Looking for an efficient and reliable backup plugin for your WordPress website? We have put together this short review to get your started.
It is hard to overestimate the need to create regular backups of a WordPress website. What if someone accidentally deletes important data in your database? What if a new plugin turns out to be incompatible with your WordPress installation or another plugin? Keeping a fresh backup somewhere in the cloud is the best insurance against all those risks.
The official WordPress plugin repository is full of various solutions that allow you to create backups manually or automatically. They have wildly different features and capabilities regarding storage locations, migration, scheduling, restoration, reporting, and so on.
Thus, choosing the right plugin for your specific needs can be a daunting task. To get you started, we have prepared a review of 5 WordPress backup plugins, both popular and less known but quite decent tools – it’s not all gold that glitters after all.
We hope you will pick one that fits your needs best.
UpdraftPlus.com, DavidAnderson
3+ million
It would be strange of us not to begin our review of the best WordPress plugins for backup with UpdraftPlus, which currently boasts over three million active installations.
Both the free and premium versions allow you to perform manual or schedule automatic backups of your entire WordPress installation: all files, plugins, databases, and themes. You can also conveniently restore backups right from the WordPress admin panel.
Another impressive feature of UpdraftPlus is a wide variety of locations where you can store your backups. The list includes Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and Openstack Swift, to name just a few.
The enormous popularity of the plugin means that it has been tested in every possible environment and, thus, you can fully rely on it to perform the all-important backup/restoration process for your WordPress website.
Backup your website in its entirety
UpdraftPlus enables you to create a backup of all your WordPress files, including the database, themes, and plugins.
Schedule backups at specific intervals
Even the free version is quite flexible as far as scheduling is concerned. You can configure the backups to be made daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and hourly (2, 4, 8, or 12).
Quick and simple restoration process
Log into your WordPress admin account and restore the backup from the control panel with one click.
Take advantage of incremental backups to save time and resources
Why backup the entire installation over and over again? Just backup the most recent updates since you created the previous backup such as new users in the database.
Backup non-WP files and databases
You might have some older standalone pages that you want to backup along with your WP core. UpdraftPlus makes that possible.
More refined scheduling options
The premium version gives you complete freedom as to how often you backup your files. More than that. You can configure how long you want to keep a backup and set the exact time to remove it.
To get familiar with the rest of the plugin’s features, visit this page.
There are five premium UpdraftPlus plans that differ in the number of licenses and Updraft Clone tokens, as well as in the UpdraftVault storage capacity.
Inpsyde GmbH
700,000+
This backup plugin from Germany’s #1 WordPress agency has all that you need to make a high-quality backup of your website and restore it exactly as you want it and wherever you want it.
There are two BackWPup versions: free and PRO. The free one is quite decent. It has all the essential features in place such as making a backup of your complete installation with /wp-content/ included and saving the file on your hard drive or transferring it to an external location.
However, the PRO version is way more powerful. It allows you to create encrypted backup archives and restore encrypted backups with just a few clicks, backup to Amazon Glacier, Google Drive, and some other cloud services, restore backups from the WordPress backend, and fine-tune the backup process in a multitude of other ways.
Choose from among several archive file formats
The list includes zip, tar, and tar.gz.
Store backups to your hard drive or transfer them to external services
Among available locations are Microsoft Azure, S3, Dropbox, FTP servers, and more.
Backup your database
If you don’t require a complete backup of your website, backup your database separately.
Migrate your website to a new domain
This is a PRO version feature that the vendor has recently added, extending the already comprehensive BackWPup functionality.
Use even more storage locations
In addition to the storage spaces available to free plan users, the PRO version enables you to store backups to Amazon Glacier, Google Drive, OneDrive, HiDrive, and some other cloud services.
Get log reports right to your mailbox
The plugin will send you automatic backup reports detailing you exactly on what was backed up and whether the process finished without errors.
To get familiar with the rest of the plugin’s features, visit this page.
The vendor’s pricing policy is impressively flexible. Depending on the number of WordPress installations where you want to use BackWPup, you can pick from among 5 premium licenses:
BlogVault
100,000+
With over 100,000 active installations and counting, the BlogVault WordPress Backup Plugin rightfully occupies its position as one of the best backup plugins for WordPress. You can install it in as fast as 60 seconds and run it easily even if you have no previous backup creation experience: the process is entirely automatic and takes only one click to launch.
If you are tech-savvy and know a few things about WordPress development, you may find another feature of the plugin particularly attractive: free staging available by default. Code away as much as you like without worrying that it will affect your live website.
Use one dashboard to work with multiple websites at the same time
No matter how many WordPress websites you need to maintain, you can update their plugins, themes, and WordPress core from a single dashboard. A very convenient setup.
Don’t worry about your website slowing down
Whatever task you need to perform, from making a backup to updating plugins, the process takes place on the vendor’s server. Thus, your website’s performance is not affected in any way.
Enjoy fast and hassle-free website migration
Migration with BlogVault WordPress Backup Plugin is plain sailing. For one, it is compatible with more than five thousand web hosts. You can also pick from among several migration locations, including a new domain, DNS, server, or host.
Restore your website in a jiffy
It takes just a few minutes to get your WordPress website up and running again. You can also restore your website even if you are not connected to the Internet.
To get familiar with the rest of the plugin’s features, visit this page.
The vendor offers three plans (billed annually) that differ in their feature sets:
| Basic | Plus | Pro | |
| 1 Site | $89 | $149 | $299 |
| 3 Sites | $199 | $349 | $899 |
| 10 Sites | $399 | $799 | $1999 |
WP Umbrella
8,000+
WP Umbrella’s purpose is not just backing up your WordPress website. It does so much, much more than that. It allows you to maintain, update, and create backup copies of multiple WordPress sites from one handy dashboard with just one click – a feature that agencies will find particularly useful.
With WP Umbrella, you can easily and quickly update all of the plugins, themes, and WordPress core on all of your websites simultaneously! Just imagine how much time you can save by paying a very modest price for using this wonderful tool, especially if you have tens or hundreds of websites to keep up to date and secure.
Back up all of your WordPress websites with one click
Log into your admin account, click, and voilà: you have backed up all of the websites in your WordPress fleet no matter how large it is. If you want to restore those sites later, guess how many clicks you need to make. Correct. Just one.
All the backups you make are stored on servers across Europe. That guarantees GDPR compliance for you and your clients.
Track your website performance with ease
Even if you have one website, monitoring its speed and smooth operation can be challenging without specialized software. If you have thousands, this task can become nothing short of a nightmare.
Enter WP Umbrella. It enables you to monitor all of the key performance indicators on your WordPress websites, such as uptime, downtime, speed (Google PageSpeed), and more, promptly sending you informative alerts when something goes wrong.
Always have maintenance reports on hand
To show you clients how good at maintaining their websites you are, take advantage of the robust reporting capabilities of WP Umbrella. The reports are created automatically and present complicated technical data in a way that your clients can easily grasp. Oh, and Google Analytics is integrated, too.
With its amazing bulk actions capabilities, WP Umbrella is definitely one of the best WordPress backup plugins at the moment and is well worth trying out.
To get familiar with the rest of the plugin’s features, visit the WP Umbrella page.
Currently, installing the plugin on one website costs $1.99 per month. If you want to see WP Umbrella in action before subscribing, the vendor offers a 14-day trial period.
WebToffee
8,000+
The WordPress Backup & Migration plugin covers a wide range of migration and backup scenarios that you may have to implement for your WordPress website. Whether you need to clone your site for the sake of testing, port it to another domain or host, or get it back on track after a crash, this easy-to-use and efficient solution will help you achieve your goal without putting your valuable data at risk.
You don’t need to backup or migrate everything in one bundle. Just select what matters most such as a bunch of important files or premium plugins that you want to keep after the migration is complete.
There is also no need to worry about the compatibility with hosts or operating systems. WordPress Backup & Migration makes sure that your website works smoothly no matter where it is hosted.
Forget about size limitations
Even if your website is stuffed with videos and photos that weigh a ton, the plugin will not notice it. It will easily create a backup and execute migration just as it would with a website that only features textual content and nothing else.
Choose from among multiple locations to store your backups
Saving a backup to your hard drive only can be risky. What if someone incidentally deletes it? Fear not. With WordPress Backup & Migration, you can also store your WordPress website copies to Google Drive, Amazon S3, and other locations where you can always retrieve them when need arises.
Make automatic backups on a regular basis
Let the plugin handle the backup creation task for you in the background. Set the time for automatic backups (once a day, once a week, or once a month).
Receive automatic email messages about the backup process success or failure
That allows you to make sure you have a valid backup and, thus, can restore your WordPress website whenever necessary.
Include only certain database tables in your backups
If you find some data worthless, simply ignore it when backing up your database. That makes the backup file smaller and easier to store and move around.
Choose from among various archive file formats
Perhaps, you prefer GZIP to ZIP or want to use TAR for your backups. Just take a pick.
To get familiar with the rest of the plugin’s features, visit the WordPress Backup & Migration plugin page.
Depending on the number of websites where you want to install WordPress Backup & Migration, you can select one of the following plans:
Choosing a reliable and convenient backup plugin is extremely important if you want to keep your website running smoothly no matter what happens to it.
Even top WordPress backup plugins, though, may prove to be insufficient to meet your exact business needs. For instance, you might want to store backups to an external location that your plugin doesn’t cover.
In addition, plugins may sometimes cause security and performance issues. Here are just a couple of scenarios:
Oh, yes, and let us not forget about subscription fees that you have to pay every month or year to enjoy premium plugin features.
If you know exactly what you need, then, why not consider a viable alternative to plugins: professional WordPress development services? That will give you these and other benefits:
There is no need to search high and low for professional assistance. Our experienced WordPress developers have unmatched expertise in building websites that are rocket-fast, search engine optimized, and feature-packed. We provide a full range of WordPress development services, including:
Looking for something else? Reach out to us and we will offer you a perfect solution.
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