Looking for a CCleaner alternative?

CCleaner has been cleaning Windows PCs for more than two decades, and hundreds of millions of people have used it — that kind of longevity is earned. This page isn’t here to trash it. It’s here to lay out the public record honestly, explain where Vaulith takes a different approach, and help you pick the right tool — even if that turns out not to be us.

The CCleaner history below is drawn from public disclosures by Cisco Talos, Avast/Piriform, and Microsoft. Pricing model (subscription vs. one-time) reflects how CCleaner was sold as of July 2026; CCleaner discounts frequently and prices vary by region — check ccleaner.com for current numbers, and trust their site over this page.

Is CCleaner safe? What the public record says

If you searched “is CCleaner safe,” you’re probably thinking of one of three episodes. All three are matters of public record, so here they are, stated plainly:

• The 2017 supply-chain incident. Attackers compromised the build environment at Piriform (CCleaner’s maker, then newly acquired by Avast) and shipped malware inside the official, digitally signed CCleaner 5.33 installer, distributed from the official servers from mid-August 2017. Cisco Talos discovered and disclosed it that September; Avast confirmed that roughly 2.27 million users had run the affected version. A second-stage payload targeted a small number of machines at large tech companies. The incident was contained and clean builds were pushed out within weeks.
• The 2018 telemetry backlash. After the Avast acquisition, CCleaner 5.45 drew sustained public criticism over expanded usage-data collection paired with opt-out controls users found hard to exercise. Piriform withdrew the 5.45 release and restored clearer privacy controls.
• The Microsoft Defender PUA flag. For a period starting in 2020, Microsoft Defender flagged CCleaner’s free installer as a potentially unwanted application because it bundled offers for other software — bundling being one of Microsoft’s published PUA criteria. The flag was later resolved.

So — is CCleaner safe today? There is no public evidence that current CCleaner builds are compromised, and its owner has had years to harden its pipeline. We’re not going to insinuate otherwise. But these episodes changed what careful users demand from the entire category, and fairly so. A disk cleaner reads every file on your drive with elevated access. The 2017 incident proved that a valid digital signature, on its own, can’t tell you what happened at build time. These are questions the category earned — and every vendor, us included, should have to answer them.

The short version

• Choose Vaulith if you want everything to run on your device — even the AI analysis (on paid plans) runs locally — with every removal recoverable, from a team that came out of security and audit work and designed the app to be verified, not trusted. One $99 lifetime license covers macOS and Windows, up to 3 devices.
• Choose CCleaner if you want the classic, broad Windows toolkit — registry cleaner, startup manager, software updater — from a product with two decades of Windows coverage, and a yearly subscription fits how you pay for software.

Side by side

Comparison reflects publicly documented history, pricing, and features as of July 2026. CCleaner is a trademark of Piriform Software Ltd (Gen Digital); Vaulith is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Want to test the on-device claim yourself? Download Vaulith free — 500 MB/month, no credit card — and run the scan with a network monitor open.

The three differences that actually matter

1. “Trust us” vs “check us”

The 2017 incident taught the whole industry that a signature proves who shipped a build, not what’s inside it. Vaulith’s response is architectural: scanning, AI analysis, and deletion all run locally, so there’s almost nothing on the wire to inspect — and what little there is (a version check, and a license check if you sign in) carries no file paths, names, or contents. Open Little Snitch or Wireshark, run a full scan, and watch. That’s not a marketing claim; it’s a standing dare.

2. Deletion you can take back

A cleaner’s worst-case failure isn’t missing junk — it’s removing something you needed. Vaulith’s engine physically has no direct-delete code path: files you review go to a quarantine you can restore from at any time, then to the OS Trash — and even one-click cache cleanups land in the OS Trash, never a hard delete. CCleaner’s cleaning removes files directly (with a backup offered for registry changes) — standard for the category, but a different risk posture.

3. What you’re actually paying for, forever

CCleaner Professional is a yearly subscription — stop paying and Professional features stop. Vaulith’s $99 lifetime license is one payment for macOS and Windows on up to 3 devices, with every v1.x update included, backed by a 7-day money-back guarantee. If you only need one big cleanup, there’s a $6.99 one-time Deep Clean Pass — and the free tier (500 MB/month) never expires. If you’re a developer, the payoff is concrete: Xcode DerivedData alone often runs to tens of gigabytes on an active development machine, and package-manager caches routinely hide gigabytes more.