypted, cloud-backup
- #8
IDrive
Affordable online backup with multiple device support
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $0.41 a month, with no free plan.
- 7 published tiers, topping out at $29.75 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 7 tiers
- Tags
- affordable, multi-device, express-transfer, archiving
- #9
Microsoft OneDrive
Cloud storage that comes with Microsoft 365
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $1.99 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $19.99.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #10
Nextcloud
Self-hosted file sync, sharing and collaboration platform
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $71.29 a month.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $204.75.
- Billing
- freemium
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #11
pCloud
Prices are final. No setup fees or other hidden charges
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $199 a month, with no free plan.
- 3 published tiers, topping out at $1,190.
- Billing
- one-time
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- #12
Sync.com
Cloud storage, backup and sharing with end-to-end encryption
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $8 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $18 plus a tier sold by quote.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- #13
Tigris
Globally distributed S3-compatible object storage with zero egress fees
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $0 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $0.02.
- Billing
- Usage-based tiered storage with per-request fees
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- storage, Object Storage, ai, cloud
- #14
Tresorit
Store, sync, and share sensitive files with end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Billing
- subscription
- #15
TrueNAS
Open-source ZFS storage operating system for network-attached storage
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Billing
- open-source
- #16
Veeam Backup & Replication
Modern data protection for enterprise workloads
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $250 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- Model not published
- Tags
- enterprise-backup, disaster-recovery, ransomware-protection, vm-backup
- #17
Veritas NetBackup
Scalable enterprise backup and recovery
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $100 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- enterprise-backup, heterogeneous, multi-cloud, scalable
- #18
Zerto
Continuous data protection with near-zero RPO
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $5 a month, with no free plan.
- Billing
- subscription
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- continuous-protection, disaster-recovery, multi-cloud, journal-based
What file storage software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 18 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $0Tigris
- Median entry price
- $7across 14 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $250Veeam Backup & Replication
- Publish a $0 plan
- 3of 18
Paid file storage plans in this set start anywhere from $0 a month for Tigris to $250 for Veeam Backup & Replication. The median entry price across the 14 tools that publish one is $7, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is pCloud's at $1,190 a month, 4.8× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
3 of 18 publish a $0 plan, and 1 of those charge nothing at all. 12 tools have no free tier of any kind.
3 of 18 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
Tigris pricingVeeam Backup & Replication pricingpCloud plans
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 18 file storage listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- subscription
- 10
- freemium
- 1
- one-time
- 1
- open-source
- 1
- Usage-based tiered storage with per-request fees
- 1
Separately, 3 of 18 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What “File Storage” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 18 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- affordable2
- cloud-backup2
- disaster-recovery2
- encrypted2
- enterprise-backup2
- multi-cloud2
- personal2
- ransomware-protection2
- simple2
Carried by a single tool: ai, automatic, cloud, Free, legal-hold, Object Storage, scalable, unlimited. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
3 of 18 file storage tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line.
Read the spread before you read the features
$0 to $250 is a $250 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $250 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
8 of 18 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 5 billing models: subscription on 10 listings, freemium on 1, and 3 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare file storage tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- Arq Backup vs Backblaze
- Backblaze vs Barracuda Backup
- Barracuda Backup vs Box
- Box vs Carbonite
- Carbonite vs CrashPlan
- CrashPlan vs Duplicati
- Duplicati vs IDrive
- IDrive vs Microsoft OneDrive
Go straight to the numbers
- Arq Backuppricingalternatives
- Backblazepricingalternatives
- Barracuda Backuppricingalternatives
- Boxpricingalternatives
- Carbonitepricingalternatives
- CrashPlanpricingalternatives
Questions people ask about file storage software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How is this file storage ranking decided?
- Mechanically. The 18 approved file storage listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
- How much does file storage software cost?
- Across the 18 file storage tools listed here, paid plans start between $0 and $250 a month, with a median entry price of $7. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $1,190 a month (pCloud). 3 of 18 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest file storage software?
- 1 of the 18 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Tigris has the lowest published entry price at $0 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free file storage software?
- Yes, 3 of 18 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 1 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- How is file storage software usually billed?
- subscription (10), freemium (1), one-time (1), open-source (1), plus 1 less common arrangements, counted across the 18 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 3 of 18 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does file storage software actually cover?
- The 18 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are affordable (2), cloud-backup (2), disaster-recovery (2), encrypted (2), enterprise-backup (2). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under file storage may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do file storage tools offer?
- 13 of 18 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 8 of 18 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many file storage tools are listed on Softwr?
- 18 approved file storage listings appear on this page, including Arq Backup, Backblaze, Barracuda Backup, Box. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/file-storage, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep reading
More on File Storage
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.