WebCite was an on-demand archive for scholarly references. Gunther Eysenbach conceived it in 1997 so that an author could store the exact version of a page they cited and put a stable WebCite link in the paper. It no longer does that job. The WebCite homepage says "We are currently not accepting archiving requests" and that past snapshots can still be accessed and cited. According to Wikipedia's WebCite entry, new requests stopped sometime between July 9 and 17, 2019, and from about October 29, 2021 to June 24, 2023 no archived content could be viewed at all.
So the question is where to put new citations. A replacement has to save the page now, give you a link that will still resolve in ten years, and come from someone likely to keep it running. The seven picks start with the two services most researchers use, then two smaller public archives, then tools that keep a copy on your own disk. Legal citation is covered in more depth in our Perma.cc alternatives guide.
Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Price | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wayback Machine | Free, instant archive links anyone can open | Free | Web, browser extensions, iOS and Android apps |
| Perma.cc | Formal citations in papers, journals and court filings | Free via registrar; from $10/month or $15 one-time | Web |
| Ghostarchive | A second public copy, including social posts and video | Free | Web |
| ArchiveWeb.page | Recording pages behind logins or clicks into WACZ files | Free, open source | Chromium extension; desktop app for Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Arquivo.pt ArchivePageNow | Recording a browsing session into a national archive | Free | Web |
| archive.today | Pages other archives refuse to crawl | Free | Web |
| ArchiveBox | A self-hosted copy of every source you cite | Free, MIT licence | Docker, Linux, macOS; desktop app |
Wayback Machine
Save Page Now is the closest thing left to WebCite's submit form. You paste a URL, the Internet Archive stores that page together with the images and CSS, and you get a permanent link straight away, as the Save Page Now help page explains. The same button sits in the Internet Archive's extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari and in its iOS and Android apps.
The archive passed one trillion saved pages in October 2025, so a source you cite has a fair chance of an older capture as well. Each archive link carries the capture timestamp in the URL, which gives a reader the access date without a separate note. Saving and viewing are free, with no ads; the Internet Archive runs on donations.
Best for: Anyone who needs a free archive link today and does not want an account for every citation.
Pricing:
- Free to save and to view; funded by donations
Watch out for:
- Site owners can ask the Internet Archive to remove their pages, so a capture you cite is not guaranteed to stay public.
- It does go down. Services came back only on October 13, 2024 after that month's breach, and visitors saw a 'temporarily offline' notice again on November 20, 2025.
Official site: Wayback Machine. Our listing: Wayback Machine.
Perma.cc
Perma.cc was built for the exact problem WebCite set out to solve. Harvard Library Innovation Lab runs it, and the homepage cites the reason: over half the links in US Supreme Court opinions and about 70% of those in academic legal journals no longer work. Each Perma Link points to an unalterable record held in participating libraries' collections.
The Perma.cc accounts page sets the terms. Students, faculty and staff at a registrar library get free accounts, and so do state and federal courts. Everyone else pays per link, either monthly or as one-time packs that never expire. The FAQ adds that you can delete a link within 24 hours and download any archive as a WARC file.
Best for: Authors, editors and clerks who want a citation link backed by libraries rather than a single website.
Pricing:
- Free for members of registrar libraries and for state and federal courts
- Monthly: $10 for 10 links, $25 for 100, $100 for 500
- One-time packs: $15 for 10 links, $30 for 100, $125 for 500
- Firms, publishers and newsrooms: registrar plans by contact
Watch out for:
- Unused links on a monthly plan do not roll over to the next month.
- It preserves only the page you target, not the pages it links to.
Official site: Perma.cc. Our listing: Perma.cc.
Ghostarchive
Ghostarchive describes itself plainly: archive a webpage for scholarly or research purposes. It is free, needs no registration and shows no ads, and it accepts Facebook posts and YouTube videos. Its search takes a domain, a wildcard such as *.github.io/, an exact URL or a URL prefix.
Use it as the second copy of anything important. A citation that pairs a Wayback link with a Ghostarchive link survives the loss or removal of either one.
Best for: Researchers who cite social media posts or videos and want a free backup to the Wayback Machine.
Pricing:
- Free; no paid tiers
Watch out for:
- Some video jobs stall. A Lost Media Wiki forum thread reports YouTube captures stuck on 'Archiving in progress'.
- Keyword search is case sensitive, and the only contact route is a feedback form.
Official site: Ghostarchive.
ArchiveWeb.page
Webrecorder's ArchiveWeb.page records pages as you browse them, so it can save what a crawler never sees: content behind a login, a tab you clicked open, a comment thread you expanded. It runs as an extension in Chrome or another Chromium browser, and as a desktop app for macOS 10.15 or later, Windows and Linux.
Captures export as WARC or WACZ files, and ReplayWeb.page plays them back in a browser with no extension. For a paper, that means you can deposit the WACZ next to your data in a repository and cite it there. The code is open under AGPL-3.0, and version 0.16.2 shipped on April 30, 2026.
Best for: Scholars citing pages that need a login or interaction, who can host the file themselves.
Pricing:
- Free and open source (AGPL-3.0)
Watch out for:
- Archives stay private on your machine until you share them, so there is no public link to paste into a reference list.
- The Autopilot feature page warns that its scrolling behaviors are not always guaranteed to work as expected.
Official site: ArchiveWeb.page.
Arquivo.pt ArchivePageNow
Portugal's national web archive offers its own save button. ArchivePageNow, launched as SavePageNow and built on Webrecorder's pywb, takes an address, opens the page and records everything you click while browsing. When you press Finish you copy the address of the recording, according to the Arquivo.pt help page.
Arquivo.pt is run by FCCN, a unit of Portugal's Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). That puts a public research body behind each recording, which is the kind of backing WebCite never had. Because you click through the page yourself, tabs and menus you open are captured too, which Save Page Now does not do.
Best for: Researchers who want a citation copy held by a public body outside the US.
Pricing:
- Free public service
Watch out for:
- Recordings open only after a few hours, so it cannot give you a link to paste into a draft immediately.
Official site: Arquivo.pt ArchivePageNow.
archive.today
archive.today (also reachable as archive.ph, archive.is and other mirrors) saves two versions of every capture: a working copy of the page and a screenshot rendered at 1,024 pixels wide. It does not obey robots.txt, arguing that it acts as a direct agent of the human user, so it stores many pages that other archives skip.
It is free and needs no account. Mostly text and images are kept (video only for some sites), the snapshots are not stored as WARC files, and the owner is largely anonymous, with no institution behind the service.
Best for: A quick backup capture of a news article or a page that blocks the Internet Archive.
Pricing:
- Free; no paid features, donations only
Watch out for:
- English Wikipedia banned archive.today links on February 20, 2026, after its CAPTCHA page was used in a DDoS attack and editors found evidence of altered captures, as Wikipedia's archive.today article records.
- The FBI subpoenaed its domain registrar on October 30, 2025 to identify the owner, and Russia blocked it on March 23, 2026.
Official site: archive.today. Our listing: archive.today.
ArchiveBox
For a long project, such as a thesis or a book, ArchiveBox keeps your own copy of every source. Feed it a list of URLs, a bookmarks export or an RSS feed, and it writes a SingleFile HTML page, a PDF, a PNG screenshot and a WARC for each one, plus media through yt-dlp. Version 0.9.77 reached PyPI on October 27, 2026, and the code is MIT licensed.
By default it also submits each URL to the Wayback Machine, so one run gives you a local file and a public link to cite. That behaviour can be switched off for confidential material.
Best for: Authors who want a private, searchable copy of every cited page alongside public archive links.
Pricing:
- Free and open source (MIT); you pay for the machine and the storage
Watch out for:
- It is server software. The project recommends Docker Compose, and moving to the 0.9 line means a storage migration with a full backup first.
- Archiving logged-in pages means handing it your cookies, which the docs flag as a security risk.
Official site: ArchiveBox. Our listing: ArchiveBox.
How to choose
| If you need | Pick |
|---|---|
| A free archive link to paste into a reference list today | Wayback Machine |
| A citation link backed by libraries, for a journal or a court | Perma.cc |
| A second public copy of a social post or video | Ghostarchive |
| A page behind a login or a click | ArchiveWeb.page |
| A copy held by a European public institution | Arquivo.pt ArchivePageNow |
| A page whose robots.txt blocks other archives | archive.today |
| Your own copy of every source in a long project | ArchiveBox |
When to stay with WebCite
You cannot stay with WebCite for new work, because it takes no new archives. Keep your existing WebCite links in published papers, since the WebCite homepage still says old snapshots can be accessed and cited. When you revise a paper or build a new reference list, add a Wayback Machine or Perma.cc link next to each old WebCite link, so a reader has a fallback when WebCite is offline.
Frequently asked questions
Is WebCite still working?
Only for old material. WebCite stopped accepting archiving requests in July 2019 and now serves past snapshots alone. Wikipedia notes that the site is often offline without explanation, sometimes for long periods, so a WebCite link in an older paper may or may not open on a given day.
What replaced WebCite for academic citations?
Most authors now use the Wayback Machine because it is free and needs no account, and Perma.cc when a journal, law review or court wants a library-backed link. Perma.cc is free if your university library is a registrar, so ask the library before paying the $10 monthly plan.
How do I find a page I cited through WebCite?
Try the original WebCite link first. If the site is down, search the original page address in the Wayback Machine, archive.today and Ghostarchive, since popular pages are often captured by more than one archive. If none has it, cite the page as no longer available and give the date you last saw it.
Can I cite an archive.today link instead?
You can, but pair it with a second archive. English Wikipedia removed archive.today links in February 2026 over evidence of altered pages, and the service has no institution behind it. A Wayback or Perma.cc link next to it keeps the citation checkable.
Is WebCite a citation generator?
No. WebCite stored copies of web pages; it never formatted references. If you searched for a tool that turns a URL into an APA or MLA reference, use a reference manager such as Zotero, then add an archive link from one of the services above.
