Arq Backup

Arq is the backup client for people who would rather rent storage than rent a backup service. You point it at a bucket you control — Backblaze B2 and Wasabi are the usual cheap answers, but S3, Google Cloud, an SFTP box or a NAS all work — and it encrypts everything on your Mac before it leaves, so the provider stores blobs it cannot read. Backups run hourly with versioning and retention rules you set, and you can restore a single file from three months ago without pulling the whole set down.

For a few hundred gigabytes, B2 storage costs a few dollars a month, which is why buying the app once tends to beat a flat-rate subscription over any long period. The catch is stated plainly on Haystack's site: $59.99 buys the app plus one year of updates, then updates are $25 a year per computer. Decline and nothing is taken away — you keep and keep using the build you have.

It is priced per computer, so a household with two Macs doubles the number. And a restore only moves as fast as your connection, which is the argument for pairing it with a local clone rather than choosing between them.

If your data fits comfortably in iCloud and you have never wanted a second copy offsite, this is more machinery than you need.