Internxt cloud storage review

A cloud storage provider that’s big on privacy and security

Internxt website
(Image: © Internxt)

TechRadar Verdict

Internxt is a secure cloud storage provider with a clean interface, comprehensive support, and multiple pricing plans. The lack of advanced file-sharing features, however, is a drawback.

Pros

  • +

    Advanced security features

  • +

    Reliable customer support

  • +

    Multiple pricing options

  • +

    Easy-to-use interface

Cons

  • -

    Lack of advanced features

  • -

    Limited editing and collaboration

  • -

    Single-currency support

  • -

    Free storage subject to limitations

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Not too long ago, being able to remotely upload content and store and retrieve the data as and when you needed it seemed like a futuristic dream. But today, the best cloud storage services offer you that and so much more. If you’ve been thinking about storing your data in the cloud, Internxt - a cloud storage service with a focus on privacy and security - is a viable option.

We’ve explored the service’s pricing, features, interface, security, and support so that you can decide if it’s the right cloud storage service for your needs.  

Internxt cloud storage interface showing

(Image credit: Internxt)

Internxt: Plans & pricing

Internxt’s basic free plan offers 10GB of storage - and one of our picks for best free cloud storage providers. However there is a large emphasis on “up to”, here. All accounts start with a 2GB allowance, while more storage can be added for free by completing certain tasks. These include installing the Internxt mobile or desktop app (1GB each), sharing a file via a link (1GB) and inviting up to 5 friends (1GB each). 

Beyond that, seven other pricing plans are available for individuals and for businesses. 

One popular approach to tiered subscriptions among cloud drive services is to offer varying degrees of functionality for both personal and business users. Internxt has decided to offer single personal and business plans with access to the same features, instead focussing purely on the amount of storage available.

Personal customers can subscribe to 20GB, 200GB or 2TB for $1, $5,  or $10 a month - annual subscriptions and lifetime or ‘perpetual’ licenses are also available, giving you a great amount of flexibility for any budget. 

Business customers can gain access to larger amounts, including 200GB, 2TB and 20TB. These require a minimum of two users, and prices start at $5, $10, and $95  a month. However, business plans don’t feature a lifetime license. 

Like its competition, Internxt offers discounts for annual commitments. Payments are taken in euros, which may present some difficulties with certain banking platforms. 

Internxt also has an Enterprise plan for an unlimited number of team members. You’ll have to contact the support team for a quote based on your needs. It’s also easy for you to upgrade your plan at any time - you’ll never have to worry if your storage requirements change. 

All plans offer complete use of all of Internxt's secure services, including Internxt Drive, a zero-knowledge file storage service, Internxt Photos, which enables you to store photos privately and securely, and Internxt Send, a platform for you to send files safely and seamlessly. 

Internxt's pricing, even when converted to other currencies, is especially competitive when compared with some of the key players in the game, including Apple iCloud and Google Drive

To ensure accessible and hassle-free transactions, Internxt provides multiple payment methods to cater to various preferences. They accept payments via credit and debit cards (including Mastercard, VISA, American Express, and more), PayPal, bankcontact, iDEAL, and SOFORT.

An exclusive deal for TechRadar readers means you can save 50% of all plans, too. Just use the code TECHRADAR at the check to save even more money. 

All plans come with a 30-day money back guarantee and given that you need to already have an account to sign up, we recommend trying out the free features first before handing over your credit card details. 

Internxt: Features

As a relatively new offering, Internxt’s features are pretty basic. We’ve broken down some of the key ones here.

Internxt is available on desktop, mobile, or tablet, so you can conveniently access your files on any device. With its automatic syncing capability, Internxt ensures your information will be updated and saved regardless of the device you’re using. 

It offers its users handy offline access to their files. This means that you don’t have to frantically search for a network connection in order to access your documents out of range. You can enable selective offline access to all the files in your inventory.

One of the company’s strong points is its commitment to security, however a lot goes on behind the scenes. Internxt wants to make the process as normal as possible while maintaining the best protocol.

For business users, the service enables you and your team to store files with total security. You can collaborate privately with other members and toggle your admin features. You can even decide how many times you want a given link to be valid/shared so that your file won’t be accessible outside of its intended audience. This is particularly useful for sensitive documents. 

All plans have derestricted file sizes, which is great for people working on videos and other large media types.

Internxt cloud storage interface showing the interface and file upload proces

(Image credit: Internxt)

Internxt: Interface & experience 

Choosing a plan and creating an account on Internxt is quick and fuss-free. In fact, of all the cloud storage providers we reviewed, this is by far the fastest sign up. Simply enter your e-mail address and chosen password to log in immediately to the web interface. 

Upon doing this, you’ll find a handy introductory guide that you can access to get a quick tutorial on how the service works, which we thought was a nice touch. You can also click your account profile at the top right to download the desktop app for the device. You’ll receive 1GB extra storage for your trouble.

Internxt’s interface on mobile, web, and desktop is clean, intuitive, and user-friendly. On its main page, you can view all your files at a glance. You can also easily customize your folders with different colors and icons similar to the native tagging features in macOS and Windows. A useful search function helps you quickly locate files without having to spend time scrolling through your entire drive.  

Uploading new files onto the cloud is also a breeze with a drag-and-drop interface. Similarly, you can easily share your files through a link. Overall, Internxt’s intuitive dashboard is easy to use and streamlines your workflow.

There are two aspects to the desktop client. First is the tool that sits in the status bar, allowing a certain degree of control and an insight into your syncing activity. Unlike many competitors, there is no option here to throttle bandwidth usage, which would be useful for companies and individuals processing large amounts of documents alongside other streaming activity.

The second aspect is the built-in support for your computer’s native file management system - in our case, Finder for macOS. You can use the newly created 'Internxt' folder in your home directory to continue life as normal with plenty of dragging and dropping, while keeping things synced.

You can also use the desktop client to launch the web interface, which is necessary for certain operations. On first launch the screen is grayed out except for the "upload files" button. During our tests we noticed that this also happened even when we'd already uploaded some files, forcing us to click the button, then 'cancel' on the explorer window that opened. This was a small bug but could prove irritating if you have to upload many files. 

While Internxt’s primary focus is on cloud storage, there is a cloud backup service available to all free and paid accounts too - though remember the limitations of free accounts. You can also pick which folders to sync and any changes made in these will be updated online. We have previously complained about cloud drives that occupy a single folder, so being able to sync multiple folders across various locations is kindly welcomed. 

Internxt: Support

In terms of support, a pop-up live chat box will instantly appear when you navigate to Internxt’s site. Chat support is pretty responsive—we got a reply in eight minutes. If you’d prefer to troubleshoot on your own, you can access Internxt’s Help Centre from the same pop-up box as the live chat function. On the search bar, type any keyword that you’re looking for and you’ll be greeted with dozens of helpful articles from the team.

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, Internxt’s support team is contactable via email 24/7 and provides support in English, Spanish, and Russian.

Internxt cloud storage interface showing the app's desktop widget help screen

(Image credit: Internxt)

Internxt: Security

Security is where Internxt shines. The zero-knowledge file storage service is based on absolute privacy and uncompromising security. When you upload a file on Internxt, it’s instantly encrypted on your device. Unlike other mainstream services that encrypt customer data in transit or at rest, the service encrypts all your data before it leaves your device. When data is downloaded from the file to your device, it's also automatically decrypted. 

Additionally, Internxt doesn’t store user data in any central location. Instead, data gets fragmented prior to being uploaded, and the encrypted file shards are then uploaded onto servers based in different locations around the world. A single server never holds a whole file, making the cloud storage very secure, robust, and private. 

With its AES-256 CTR encryption model, no one else other than you holds the key to your data. If Internxt were to be hacked, intruders wouldn’t be able to access your data either. 

On the consumer’s end, two-factor authentication (2FA) is easy to enable. There is no support for SMS authentication. This can be handy for people with phone and computer integration and autofill but is actually a point in Internxt's favor as SMS messages are much easier to intercept than codes generated by legitimate authenticator apps

Even users without an account have access to the company’s free virus scanner which works by uploading a document - up to 1GB in size - to the website in order for it to be checked.

Internxt also provides a free password checker, which shows any relevant information such as that it is a frequently used or easily guessed, as well as the amount of leaks that this password has been found in and how long it would take for somebody to crack your password. It also lets you know if your password has been leaked in any public hacks recently. 

There’s some handy guidance, too, for creating the ultimate password, though we still recommend using six or more words generated by Diceware.

One of the best security aspects of Internxt though is its commitment to open source. This means that the company has released the source code used to make its app so knowledgeable programmers can verify that end-to-end encryption has been set up correctly, as well as the fact that data is split into multiple clusters.  

Internxt: Alternatives 

We found Dropbox gives Internxt a run for its money thanks to its advanced file-sharing capabilities and software integration. Similarly, Microsoft OneDrive is a great alternative with its files-on-demand feature. 

The two competitors offer a range of useful tools and great functionality at about the same price point. To enjoy these features, however, you may have to compromise on privacy and security: Dropbox and OneDrive do not offer zero-knowledge encryption. Unlike other products which do claim to offer 'zero knowledge' Internxt is also open source, which means you don't have to take your word for it that your data's safe. 

Internxt: Our tests 

We ran three key tests for Internxt, measuring sync speed, file recovery and versioning.

Our tests were done on a Windows 11 virtual machine running the Internxt desktop client. The VM was connected to the internet via fiber broadband via VPN server, which in our speed tests consistently showed an average upload speed of 70 Mbps  Measuring metrics like upload speed, results can sometimes vary depending on factors including how many share the broadband connection, how busy the cloud providers servers are, and your connection speeds.  

Internxt cloud storage interface showing our test for sync speeds

(Image credit: Internxt)
  • Test 1 - Sync speed 

After closing all third-party and internet apps, we copied a 650 MB folder of Sherlock Holmes audio books from the Internet Archive into the application directory and measured how quickly the desktop client was able to sync the files to the cloud. The folder contained 22 files including MP3s, images, metadata files and a PDF. 

Initially we tried to use the web interface to upload the folder containing our test files. Unfortunately, this didn't work as the interface doesn't seem to allow uploading folders - only one or more files.

Instead we copied the test folder to the 'Internxt' folder in our device's home folder. The desktop client started syncing files, showing each one as it was successfully uploaded. This is where we saw the files being encrypted as each upload took place. 

We were particularly impressed to see the encryption process didn't impact at all on speed. The whole upload of 625MB of data on our 70Mbps connection took only 1 minute 55 seconds. This is comparable to other cloud storage services we've reviewed that don't use encryption.

Internxt cloud storage interface showing our testing process

(Image credit: Internxt)
  • Test 2 - File recovery 

In this test we simply deleted the audiobook folder from the application directory, removing it from the device. We then checked to see if the files had been removed from the cloud drive and if it was possible to recover them. 

If the cloud provider offers you a way to store files in the cloud without keeping them on your device, we test this feature too. 

After we deleted the test files from the 'Internxt' folder we were surprised to see that the data still counted towards our data quota in the desktop client.

On logging into the web interface, we immediately saw the Trash option with the deleted folder. With two clicks of the mouse, the data was decrypted and downloaded back to the device within 90 seconds. 

Internxt cloud storage interface showing our tests for restoring files

(Image credit: Internxt)
  • Test 3 - Versioning 

If you're working on long or important documents, the last thing you want is to make changes you can't undo. Some cloud providers prevent this by regularly saving different versions of a file. This means if you change something you shouldn't have, you can just roll the file back to before this happened.

To test this we copied a Microsoft Word (.docx) file of the public domain story 'The Purple Cloud' to the cloud application folder. Once it synced, we then deleted all the text except the introduction, then saved and closed. We then tried to restore the document back to its original form, complete with all chapters. 

We did place our test document into the Internxt folder and deleted some text but there was little point. When we logged in to the web interface we saw there was no 'file version' feature, so clearly Internxt doesn't save multiple copies of edited files. 

We did take this opportunity to try out the 'Preview' feature. However, this didn't work for the Microsoft Word document or an MP3 file we tried opening. 

Internxt: Verdict 

Internxt’s affordable pricing plans, intuitive interface, and reliable support make it a great cloud storage service to consider. It doesn’t offer the same advanced features like file versioning that you’ll find with Dropbox and OneDrive. But personal and business users prioritizing security will enjoy the cloud service provider’s advanced security features and commitment to privacy. 

We rate Internxt highly for its range of useful features, including its interface which most users will find already familiar, the option to backup folders elsewhere on your computer, and the free, out-of-plan virus and password tools.

Craig Hale

With several years’ experience freelancing in tech and automotive circles, Craig’s specific interests lie in technology that is designed to better our lives, including AI and ML, productivity aids, and smart fitness. He is also passionate about cars and the decarbonisation of personal transportation. As an avid bargain-hunter, you can be sure that any deal Craig finds is top value!

With contributions from