ArchiveBridge vs Vaultastic: SharePoint-Native Archiving on Storage You Own

Vaultastic is a capable, broad archiving platform. It came up through email archiving and now spans a range of data sources, with storage bundled into the service. If you want one general archive to point several data types at, that breadth is the pitch.

ArchiveBridge is deliberately narrow. It does one thing: archive cold SharePoint Online files to cut storage cost, and reclaim the quota. Because it isn’t trying to be a general archive, it goes deep where SharePoint-specific problems actually live — SharePoint quota reclamation, per-file permission snapshots, checked-out and retention-locked handling, and restore stubs that land the file back on its exact original SharePoint path.

For a business whose problem is specifically “our SharePoint storage bill keeps climbing,” a sharp SharePoint tool beats a broad platform that treats SharePoint as one source among many.

This is the biggest structural difference. With Vaultastic, archived data lives inside the vendor’s storage model — storage is part of the SaaS plan, priced and held by them.

ArchiveBridge never holds your data. It archives into object storage you own:

• Your bucket, your keys, your region. Default is Wasabi, an existing CRS storage vendor, but ArchiveBridge is S3-compatible — AWS S3, Backblaze B2, Cloudflare R2 and MinIO all work.
• No storage lock-in. Your archived files sit in standard object storage under your account. If you ever stop using ArchiveBridge, your data doesn’t leave with a vendor.
• No markup. “Your own bucket, your own keys, your region — ArchiveBridge never marks up storage.” You pay Wasabi’s rate (≈ AUD $0.01–$0.016/GB/month, no egress fees) directly, not a resold SaaS storage tier.
• Australian residency. Wasabi’s Sydney and Melbourne regions keep archived data onshore.

Owning the storage layer also changes the economics: object storage at a twentieth of the SharePoint rate is where the real saving comes from, and you capture all of it.

Because ArchiveBridge actually deletes the SharePoint original to reclaim quota, it treats that deletion with real caution. The sequence is fixed: download → SHA-256 hash → upload → verify the hash matches → only then delete, leaving a restore stub. “We delete nothing we haven’t verified.”

The compliance guardrails are built for Microsoft 365 specifically:

• Purview-aware. Retention labels, litigation holds and eDiscovery holds are automatically detected and excluded — anything under hold is quarantined and never touched.
• Permission fidelity. A per-file permission snapshot is captured at archive time, so restored files return with the right access.
• Auditability. Every action — scan, copy, verify, delete, stub, skip — is written to an append-only, exportable audit log you control.
• Safe-by-default routing. Files with unique permissions, or that are checked-out or retention-locked, route to a manual-review queue rather than being archived automatically.

Vaultastic has retention and eDiscovery capabilities on its own platform; the distinction is that ArchiveBridge’s controls are wired directly into Microsoft 365’s own hold and permission model, and give you that audit trail independently.

ArchiveBridge is MSP-first by design, not as an afterthought:

• True multi-tenancy — an n-level account tree (distributor → MSP → customer), with billing that rolls up the tree, rather than a flat MSP-to-tenant list.
• Margin billing on one screen — an inline cost / charge / margin table lets you set your storage margin per client and see it without spreadsheet back-calc.
• White-label per-client branding.
• One-click onboarding — a Keepit-style Microsoft admin-consent flow, no GUID pasting or per-tenant app registration.
• Storage margin too — because every deployment points at a bucket, every client is also a Wasabi opportunity.

And it’s Australian. ArchiveBridge is built and supported in Australia by the CRS team, data can stay in Wasabi’s Sydney or Melbourne regions, and support is local rather than an offshore SaaS queue. For CRS partners already reselling CentreStack / UFSConnect, ArchiveBridge stub notes even reference the customer’s CentreStack portal and drive letter so archived files stay reachable from the mapped drive. See the MSP surfaces at MSP platforms and the partner programme.

ArchiveBridge is Cloud Ready Solutions’ own product — CRS controls the roadmap, pricing and partner programme, and it’s early access with per-engagement pricing and no long lock-in.

The starting point is a free, read-only scan: grant a Microsoft Entra app scoped to Sites.Read.All only and ArchiveBridge returns your exact reclaimable GB and dollar figure in minutes — no sales call, nothing moved. Consent is two-stage and least-privilege — the read-only scan app first, a separate write-access app only if you choose to archive — and both are visible in your own Entra admin centre.

CRS supplies the tool (priced per terabyte archived, not per seat), the Wasabi storage layer with Australian residency, and local support. If you also run Keepit for Microsoft 365 backup, keep it — Keepit is backup (recovery from loss and ransomware) and ArchiveBridge is archive (cutting storage cost by moving cold data out). Different jobs that work together.

See also: ArchiveBridge vs Microsoft 365 Archive.