Code42’s popular CrashPlan remote backup service for consumers, CrashPlan for Home, just got the ax. The company is shutting down its consumer product to focus on exclusively business services next year.
Code42 made the announcement on its website with CEO Joe Payne saying, “The needs of our business and consumer customers have diverged dramatically in the past few years.” Turns out that divergence is so great that the company is getting out of the consumer market.
If you’re a current CrashPlan for Home user the company is adding an extra 60 days to all current subscriptions to give users a little extra time to transition to other backup solutions. CrashPlan for Home is shutting down completely on October 22, 2018, which is presumably beyond when the last subscriptions will expire.
Even if you’re using CrashPlan just for local backups and peer-to-peer backups you’re going to have to find a new solution because those features will stop working, too. To be clear: All of CrashPlan for Home’s features will stop working on October 22, 2018.
Code42 says CrashPlan for Home customers can migrate to CrashPlan for Small Business. The company also struck a deal with Carbonite for users who want to switch to a different cloud-based backup service.
While Code42 has partnered with Carbonite for its transition out of the home user space, that isn’t the only option available. Backblaze has been offering reliable cloud-based backups for years, for example, and is a popular alternative to CrashPlan. DollyDrive is another reliable cloud-based backup service that’s been around for years.
Considering CrashPlan for Home never got got the same love from Code42 as its business counterparts, it’s not too much of a surprise to see it on death row. After years of promises, for example, CrashPlan for Home never even got a native Mac app.
Thanks for the heads up, Jeff. It’s updates like this that remind me why I regular follow TMO.
I’ve been a CrashPlan user for years, and it has worked seamlessly in the background while I’ve travelled all over the planet, without a hitch. I’m going to miss that. It also reminds me why I have a Transporter, not simple for triple redundancy, but for just those periods where I might be in between automated backups; sadly, the transporter is in my home, which does not provide that extra layer of off-site security.
I concur with TitanTiger that BackBlaze is a great alternative, and may be the prime beneficiary of this change. OTOH, Dolly Drive is also a great choice. I’ll likely go with one of these, once I complete my reviews.
Sounds to me like Code42 got tired of people not paying for each device. The “new” service is basically the same as the Home service, but now you have to pay for each device. I’m not fooled by the “we’ve decided to focus on our business clients” excuse, as it’s just a way for them to grab more money.
Or a way to actually break even on a product and focus on a more profitable area of the business. If they don’t “grab more money” they don’t stay in business.
Looks to me like BackBlaze is the way to go based on the reviews I’ve seen, especially for Mac users. Why couldn’t Code42 have worked something out with them. Carbonite is terrible and has a long history of lagging support for Macs. I started with them and the experience was so bad, I went looking for something better and discovered CrashPlan.
I don’t have to make a move for another 8 months or so, but unless something changes, it looks like BackBlaze is where I’m headed.