Looking for an AvePoint Alternative for SharePoint Archiving?

Three Reasons Enterprise IT Teams Choose Squirrel Over AvePoint for SharePoint Archiving

Your archived data lands in your own Azure Blob Storage — not ours

Squirrel connects to your Microsoft 365 tenant and processes data through SmiKar’s secure Squirrel appliance. Archived documents are written directly into your own Azure Blob Storage account in your own Azure tenant. Your data never sits in SmiKar infrastructure — it goes straight into storage you own and control.

AvePoint Opus stores archived content in AvePoint-hosted Azure storage by default. Their Bring Your Own Storage option, which puts data into your own storage account, is priced higher per user per year than their standard plan.

For organisations in financial services, healthcare, government, or any sector with data residency requirements — paying extra to keep your own data in your own storage is a difficult position to justify to a compliance team. With Squirrel your archived data lands in your own Azure tenant as standard.

A focused setup engagement, not a drawn-out provisioning process

AvePoint’s own documentation recommends professional services for initial setup and configuration of AvePoint Opus. Their onboarding process involves a planning workshop, a provisioning phase, and a follow-up check-in four to six weeks later. Professional services are priced separately on application.

Squirrel includes a professional setup engagement to configure the environment correctly from day one. Our team works with you to get everything configured, tested, and running. Most enterprises are archiving within days of starting the engagement — not weeks into a provisioning process that has barely begun.
When your SharePoint storage warning is flashing at 95% capacity, the speed of that difference matters.

Purpose-built for SharePoint, not a platform trying to do everything

AvePoint Opus is an information lifecycle management platform covering SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, file servers, social media, physical records, and more. That breadth comes with corresponding complexity — multiple modules to purchase, a pricing structure that varies by user count and data volume across several components, and a substantial minimum commitment before the platform is operational.

Squirrel is purpose-built for one thing: SharePoint Online archiving. It does that one thing exceptionally well. The product is simpler to configure, faster to deploy, and easier for IT teams to manage on an ongoing basis. If your requirement is specifically SharePoint Online storage cost reduction a specialist tool built for that exact problem will outperform a broad platform every time.

Squirrel vs AvePoint Opus: Feature Comparison

Which Solution is Right for Your Organisation?

Choose Squirrel if:

• Your primary requirement is reducing SharePoint Online storage costs
• You need archived data stored in your own Azure Blob Storage with no third-party data retention
• You want to be archiving within days not weeks
• You need departed user Microsoft 365 data archiving alongside SharePoint archiving
• Your environment is Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online focused
• You want predictable straightforward pricing without multiple module purchases
• You need Microsoft Copilot to remain effective across archived content via Nutshell AI stub summaries

AvePoint Opus may be a better fit if:

• You need to archive email, file servers, social media, or physical records alongside SharePoint
• You need a single platform vendor that also covers backup, migration, and governance across your entire Microsoft 365 estate
• You already use AvePoint for backup or migration and want a single vendor relationship

We would rather help you make the right decision than win a deal that is not the right fit. If your requirement is specifically SharePoint Online archiving with data sovereignty, fast deployment, and straightforward pricing, request a Squirrel demo and we will show you exactly how it works and where your data goes, within 48 hours.