Best hubiC Alternatives 2020: We Bid an Unfond Adieu

Au revoir, hubiC. In case you hadn’t heard, the France-based cloud storage provider has decided to shut down shop. C’est fini, pretty much.

Parent company OVH made the announcement recently that hubiC would no longer be accepting new users. Existing users, however few they may be, won’t be kicked out just yet. However, with no more updates coming and already nearly nonexistent customer support, the time to find a viable hubiC alternative is now.

While never really coming close to competing with the best cloud storage solutions, hubiC’s offer of 25GB of free cloud storage and OVH’s otherwise strong reputation certainly nabbed some attention. By OVH’s own admission, however, due to other interests, the company just never had the time to keep improving what, seven years ago, was a modestly promising product.

Coming up, we’ll give you a rundown of a handful of cloud storage options to replace your hubiC account. Given that many users of hubiC were likely attracted to the service place as a Dropbox alternative, we’ll particularly focus on some niche options that we think you’ll like, headed by pCloud.

First, though, since there’s nothing more fun than beating a dead horse, let’s talk some more about why hubiC bit the big one.

pCloud Review

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Best HubiC Alternatives  2020

IDrive Review

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What Led to the hubiC Shutdown

Read our hubiC review, and you’ll quickly see we had our issues with it as a cloud storage solution. While OVH is a global power in the cloud industry, the company clearly didn’t put much effort into making hubiC truly worthwhile.

Maybe the best indicator of OVH’s disinterest was the fact that there was no direct support channel for hubiC users: no telephone support, no live chat and not even an email address. The only means of getting help was a user forum that was never used.

Then again, 25GB of free storage is an offer you won’t find topped elsewhere, now that MEGA’s axed its 50GB offering. Even more impressive was hubiC’s 10TB storage plan for a bit over $50 per year. That’s ten times the amount of storage you get with Dropbox (read our Dropbox review) for less than half the cost.

Turns out, however, that there’s a reason hubiC was throwing so much cloud storage at users. Multiple reasons, in fact: slow file synchronization, buggy mobile apps and poor file-sharing features top the list.

Adding to the troubles, hubiC just wasn’t that secure. Not only did the service not offer zero-knowledge encryption — which is itself a common shortcoming — hubiC didn’t even encrypt data at-rest in the cloud.

For a world in which cybercrime is on the rise, that’s a fairly unforgivable sin in today’s cloud storage market (although it’s one that both OneDrive Personal and Amazon Drive commit).

Other missing features included two-factor authentication, file previews, versioning, deleted-file retention and webDAV support: all features you’d expect to find in a modern cloud storage solution.

The end result — that is to say, hubiC’s end — was one that, frankly, we’ve kind of been expecting here at CommQueR.com for a few years now. Granted, we also figured online backup provider Degoo (read our Degoo review) would fold first, but we still count this as a “told you so.”

The Best hubiC Alternatives

There’s no use crying over spilled milk. While there aren’t nearly as many good cloud storage solutions as we wish there were, there are still more than enough to find a suitable hubiC alternative.

Given that many hubiC users probably stuck with the service for the free storage, you might want to give our best free cloud storage article a read next. In fact, hubiC is mentioned in that article, though as a “dishonorable” mention, mostly on account of its lack of file encryption and the fact that the company never replied to our emails.

Additionally, if its a bargain you’re in search of, our best deals in cloud storage article is another article worth checking out. You’ll find many of the same options listed below, however, starting with our top pick as a hubiC replacement, pCloud.

1. pCloud

Because hubiC took such a careless approach to safeguarding files, we decided to start off our list with a service that mostly does security right. Any files stored with pCloud are encrypted both in transit and at rest using AES-256, an encryption protocol that’s widely considered the most secure in use, at least commercially.

Better yet, with pCloud you can purchase zero-knowledge encryption as an add-on. Called Crypto, the add-on does cost extra (see our pCloud review to find out how much), but it’s worth it. Zero-knowledge encryption means that your files are secured from the time they leave your computer to the time you download them again, and nobody but you can decrypt them.

pCloud doesn’t give you nearly as much free cloud storage as hubiC, but the 10GB it does grant you is pretty good, regardless. pCloud has a decent referral program, too, which will grant you an additional gigabyte per signup, but if you don’t feel like putting in the work, the price plans are affordable, too.

You can signup for 500GB of cloud storage for just $5 a month or get a whole 2TB for $8. pCloud also now offers free lifetime plans for those that are really hooked on the service.

While not as generous a deal as hubiC in terms of money for storage, pCloud provides most of the features that hubiC was missing, leading to its demise. That includes file versioning and file previews. You can even stream music and movies with pCloud, making it our favorite cloud storage for photos and videos.

Our only caution with pCloud is that the service doesn’t offer two-factor authentication. If that’s a concern, you may want to consider our third-place pick, Sync.com, a service we consider the best zero-knowledge cloud storage service overall.

pCloud Review

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2. MEGA

For those that prize free storage above all, MEGA might fit the bill. While the service no longer offers 50GB of free storage like it used to, the 15GB it does give you is better than most, especially now that hubiC is no longer in the running.

With referrals and by completing certain actions like downloading the MEGA  Android app, you can earn even more, though any bonus storage disappears after a year.

Overall, MEGA’s a service that we’ve gone back and forth on here at CommQueR.com. On one hand, some of its features seem a bit clumsily implemented, like the file-sharing mechanics. However, MEGA also provides both strong security and nice file-management features, overall.

We recently updated our MEGA review to skew towards favorable, mostly because we finally decided it was time to give MEGA a pass on its former ties to the controversial Kim Dotcom and the instability he came to represent.

One of the best things about MEGA, aside from generous free storage, is that, unlike with pCloud, you don’t have to pay extra for zero-knowledge encryption: it’s a standard feature of the service. However, we also think pCloud provides better value, at least on the low end.

1TB of storage with MEGA costs over $3 dollars more than 2TB of pCloud storage. For those that need more space, however, MEGA also offers 4TB and 8TB plans that are cheaper than you’ll find anywhere else now that hubiC’s sun is setting.

Like pCloud, MEGA disappoints by not offering two-factor authentication, but it’s still more secure than hubiC, so there’s that. Other advantages of the service over hubiC include file previews, music and video streaming and file versioning.

MEGA Review

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3. Sync.com

In many ways, Sync.com is the best recommendation on this list of hubiC alternatives. Like pCloud, 2TB of storage costs just $8 a month. Unlike pCloud, zero-knowledge encryption is free, as discussed in our Sync.com review.

Overall, in fact, we’re fairly confident in our assessment that Sync.com is the most secure cloud storage service available today, at least for home use. In addition to bulletproof encryption, Sync.com takes a careful approach to file sharing that we really like.

That approach includes options like password protection and expiry dates for links, which are rare enough among cloud providers. On top of that, you can also set link download limits and provide upload links that others can use to add files to your storage account. Such features are why we rank Sync.com the best cloud storage for file sharing.

On the downside, you only get 5GB of free space with Sync.com, although the company does let you make unlimited referrals for an extra 1GB each. Also, because Sync.com is so locked down, file previews and media streaming aren’t possible from its web UI.

Sync.com Review

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4. IDrive

We’re including IDrive on this list even though it’s more online backup than cloud storage. The reason for that is that hubiC also had online backup capabilities, even though it was really terrible overall for that purpose. (If you’re not clear on the subject already, we have an article detailing the differences between online backup and cloud storage).

IDrive provides 2TB of online backup and an additional 2TB of cloud storage for around $5 a month. That’s a great deal on paper.

IDrive also comes with many of the features that make for good online backup and cloud storage, making it maybe the best “crossover” service out there. For online backup, that includes backup scheduling, block-level file copying, external-drive backup and other features that hubiC lacked.

For cloud storage, it includes both file sync and file sharing features. IDrive is also more secure than hubiC, providing an option for private, end-to-end encryption, as well as two-factor authentication. We cover all of these features in our IDrive review. If online backup is your main need, you might be better off reading our best online backup guide first, however.

You can try IDrive out with a 5GB free account, which will be enough for cloud storage but probably won’t help with backup needs.

IDrive Review

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5. Google Drive (soon to be Google One)

Google Drive breaks the theme of security that we’ve focused on some with our first four picks. For one, Google Drive doesn’t offer native private encryption. Also, as you can read about in our Google Drive review, there’s a very good chance that Google’s marketing department will scan your files to help build a profile to better target you with relevant ads.

On top of all that, throughout the past decade or so, Google has often been linked to the NSA.

However, Google does at least encrypt data at-rest, unlike hubiC. Additionally, the service is compatible with third-party zero-knowledge encryption software, notably Boxcryptor, which we cover in a separate Boxcryptor review.

That means you can make it secure if you don’t mind putting in a little work. Doing so is probably worth it with Google Drive more than most other mainstream cloud storage options thanks to excellent collaboration integrations like Google Docs.

Google will also give you 15GB of Google Drive storage just for creating a Google account, which you pretty much have to do if you’re an Android user. For those that need more storage, Google has a range of price plans, including a $2 100GB plan.

While 1TB of storage currently costs $10 a month, Google Drive is being rebranded to Google One over the course of 2018, during which time it’s going to double that offering to 2TB. That makes it one of the better deals out there, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see more cloud storage services follow in hubiC’s path because of it (see you later, Dropbox?).

Google Drive Review

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Honorable Mentions

There are other cloud storage options out there to replace hubiC, of course. For those that liked the fact that hubiC was based in the privacy-friendly EU, which now protects citizens with the newly-minted GDPR, Tresorit is a great, albeit expensive choice. It matches Sync.com in most ways other than value, in fact, as you can read about in our Tresorit review.

Another option is to go truly alternative by selecting choose-your-own-storage service Storage Made Easy. SME provides file sync and sharing software but lets you pick your cloud of choice to pair it with.

As discussed in our Storage Made Easy review, options for that include cloud infrastructure services like Amazon S3 and Rackspace Cloud Files. Budget-friendly Wasabi is supported as well, a cloud IaaS we tackle in our complete Wasabi review.

Tresorit Review

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Final Thoughts

Choosing a new cloud storage service to replace hubiC is the fun part. While you won’t find many options out there with 25GB of free storage and you won’t find any offering 10TB of storage for the cost of a paperback novel, you will find many services that are much more capable than hubiC, and even willing to answer your emails, too.

The harder part may be getting your data from hubiC to your new storage of choice, especially if you intend to sign up for more than one in replacement. For that part, we recommend giving MultCloud a try.

MultCloud is a cloud-to-cloud transfer service that we recently reviewed in depth (read our MultCloud review) that works with hubiC and several other cloud storage options, including our top choice to replace hubiC, pCloud (but not Sync.com, unfortunately).

With that, we bid hubiC a mildly ambivalent farewell. We’d lament the end of an era, but well … Maybe we’ll just mourn what could have been in this case.

Feel free to leave your own suggestions for hubiC alternatives below. Thanks for reading.