Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

HTTrack VS Waybackpack

Compare HTTrack VS Waybackpack and see what are their differences

HTTrack logo HTTrack

HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.

Waybackpack logo Waybackpack

Download the entire Wayback Machine archive for a given URL
  • HTTrack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-24
  • Waybackpack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09

HTTrack features and specs

  • Free and Open Source
    HTTrack is completely free to use and its source code is available for modification and redistribution, making it an accessible option for a wide range of users.
  • Cross-Platform
    HTTrack is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS, allowing users to utilize the tool regardless of their operating system.
  • Customizable
    The tool provides a variety of options for customizing the download process, such as adjusting the download speed, depth, and filtering certain file types or URLs.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    HTTrack offers a graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies the web scraping process, even for users with minimal technical expertise.
  • Offline Browsing
    Users can download entire websites for offline browsing, which is particularly useful in low-bandwidth environments or for archival purposes.

Possible disadvantages of HTTrack

  • Legal and Ethical Concerns
    Downloading entire websites can violate terms of service and copyright laws. Users must ensure they have permission to scrape the content.
  • Resource Intensive
    HTTrack can consume significant bandwidth and disk space, affecting both the user's machine and the target website’s server, which can become a burden for sites with heavy traffic.
  • Complexity in Advanced Use
    While the basic functions are user-friendly, advanced customizations and troubleshooting can be complex and may require technical knowledge.
  • Incomplete or Broken Downloads
    Depending on the website's structure, HTTrack can sometimes fail to download all resources correctly, leading to incomplete or broken pages.
  • Security Risks
    Downloading and storing entire websites locally can pose security risks, especially if malicious scripts or malware are inadvertently downloaded.

Waybackpack features and specs

  • Access to Archived Websites
    Waybackpack allows users to download archived versions of websites from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, enabling access to website content that might no longer be available online.
  • Customizable Date Range
    Users can specify a date range to find specific snapshot versions of a website, making it easier to retrieve and analyze specific changes in web content over time.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, Waybackpack offers transparency and can be modified or extended by developers to suit their specific needs or contribute improvements to the community.
  • Ease of Use
    Waybackpack provides a command-line interface that simplifies the process of accessing and downloading web archives, making it user-friendly for people comfortable with command-line operations.

Possible disadvantages of Waybackpack

  • Limited to Wayback Machine
    Waybackpack is specifically designed to work with the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, limiting its utility for users who need access to archived content from other sources.
  • Technical Requirement
    The tool requires users to have a basic understanding of command-line operations, which can be a barrier for non-technical users who might prefer a graphical user interface.
  • Potential for Incomplete Archives
    The quality and completeness of archived pages depend on the Wayback Machine's crawls, potentially leading to missing or incomplete data for certain sites or pages.
  • Rate Limits
    Users may encounter rate limitations imposed by the Wayback Machine's servers, which could affect the time it takes to retrieve large amounts of data.

Analysis of HTTrack

Overall verdict

  • HTTrack is generally considered a good tool for its intended purpose of website mirroring. It is reliable, user-friendly, and effective for offline browsing. However, users should ensure they have the proper permissions to copy website content.

Why this product is good

  • HTTrack is a widely-used tool for downloading websites to a local directory, enabling users to navigate and browse offline. It's popular due to its ease of use, functionality, and support for various web pages, including static and dynamic content.

Recommended for

  • Web developers and designers who want to analyze or test websites locally
  • Students conducting research on website structures and content
  • Users who need offline access to websites for travel or in areas with limited internet connectivity

HTTrack videos

LABS 5 Mirroring Website Using HTTrack Web Site Copier REVIEW

More videos:

  • Review - HakTip - Mirror Websites with HTTrack
  • Tutorial - How to clone any website||How to copy all webpage of a website httrack

Waybackpack videos

No Waybackpack videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to HTTrack and Waybackpack)
Utilities
100 100%
0% 0
Web App
0 0%
100% 100
Download Manager
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare HTTrack and Waybackpack

HTTrack Reviews

15 Best Httrack Alternatives Offline Browser Utility
It offers features such as copying entire websites, selecting specific files to copy, and setting of download limits to manage bandwidth usage. However, WebHTTrack is less customizable than HTTrack, lacking some advanced customization options.
15 Best Website Downloaders & Website Copier – Save website locally to read offline
The HTTrack Website Copier will help you build a local copy of a website by recursively looking out for URLs on the site, downloading pages, and other site assets (images, CSS, and JS files) until there is no new URL to be crawled.
8 Best HTTrack Alternatives and Similar Software
Without a doubt, HTTrack is a fantastic program, however, if you want something comparable, you may try some utilities below. These 8 HTTrack alternatives run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Waybackpack Reviews

We have no reviews of Waybackpack yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Waybackpack should be more popular than HTTrack. It has been mentiond 3 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

HTTrack mentions (2)

  • Self Hosted Server For Multiple Types Media
    I Use httrack.com software to download my websites. I am aware of the following software: Ubooquity, TrueNas, Kavita, Plex, MediaMonkey, Jellyfin and MusicBrainzPicard. Source: over 2 years ago
  • How to make RSS download further into the past?
    - I do get the entire text through RSS successfully. - Turns out InoReader caches everything and will never delete it which is why they have it fetched so far back.. - I tried httrack.com without success. - I'm thinking about someone coding something to download each feed post as a PDF, which InoReader gives as a download option for single items. Source: almost 4 years ago

Waybackpack mentions (3)

  • People who've received a black bar on Hacker News
    Thank you! But the script but the only thing that really deserves credit is Jeremy Singer-Vine's https://github.com/jsvine/waybackpack library. Pretty much made this a very straightforward task. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Upgrading from Debian Jessie to Bullseye after nearly 30 years
    > Is there some straightforward way to list all of archive.org's snapshots (of a particular site) without a javascript-enabled browser? I use https://github.com/jsvine/waybackpack.
      $ waybackpack --list https://diziet.dreamwidth.org/11840.html.
    - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Wayback Machine Downloader – Download an Entire Website from the Wayback Machine
    Which paid services are you referring to? It is likely that these services aren't distributing the projects they are based on, if so, then they are in compliance with the licenses of the open source projects, which don't require attribution unless you distribute them. This project started in 2015 btw. Another similar project called waybackpack started in 2016. There are probably more projects. IMO... - Source: Hacker News / almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing HTTrack and Waybackpack, you can also consider the following products

SiteSucker - SiteSucker is a Macintosh application that automatically downloads Web sites from the Internet.

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WebCopy - Cyotek WebCopy is a free tool for copying full or partial websites locally onto your harddisk for offline viewing.

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