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GetProofAnchor
Verifiable web evidence
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Honest comparison

When the opposing party challenges your evidence, someone other than you must verify it.

This page compares GetProofAnchor with the main alternatives — Pagefreezer, Page Vault, Wayback Machine and traditional notarial deed. No tricks, no hiding the weak spots.

The principle we follow

Evidence whose authenticity can only be verified through the vendor's portal isn't evidence. It's a dependency. That's why GetProofAnchor is built on open standards: eIDAS qualified timestamp, OpenTimestamps on Bitcoin, SHA-256 hash chain. Whatever we did, a forensic expert can re-check independently — even without us.

Nine dimensions, five tools

Every row is an objectively testable property. If you find an error, let us know — we'll fix it.

Our solution
GetProofAnchor
  • ✓ Verification independent of the vendor: Yes — open-source CLI, runs locally
  • ✓ Qualified eIDAS timestamp (Art. 42): Yes — accredited QTSP
  • ✓ Publicly verifiable blockchain anchor: Yes — OpenTimestamps on Bitcoin
  • ✓ Survives vendor shutdown: Yes — anchors live outside us
  • ✓ Open standards and open-source verifier: Yes — MIT licence, open-source CLI
  • ✓ Cross-border EU legal effect: Yes — eIDAS applies across the EU
  • ✓ Speed to acquire a single piece of evidence: Seconds — web app, API, extension
  • ✓ Cost per evidence: Affordable — pay-per-use, no minimums
  • ! Bulk web monitoring: Partial — via API, no scheduler
Enterprise SaaS
Pagefreezer
  • ✗ Verification independent of the vendor: No — requires their portal
  • ✗ Qualified eIDAS timestamp (Art. 42): No
  • ✗ Publicly verifiable blockchain anchor: No
  • ✗ Survives vendor shutdown: No — verification tied to portal
  • ✗ Open standards and open-source verifier: No — proprietary
  • ! Cross-border EU legal effect: Depends on local legal recognition
  • ! Speed to acquire a single piece of evidence: Days for setup, then automatic
  • ✗ Cost per evidence: Enterprise contract, thousands €/year
  • ✓ Bulk web monitoring: Yes — that's their core product
US legal
Page Vault
  • ✗ Verification independent of the vendor: No — requires their system
  • ✗ Qualified eIDAS timestamp (Art. 42): No — US-focused
  • ✗ Publicly verifiable blockchain anchor: No
  • ✗ Survives vendor shutdown: No — verification tied to portal
  • ✗ Open standards and open-source verifier: No — proprietary
  • ! Cross-border EU legal effect: US standard — typically requires expert testimony in EU
  • ✓ Speed to acquire a single piece of evidence: Minutes — has a browser extension
  • ! Cost per evidence: Subscription, US pricing
  • ✓ Bulk web monitoring: Yes — bulk capture feature
Public archive
Wayback Machine
  • ! Verification independent of the vendor: Depends on archive — records can be removed
  • ✗ Qualified eIDAS timestamp (Art. 42): No
  • ✗ Publicly verifiable blockchain anchor: No
  • ! Survives vendor shutdown: Records can be removed on request
  • ! Open standards and open-source verifier: Partly — WARC is an open format
  • ✗ Cross-border EU legal effect: No — no normative status
  • ! Speed to acquire a single piece of evidence: Seconds, but not forensic-grade
  • ✓ Cost per evidence: Free — but not forensic
  • ✗ Bulk web monitoring: No
Traditional
Notarial deed
  • ✓ Verification independent of the vendor: Yes — notary keeps a sealed file
  • ✓ Qualified eIDAS timestamp (Art. 42): Yes — notarial date
  • ✗ Publicly verifiable blockchain anchor: No
  • ✓ Survives vendor shutdown: Yes — paper file
  • ✗ Open standards and open-source verifier: No — tied to notarial law
  • ! Cross-border EU legal effect: Requires apostille or foreign legalisation
  • ✗ Speed to acquire a single piece of evidence: Hours to days — requires appointment
  • ✗ Cost per evidence: Hundreds to thousands of € per visit
  • ✗ Bulk web monitoring: No — fundamentally infeasible
✓ Yes ! Partial / with caveats ✗ No

Where each tool genuinely shines

No tool is best at everything. Here's the fair side: where they have the edge, and where we do.

Enterprise SaaS

Pagefreezer (Smarsh)

B2B, USA/CA

Robust enterprise platform for bulk archiving of web and social media. Targeted at finance, healthcare, government and regulated industries (FINRA, SEC, GDPR compliance).

Where they have the edge
  • • Scheduled monitoring of thousands of URLs with automated archiving
  • • Certifications for FINRA/SEC compliance (US)
  • • Robust enterprise integrations, SSO, audit trail
Where we have the edge
  • • Qualified eIDAS timestamp — across the EU legally equivalent to notarial date certification
  • • Blockchain anchor (Bitcoin) as an independent second layer — Pagefreezer doesn't have this
  • • Evidence verifiable without us — when we stop existing, your evidence still works
US legal

Page Vault

B2B, USA

Specialised forensic web-capture tool for US legal practice. Well-established in US courts, integrates with eDiscovery workflows.

Where they have the edge
  • • Established brand in US legal market, recognised by US courts
  • • Bulk capture for multi-document cases
  • • Integrates with eDiscovery workflows (Relativity, Everlaw)
Where we have the edge
  • • Qualified eIDAS timestamp — for EU court proceedings, a critical difference
  • • Bitcoin anchor and SHA-256 hash chain — Page Vault relies on proprietary hashes in their system
  • • Open-source verification tool — Page Vault requires their portal
Public archive

Wayback Machine (archive.org)

Public, free

Public internet archive run by the non-profit Internet Archive. Valuable for historical research and journalism, but never designed as legal evidence.

Where they have the edge
  • • Free and publicly accessible
  • • Wide historical coverage (since 1996)
  • • Unmatched for historical research
Where we have the edge
  • • Forensic-grade — Wayback has no qualified timestamp or signature
  • • Our records can't be deleted — Wayback records can be removed on request (GDPR, DMCA)
  • • Complete package (load video, HAR, TLS, DNS) — Wayback stores only HTML and images
Traditional approach

Notarial deed of fact

High legal weight

A notary personally visits the website, describes the state, prints, certifies. In civil-law countries, a notarial deed has the highest possible authenticity and is extremely hard to challenge.

Where they have the edge
  • • Highest possible authenticity in civil-law systems (notarial deed is a public document)
  • • Paper file outlasts all technological change
  • • For exceptionally sensitive cases (e.g. inheritance) the notary is unimpeachable
Where we have the edge
  • • Cost — a notarial deed costs hundreds to thousands of €; our evidence is a fraction
  • • Speed — notary requires an appointment; our evidence is ready in seconds
  • • Scalability — you can produce 100 pieces of evidence per day; with a notary, infeasible
The fair side

When GetProofAnchor isn't the right choice

If you fall into one of these situations, we'll recommend an alternative — even if it means you won't use us.

Bulk monitoring

You need to archive thousands of pages daily, automatically

If you need scheduled archiving of an entire competitor's website or dozens of social-media accounts, Pagefreezer or Smarsh are built precisely for that. Our API handles medium volumes; for large-scale scheduled monitoring we don't yet have a dedicated scheduler.

Maximum authenticity

A case where there must be zero shadow of doubt

For inheritance proceedings or disputes with extreme value (tens of millions and up), we recommend requesting a notarial deed alongside our evidence. The combination delivers absolute certainty — our evidence brings technical verifiability, the notary brings public-law authority.

Historical research only

You just want to know what a website looked like in 2010

If this isn't a court case and you simply care about a historical state of a website, Wayback Machine is free and has unmatched historical coverage. Inadequate for forensic use, excellent for research.

Try for yourself what evidence that outlives its vendor looks like

Create a sample piece of evidence for free. Then download it, open the manifest in any text editor, and verify it yourself — without us being involved.

Create free evidence Download sample evidence (ZIP) Open verification tool

All comparisons based on publicly available information about each tool (May 2026). If you find an error, write to hello@getproofanchor.com — we'll fix it.