Are iTunes backups and icloud backups identical?

[StuMcBill]

Not strictly an iPhone question, but didn't know where else to put it.

Are iTunes and iCloud backups identical? I'm thinking about ditching my jailbreak and going back to stock firmware (possibly iOS 10 beta) and I currently don't have enough space on my Mac to backup my phone.

I've been backing up to iCloud and I just wanted to make sure they were identical before going ahead?

Thanks
Stu

 

[steve knight]

yes but it is faster restoring from iTunes. so if I know I will be doing a restore I will backup on iTunes.

 

[M. Gustave]

Are iTunes and iCloud backups identical?

Yes.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

 

[Shirasaki]

Technically speaking, yes.
But no one actually know.

 

[cynics]

Inherently they aren't identical but for practical purposes the end result will be similar enough to seem identical. My iTunes backup of my iPad is 5gb while my iCloud backup is 2.2gb but I've restored from both an haven't noticed a difference. Probably mostly to do with the App Store and storing apps, plus with iCloud you can pick and chose which apps to save app data from.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I would never trust the iCloud to hold my backup when destroying my data on my iPhone. When ever I do something like this I always do a full encrypted back via iTunes. Do not get me wrong and I backup daily to the cloud daily but I have seen restores go wrong on both the cloud and iTunes.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

Yes.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204136

Except for this:

"Activity, Health, and Keychain data (To back up this content, you'll need to use Encrypted Backup in iTunes.)"

 

[M. Gustave]

Except for this:

"Activity, Health, and Keychain data (To back up this content, you'll need to use Encrypted Backup in iTunes.)"

Right, which is for obvious security reasons.

 

[soniasim]

From what I've seen, when restoring from an iCloud backup versus restoring from an iTunes backup, even if both backups were made at exactly the same time, the actual App Size for each of my apps was much, much less, sometimes half compared to the iTunes one, as a result, I had much more available storage space when the restoring of the backup was finished...

 

[StuMcBill]

Perfect, thanks for all the help!!

 

[Crzyrio]

I have always had trouble restoring from iTunes. I do not sync my applications over to my Mac and they never get restored with an iTunes backup.

They always get re downloaded and placed correctly from iCloud back ups.