The 6 Best WordPress Backup Plugins (Pros and Cons)
Creating regular WordPress backups is the best thing you can do for your website security. Backups give you peace of mind and can save you in catastrophic situations such as when your site gets hacked or you accidentally lock yourself out.
There are several free and paid WordPress backup plugins and most of them are fairly easy to use.
If you are not already backing up your WordPress website, then you should pick one of these 6 best WordPress backup plugins and start using it right away.
1. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is the most popular free WordPress backup plugin available on the internet. It is used by more than 2 million websites.
UpdraftPlus allows you to create a complete backup of your WordPress site and store it on the cloud or download to your computer.
The plugin supports scheduled backups as well as on-demand backups. You also have the option to choose which files you want to backup.
It can automatically upload your backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, S3, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email, and several other cloud storage services.
Besides backing up each WordPress website, UpdraftPlus also allows you to easily restore backups directly from your WordPress admin panel.
UpdraftPlus also has a premium version with add-ons to migrate or clone websites, database search and replace, multisite support, and several other features. The premium version also gets you access to priority support.
Pricing: Free (UpdraftPremium Personal for $70)
2. VaultPress (Jetpack Backup)
Although it started as an independent plugin, VaultPress is now a part of Automattic’s another product called JetPack. You will need a JetPack subscription plan to use VaultPress. There are multiple pricing plans with different set of features.
VaultPress plugin offers automated real-time cloud backup solution starting at $3.50 per month. You can easily setup VaultPress backups and restore from backups within few clicks.
The higher plans of Jetpack also offer security scans and several other powerful features.
There are a few downsides of using VaultPress.
First, it is a recurring expense that can add up if you have multiple WordPress sites because you pay per site.
Second, you will have to subscribe to JetPack, get a WordPress.com account, and install the Jetpack plugin on your site.
Lastly, backups are stored for only 30-days on the lower plans. If you want an unlimited backup archive, then you would have to pay the $29 per month per website which is significantly more expensive for beginners when compared to other solutions listed here.
Pricing: From $39 per year for JetPack Personal plan
3. BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy is one of the most popular premium WordPress backup plugins used by over half a million WordPress sites. It allows you to easily schedule daily, weekly, and monthly backups.
With BackupBuddy, you can automatically store your backups in cloud storage services like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, Stash (their cloud service), and even email it to yourself.
If you use their Stash service, then you also have the ability to do real-time backups.
The biggest advantage of using BackupBuddy is that it is not a subscription-based service, so there is no monthly fee. You can use the plugin on the number of websites mentioned in your plan.
You also get access to premium support forums, regular updates, and 1GB of BackupBuddy Stash storage to store your backups. In addition, their iThemes Sync feature lets you manage up to 10 WordPress site from a single dashboard.
You can even use BackupBuddy to duplicate, migrate and restore websites.
Pricing: $52 for Blogger Plan (1 Site License)
4. BlogVault
BlogVault is another popular WordPress backup service for WordPress. It’s a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution rather than just a WordPress plugin. It creates offsite backups independently on BlogVault servers, so there will be a zero load on your server.
BlogVault creates automatic backup of your website on a daily basis and also allows you to manually create unlimited on-demand backups. It features smart incremental backups that sync only incremental changes for minimal server load. This ensures optimal performance for your site.
Besides backups, it helps you to recover your website easily. You can store 90 days backup archive, so you can recover your site from any mishap.
It also has a built-in staging site feature to let you test your website easily. Plus it provides an easy option to migrate your website to another host.
BlogVault features seem promising however pricing seems a bit expensive when compared to other plugins above. You’ll need to pay $89 for the basic plan which offers a 1 site license.
Pricing: $89 per year for Personal Plan (1 Site License)
5. BackWPup
BackWPup is a free plugin that allows you to create complete WordPress backups for free and store it on the cloud (Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, etc), FTP, email, or on your computer.
It is extremely easy to use and allows you to schedule automatic backups according to your site’s update frequency.
Restoring a WordPress site from backup is also very simple. The BackWPup Pro version comes with priority support, ability to store backups on Google Drive, and some other cool features.
Pricing: Free (Premium plan is also available)
6 Duplicator
As the name suggests, Duplicator is a popular WordPress plugin used to migrate WordPress sites. However it also has backup features.
It does not allow you to create automated scheduled backups which makes it less than ideal primary WordPress backup solution for a regularly maintained site.
Pricing: Free
If you run a small to medium size website and hate paying monthly fees we recommend the popular UpdraftPlus plugin. It comes with all the powerful features like backup encryption, encrypted backup transport and tons of cloud storage options.
