Written by the people who make Copy Shelter, so read it accordingly. Time Machine is genuinely better at some of this and those rows say so.
| Copy Shelter | Time Machine | |
|---|---|---|
| Space needed | About what your files take, less what repeats | Refuses a disk it thinks is too small, by whole disk rather than by what is on it |
| Where it can go | Any folder: a drive, a NAS, or a cloud folder you already pay for | A disk it formats, or a supported network share |
| More than one copy | As many as you like, each checked separately | Several disks, used in rotation |
| Knowing it worked | Reads the backup back on a schedule and says what it found | Verifies network backups occasionally and tells you little |
| Encryption | Always, and not a setting: there is no way to make an unencrypted one | A tick box when you choose the disk, with a password you set then |
| Restoring a whole Mac | Restores your files onto a fresh macOS | Migration Assistant restores from it directly during setup |
| Cost | Free for one location, paid for more | Included with macOS |
| Local snapshots | None: it backs up to somewhere else | Keeps hourly snapshots on the Mac itself, useful before a backup runs |
Running both is a reasonable thing to do. Time Machine on a drive at home and Copy Shelter to a cloud folder covers more than either does alone, and Copy Shelter never touches Time Machine’s disk.
Augustus Travels LLC.