The 5 best backup plugins for WordPress

Word­Press is the most used con­tent manage­ment sys­tem in the world. Howe­ver, this also means that it is a popu­lar tar­get for hackers. This is exact­ly why you should regu­lar­ly back up your files and data­ba­se.

To secu­re your Word­Press web­site, the­re are seve­ral ways.

1. Per­form the back­up yours­elf
2. Use a plug­in to crea­te the back­up auto­ma­ti­cal­ly
3. Use our Word­Press main­ten­an­ce packa­ges

Today I would like to dis­cuss with you the pros and cons of this opti­on and pre­sent you the 5 best back­up plug­ins.

Variant 1: Manual backup of files and database #

Per­so­nal­ly, I pre­fer manu­al back­up becau­se then I don’t have to rely on any third-par­­ty soft­ware.

With manu­al back­up, you first need to down­load your Word­Press web­site files using an FTP cli­ent. Then con­nect to your data­ba­se via PhpMy­Ad­min or a tool like Hei­di SQL to export the data­ba­se.

That’s all it takes. Depen­ding on the size of the web­site, manu­al­ly back­ing up your Word­Press web­site may take some time.

Advantages of manual backup

1. No depen­dence on third-par­­ty soft­ware.
2. Data is stored direct­ly local­ly.
3. Error mes­sa­ges are dis­play­ed direct­ly.

Disadvantages of manual backup

1. Some­ti­mes very time-con­­sum­ing.
2. Back­ups are not crea­ted auto­ma­ti­cal­ly.
3. Com­pli­ca­ted for the lay­man.

Variant 2: Backup your WordPress site with a plugin #

Word­Press would­n’t be Word­Press if it did­n’t offer a plug­in for back­ups. In fact, the­re are now a lot of them, so it is now dif­fi­cult to keep track of them.

A back­up plug­in allows you to crea­te back­ups auto­ma­ti­cal­ly. You can defi­ne how often and at what time a back­up should be crea­ted.

Many back­up plug­ins even offer you the opti­on to trans­fer the files direct­ly to ano­ther ser­ver or to an online sto­rage like Drop­box or Goog­le Dri­ve.

As a rule, you should never store your back­ups on the same ser­ver as your web­site. Hackers and bots have beco­me very intel­li­gent and know most of the back­up plug­ins. The­r­e­fo­re, they also know whe­re and how the data is stored. It is not uncom­mon that the­se are then also infec­ted or dele­ted.

These are the 5 best plugins for WordPress backups

Now let’s move on to the top 5 back­up plug­ins.

BackWPup Free: Free plugin, ideal for smaller sites.

Free but still per­fect­ly sui­ta­ble for Word­Press web­sites. Alre­a­dy more than > 700,000 sites trust the plug­in and have it in use.

With BackW­Pup you can crea­te a back­up of your enti­re web­site for free. You have seve­ral opti­ons for sto­ring the back­ups. Among other things, you can back up your data to Drop­box, Ama­zon S3, FTP, email or direct­ly to your local com­pu­ter.

It’s extre­me­ly easy to use, so it’s ide­al for beg­in­ners and non-pro­­fes­­sio­nals. Of cour­se, BackW­Pup lets you auto­ma­te your back­ups and con­fi­gu­re a sche­du­le accor­ding to your pre­fe­ren­ces.

The res­to­re func­tion com­ple­tes the back­up plug­in and allows you to res­to­re your files and data­ba­se auto­ma­ti­cal­ly.

UpdraftPlus: Free plugin, ideal for sites of any size.

Udpra­ft­Plus is the most used Word­Press back­up plug­in curr­ent­ly available. More than 2 mil­li­on web­sites are curr­ent­ly using the plug­in.

With the plug­in, you have the pos­si­bi­li­ty to back up your com­ple­te web­site. The back­up can be saved local­ly, on the ser­ver or on an exter­nal sto­rage loca­ti­on.

In addi­ti­on, it sup­ports the auto­ma­ted crea­ti­on of back­ups accor­ding to a sche­du­le defi­ned by you. You can also free­ly choo­se the files to be backed up.

Curr­ent­ly, Updraft­Plus sup­ports auto­ma­tic saving of files to Drop­box, Goog­le Dri­ve, SFTP/FTP and email, to name a few cloud sto­rage.

Bes­i­des, you can always res­to­re your web­site quick­ly and easi­ly using the back­up.

Not enough yet? With litt­le effort, you can upgrade to the pre­mi­um ver­si­on. You will then recei­ve addi­tio­nal func­tions for clo­ning and moving your web­site to ano­ther ser­ver. Mul­ti­si­te is also sup­port­ed in the pre­mi­um ver­si­on.

VaultPress (Jetpack Backup), ideally suited for large sites.

Jet­pack Back­up is a plug­in from the com­pa­ny Auto­mat­tic, foun­ded by Word­Press co-foun­­der Matt Mull­en­weg.

Ori­gi­nal­ly, Vault­Press was a stan­da­lo­ne plug­in, but it was inte­gra­ted into Jet­pack. Jet­pack its­elf offers other fea­tures bes­i­des back­ups, such as down­ti­me moni­to­ring, anti-spam pro­tec­tion, pro­tec­tion against bru­te force attacks, and a con­tent deli­very net­work for images.

Howe­ver, once you install the plug­in, you can con­ve­ni­ent­ly disable all the fea­tures you don’t want to use.

Back­ups are crea­ted auto­ma­ti­cal­ly on a dai­ly basis. But you can also start it manu­al­ly at any time. The files and data are stored direct­ly at Jet­pack. The­r­e­fo­re, they are not available fore­ver, but are dele­ted after a cer­tain time depen­ding on the sel­ec­ted plan.

Unli­ke other plug­ins, Jet­pack requi­res you to pay month­ly. Howe­ver, you can res­to­re the desi­red back­up at any time with just one click. You even have unli­mi­t­ed sto­rage space available for the back­up.

Sin­ce the ser­vice is quite expen­si­ve over time, it’s worth it, espe­ci­al­ly if you have a lar­ge web­site or online store. Jet­pack also works fine for web­sites > 250 GB.

BackupBuddy

Back­up­Bud­dy has been around sin­ce 2010 and is used on more than 1 mil­li­on web­sites. With litt­le effort you can con­fi­gu­re it to back up your web­site dai­ly, weekly or month­ly.

You also have seve­ral opti­ons for sto­ring your back­ups. For exam­p­le, you can store your back­ups in Drop­box, on Ama­zon S3 or via FTP. Alter­na­tively, you can have the back­up sent to you via email.

If you deci­de to use the Stash ser­vice, you can even per­form your back­ups in real time.

In addi­ti­on, Back­up­Bud­dy gives you access to sup­port forums, regu­lar updates and 1 GB of sto­rage space for your back­ups.

You can also use Back­up­Bud­dy to dupli­ca­te, move and res­to­re your web­site.

BlogVault

BlogV­ault is a Soft­ware as a Ser­vice (SaaS) solu­ti­on. Back­ups are per­for­med direct­ly from your ser­vers, redu­cing the load on your ser­ver.

BlogV­ault back­ups are crea­ted on a dai­ly basis. Howe­ver, you can also crea­te manu­al back­ups at any time. You are free to crea­te com­ple­te back­ups or just save chan­ges. This saves time and disk space.

Of cour­se, you can res­to­re your web­site at any time. To do this, sim­ply sel­ect the desi­red back­up and wait until the res­to­re is com­ple­te.

Usual­ly you can access back­ups of the last 90 days with the cheap packa­ges. If this is not enough, you can upgrade your packa­ge and access more than 365 days.

You can also access a sta­ging sys­tem for your web­site. The­re, you can test all chan­ges befo­re you app­ly them to the live sys­tem.

BlogV­ault offers ser­vices that are espe­ci­al­ly hel­pful for smal­ler com­pa­nies.

Summary #

Whe­ther you use Word­Press or any other sys­tem, a back­up is essen­ti­al. Espe­ci­al­ly for smal­ler, pri­va­te web­sites the plug­ins are suf­fi­ci­ent. If you would like to have addi­tio­nal fea­tures like real-time back­ups or addi­tio­nal sup­port, you should switch to the pre­mi­um ver­si­ons of the plug­ins.

Alter­na­tively, you can also use our Word­Press main­ten­an­ce. The­re you will recei­ve dai­ly back­ups, tele­pho­ne sup­port, regu­lar updates, mal­wa­re scans and much more.