Archive.today shut down in 2024 after years of legal pressure, but several alternatives exist for saving web pages
Archive.today was a free web archiving service that let you save snapshots of web pages. It stopped accepting new archives in early 2024 after facing legal challenges from copyright holders and pressure from internet service providers. The site's operator, a person using the pseudonym Antonizoon, had run it since 2012 largely from Eastern Europe, which made it difficult for U.S. courts to enforce takedown orders.
The shutdown matters if you relied on Archive.today to preserve articles, social media posts, or other online content that might disappear. The good news is that other services still do this work, though each has different strengths and limitations. Some are run by nonprofits, others by for-profit companies, and a few operate in legal gray areas similar to Archive.today's position.
Key Takeaways
- Archive.today stopped accepting new submissions in 2024 due to legal pressure, though old snapshots remain viewable.
- The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is the largest and most stable alternative, with billions of archived pages dating back to 1996.
- Perma.cc focuses on preserving links for legal and academic use and guarantees archives will stay online for at least 100 years.
- Single-page services like Archivebox let you save pages to your own computer instead of relying on a third-party website.
- No service archives everything — legal restrictions, robots.txt rules, and copyright concerns mean some pages cannot be saved.
The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is the largest replacement
The Wayback Machine, run by the Internet Archive (a San Francisco nonprofit), is the most widely used alternative. It has been archiving web pages since 1996 and holds over 735 billion snapshots. You can search for any URL and see how it looked on different dates. The service is free and does not require an account.
The Wayback Machine has two limitations compared to Archive.today. First, it respects the robots.txt file that website owners use to block automated archiving, so some sites will not be captured. Second, it does not let you create a snapshot on demand the way Archive.today did — instead, it relies on its own crawlers and on pages submitted through the Save Page Now tool, which has a queue and sometimes takes weeks to process. For pages that are already in its database, though, it is the fastest way to find an old version.
The Internet Archive also faces legal challenges, most notably from publishers suing over its Controlled Digital Lending program (which lends out digital copies of books). These lawsuits have not stopped the Wayback Machine from operating, but they show that even large nonprofits cannot archive everything without legal risk.
Perma.cc guarantees long-term preservation for important links
Perma.cc is a nonprofit service created by Harvard Law School and other institutions to preserve links for legal and academic work. When you save a page on Perma.cc, you get a permanent URL that will not change, and the service guarantees to keep the archive online for at least 100 years. This makes it useful for citing sources in legal briefs, court filings, or academic papers where a link might disappear.
Perma.cc is more selective than the Wayback Machine. It does not crawl the entire web — instead, you submit individual links you want preserved. It also respects copyright and will not archive pages that are clearly behind paywalls or marked as private. The service is free for basic use, though organizations can pay for features like bulk uploads and custom branding.
The trade-off is that Perma.cc works best if you know in advance which pages matter to you. It is not a tool for browsing old versions of a website; it is a tool for locking down a specific link so it cannot disappear from under you.
Archivebox lets you build your own archive on your computer
Archivebox is free software you install on your own computer or server. Instead of uploading pages to a third-party website, you download them to your machine. Archivebox saves the full HTML, images, and other media, then lets you search and browse your collection offline. This approach removes the legal and privacy concerns of uploading to a public service.
Setting up Archivebox requires some technical comfort — you need to download the software, run it from the command line, and manage your own storage. It is not a point-and-click tool. But if you want complete control over what you archive and where it lives, it is the most private option. You can also share your Archivebox collection with others by hosting it on a web server you control.
The downside is that Archivebox only archives pages you explicitly tell it to. It will not help you find old versions of pages you did not save beforehand. It is a personal preservation tool, not a public library.
Smaller services fill specific niches
Webrecorder is a nonprofit tool that lets you record your own browsing sessions and replay them later, preserving interactive elements like videos and JavaScript. It works more like a screen recording than a static snapshot, which can capture dynamic content that other tools miss.
Library.io (formerly Webcitation) is a for-profit service that still accepts submissions and issues permanent URLs for archived pages, similar to Perma.cc but with less institutional backing. Archive.is is a separate service from Archive.today (despite the similar name) and continues to operate, though it has faced its own legal challenges and downtime.
None of these smaller services have the scale or longevity guarantees of the Wayback Machine or the institutional backing of Perma.cc. They are useful if you need a specific feature, but they carry more risk of disappearing themselves.
Why some pages cannot be archived no matter which service you use
Every archiving service faces the same legal and technical barriers. Websites can use robots.txt to block automated archiving, and many do. Copyright holders can send takedown notices demanding that archives remove specific pages. Paywalled content, login-required pages, and pages with terms of service that forbid archiving are often skipped by all services.
Social media posts are particularly tricky. Twitter (now X), Instagram, and TikTok actively block archiving bots, so snapshots of posts are often incomplete or missing entirely. Some archiving services have workarounds, but none are perfect. If you want to preserve a social media post long-term, downloading the image or video file to your computer is more reliable than relying on any archiving service.
This means there is no single "best" archive service — the right choice depends on what you are trying to preserve and why.
How to choose which service to use
Use the Wayback Machine if you want to see how a website looked in the past or if you are looking for a page that may have already been archived. It is free, requires no account, and has the largest collection. Start there for most searches.
Use Perma.cc if you are citing a source in a legal document, academic paper, or any context where you need a permanent, may provide-to-exist link. The 100-year preservation may provide matters here.
Use Archivebox if you want to build a personal collection of pages you care about and do not want to rely on any third-party service. This is the most work to set up but gives you the most control.
Use Webrecorder if you need to capture interactive content like videos or JavaScript-heavy pages that static snapshots miss.
For most people, the Wayback Machine handles 90 percent of archiving needs. The others are specialized tools for specific situations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still access pages I saved on Archive.today before it shut down?
Yes. Archive.today's existing snapshots remain online and viewable. The site stopped accepting new submissions in 2024, but the archives that were already saved are still there. You can visit archive.today and search for old URLs to see if they were captured.
Why did Archive.today shut down if the Wayback Machine still operates?
The Wayback Machine is run by a large nonprofit with lawyers and institutional backing. Archive.today was run by a single person operating largely outside U.S. jurisdiction. When publishers and copyright holders sued, Archive.today had fewer resources to fight back. The Wayback Machine faces similar lawsuits but can afford to defend itself.
Can I download an entire website using these services?
The Wayback Machine and Perma.cc do not offer bulk downloads. Archivebox can download pages you specify, but it is not designed for scraping entire sites. If you need to download a full website, tools like Wget or HTTrack are better options, though they have their own legal and technical considerations.
Do any of these services work offline?
Only Archivebox works fully offline — you download pages to your computer and browse them without an internet connection. The Wayback Machine, Perma.cc, and other web-based services require an internet connection to view archives.
Is it legal to archive pages that the website owner does not want archived?
It depends on the jurisdiction and the specific page. Website owners can use robots.txt to request that archiving bots stay away, and most services respect that. Copyright holders can send takedown notices. But archiving for personal use or research is generally protected in many countries. The legal gray area is why Archive.today faced so much pressure — it did not always respect these boundaries.