Best Free Backup Software in 2026

Free backup software tools enable you to create exact duplicates of folders, documents, software data, and other computer files. These can be used to restore original files in case of accidental or intentional deletion, file corruption, or other incidents that cause you to lose important files or data. With this type of software in place, you can easily back up and restore selected files, folders, and even important operating system files on the same or another computer and hard drive.

In this buyer’s guide, we’ll help you choose the best free backup software that you can use to keep copies of important files and data. This guide also walks you through other important factors that you should consider when choosing a free backup tool, such as its key features, benefits, pricing, and more.

To start your search for the best free backup software, we recommend that you sign up for free trials or demos of the following applications: BDRSuite, EaseUS Todo Backup, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, AOMEI Cyber Backup, and ManageEngine OS Deployer. These programs have gained favorable ratings in our SmartScore system ranking, as well as satisfactory reviews from users all over the world. By signing up for free trials or demos, you can have a firsthand experience when exploring the various features and functionalities of your chosen freeware backup software program.

• Individual users who need to keep duplicate copies of their files and folders on their personal computers.
• Small to midsize companies with a limited budget for a fully-featured solution that can help them store and recover drives, partitions, folders, and files.

• BDRSuite. A backup software tool that helps businesses keep their computer files and data safe. Best suited to service providers that offer BaaS and DRaaS to their clients, BDRSuite enables users to store their files in a virtual or physical environment.
• EaseUS Todo Backup. A trusted data backup and recovery solution that helps users prevent any type of costly data loss. It provides a variety of useful backup features, such as disk/partition, SQL, mail recovery, and more.
• EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. A complete data recovery solution for laptops, Windows PC, USB, hard drives, and more. It provides individual users and businesses with a stress-free way to back up and restore deleted files.
• AOMEI Cyber Backup. A centralized and free data backup solution that enables users to manage backups of unlimited devices. It supports independent hardware deployment, which allows users to easily deploy a single base image to multiple computers irrespective of their hardware specifications.
• ManageEngine OS Deployer. A fully-featured OS deployment solution that serves as a handy tool for various data loss situations. It helps users manage multiple computers with different OS and models and maintain various disk images.

Basically, there are four types of free backup software technology. These are the following:

• File-based data backup. This type of free backup software is one of the most common types of backup solutions available in the market. It is built purposely to help users keep a copy of their computer files and data which can be used for restoration tasks.
• Disk imaging. Also known as “bare metal backup,” a disk imaging backup tool enables users to duplicate and restore disks at the volume level. With this type of software in place, users can have an accurate copy of an entire disk partition or physical disk.
• Backup as a Service (BaaS). These are the platforms that offer backup as a service, which gives users total freedom to choose which file or data to have a backup copy of. Typically, BaaS free platforms also offer encryption, automation, and file versioning features.
• File synchronization. Some backup software programs are specifically built for file synchronization, which allows users to sync their files and data in real-time. This specialized type of free file backup software allows users to replicate data or files in two or more locations.

Here are some of the most common features that you need to look out for when choosing the best free backup software for your needs:

• Backup scheduling. This feature allows you to back up your computer files and other data on a scheduled date and time. To help you prevent disruptions at work, most free backup tools allow you to run a backup task only on business downtimes.
• Verification mode. A verification mode feature allows you to avoid file corruption while running a backup process. It thoroughly checks each file before replicating it, making sure that a backup can be seamlessly performed without any error on the file.
• Remote backup. This is an important feature that enables remote teams to completely perform backup actions from any location in the world. With this function, geographically dispersed teams can easily have centralized file storage and access them at any given time and location.
• Security. This is an important factor that you should consider when choosing which free backup tool to go for. A quality backup software offers industry-grade security features that safeguard all of your corporate or personal files and data and keeps them in a secure location.

The best backup software free editions bring plenty of benefits to businesses and individual users. Here are some of the most important advantages of using a free backup platform:

• It prevents data loss in cases of file corruption or intentional and accidental deletion.
• It provides safe and secure storage of your corporate or personal files and data.
• In case of any disaster that causes network downtime, a backup software makes sure that you can immediately get your business back up and running smoothly.
• It reduces manual workload by automatically backing up files and data on a scheduled time and date.
• It greatly reduces the service costs associated with manual data backup and costly human errors.

Stronger focus on data resilience. Data resilience is becoming a top priority for many enterprises and organizations implementing backup software programs. By focusing on cyber data resilience, businesses can ensure that their operations can run more securely despite an increasingly complex threat landscape.

Multi-cloud backups. To reduce security risks and prevent loss of data, multi-cloud backups are becoming mainstream among vendors of data backup software programs. A multi-cloud backup environment helps users defend their files and data against various types of insider and outsider threats.

Poor security functions. Some free data backup software tools have poor security features that can threaten the quality of your backed-up files and configuration data. This can leave you with corrupt or infected files that lead to disastrous results when you are running recovery or restoration actions on your computer. To prevent this scenario, make sure to pick a quality server backup software free program with strong and resilient security features.

Ineffective data backups. Another common concern among users of free backup programs is having ineffective data backups that often result in data loss or file corruption. Aside from carefully choosing a good backup software, it is also imperative to always make sure that every data backup action that you perform is completed successfully and without errors.

Free backup programs have the power to safeguard your files and other computer data against any kind of threat or disaster that causes data loss. For a complete view of how free backup software tools benefit users, take a look at some of the most updated backup software statistics below:

• 97% of files and data can usually be recovered after a ransomware attack.
• 93% of small businesses have their backup files and data stored securely in the cloud.
• Over a three-year period, 96% of businesses experienced outages that caused them to rely on backup programs to keep their operations up and running again.
• 93% of corporations that do not have a plan for data recovery and experience a major data loss will be out of business in one year.