Much of the web is ephemeral.
Web pages exist until they no longer exist. Their content exists until they are updated, then they disappear.
Unless you dig into the archives.
Archiving the web is important for cultural and anthropological research. It is also useful for business reasons such as competitive analysis. It is also useful for documenting and monitoring political processes.
The specific reason you are looking for archived content may determine which service is best for you.
Wayback Machine is the most commonly known archive.
Screenshot, https://archive.org/web/, January 2023.The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization, and the Wayback Machine is the web version of that archive, containing an enormous amount of data.
You can request that a web page be saved in its current state, or use tools such as APIs.
The Wayback Machine archive is very large and may not be 100% complete. If you can’t find something specific or are wondering if there are alternatives with more features, these alternatives may help.
We do not discuss paid SaaS subscriptions because we do not consider paid services to be a true alternative to free services offered by nonprofits.
let’s go!
1. Memento Project
Memento is a great alternative to Wayback Machine as it aggregates several different sources, including Wayback Machine itself.
This website provides access to archives from multiple sources using the Time Travel tool.
Screenshot, http://timetravel.mementoweb.org/, January 2023.This is the first feature that makes Memento so great, and includes several other archives on this list. So it’s a customizable experience, and perhaps one of the most complete.
Another feature of Memento is a Chrome extension that allows you to choose the date to view the current page. This will bring up the tool wherever you are browsing instead of typing the URL into a form.
You can also create page snapshots to generate unbreakable links. This is especially useful for citations.
If you’re concerned about pages disappearing or content being updated, but still want to use the information, creating one of these links will allow others to view the original source .
2. Today’s archive
Archive.today is another “snapshot” tool. You can save links to currently existing pages.
Following the link takes the user to an unmodifiable version of the page.
Screenshot, https://archive.ph/, January 2023.It also has some relatively advanced search queries that you can run against domains and URLs to find snapshots saved by the tool.
The tool also includes a Chrome extension and an Android app.
Searches in Memento can include results from Archive.today.
3. WebCite
WebCite has powerful applications for authors, journalists, scholars and publishers.
Provides various ways to construct and present archived pages and URLs.
Screenshot, rhttps://webcitation.org/, January 2023.Unfortunately, at the time of publication, it does not appear to be accepting new requests. However, you can still access pages that have already been archived. If it ever resumes accepting requests, it’s a very useful tool for that.
The most powerful feature for authors and publishers is the ability to upload manuscripts directly to the website.
This tool will scan all links in your uploaded manuscript and automatically create an archive of each currently existing linked page. This saves a lot of time if you use citations from many websites.
If you have created content that allows users to take snapshots, you can add a specific WebCite link to your page that users can click on. This embeds the archiving functionality into the page and saves time when users use your work as a citation.
4. GitHub
GitHub is a development and collaboration platform that also prioritizes public projects and open source code.
It documents and archives open source code and programs and can be searched in other archives such as Wayback Machine.
Screenshot, https://github.com/explore, January 2023.However, if you’re looking for something related to code or software development, it may be easier to go directly to GitHub rather than using another archive service.
GitHub is free for the average user, although there are paid business plans. Additionally, it provides 15 GB of storage and computing power in the cloud development environment for free for personal use.
5. Country-specific web archives
Several countries operate their own web archives.
These are particularly useful alternatives to the Wayback Machine if you’re looking for websites that are highly relevant to a particular location or country’s culture.
A more focused archive may have more complete information if you’re having trouble finding it elsewhere, but again, the first choice on this list, Memento, is , I would like to mention that it is taken from several different country-specific archives.
Also note that many archives specific to a country, region, institution or individual library have partnered with Archive-it, a service provider built by Internet Archive (the makers of the Wayback Machine). please.
Although we curate specific collections based on relevance, all Archive-it partners leverage the same source of information: the Internet Archive.
Below are some of the web archives by country.
Conclusion
When looking for alternatives to the Wayback Machine, you may not realize that many of them utilize the same archive, partially or wholly.
However, there are other services that you can use. Some have more useful functions depending on the purpose.
This is not an exhaustive list of alternative tools, but most of them are easily accessible for the average user.
Some require a monthly payment, others are free for academic and legal institutions, but not for individual users.
I decided to focus on the best tools that can be used right out of the box without any fuss.
Other resources:
Featured Image: Studio Romantic/Shutterstock
