Website security is top among the priorities for any online business owner.
One of the best ways to ensure your site is secure is by creating backups. Not only do they give you peace of mind, but they can also help you bounce back especially when you’re accidentally locked out of your site or it gets hacked.
For WordPress users, a whole slew of WordPress backup plugins are available, most of which are easy to use, and offer automated backups over and above your hosting providers’ backups.
BackupBuddy is a WordPress backup plugin that allows you to schedule website backups as needed. It also lets you direct backup files to other offline storage services like Dropbox, FTP, and Amazon S3 among others, and migrate your site to another domain simply and securely.
Some of the benefits of using BackupBuddy include its full set of features for backing up, restoring, and moving your website. Plus, it can repair and optimize your database, can be used on multiple sites, and it’s not subscription-based so you don’t have to pay a monthly fee.
BackupBuddy also gives you access to regular updates, premium support forums, and BackupBuddy Stash for real-time backups and 1GB of storage to store your backups. The plugin also offers the iThemes Sync feature, which allows you to manage up to 10 sites from one dashboard.
What’s more, BackupBuddy also scans your site for malware to identify any issues before they arise. All these and other features make BackupBuddy a preferred WordPress backup plugin for many WordPress site owners.
However, BackupBuddy isn’t the only WordPress backup plugin on the market.
Factors To Consider When Choosing A WordPress Backup Plugin
Most people don’t consider site crashes or disappearances until they actually happen to them. Some of the reasons for website failure include:
- Datacenter issues
- Payment for hosting doesn’t go through
- Expired credit card
- Accidental deletion of the site by your host
- Malware infection causing your site to be shut down by the host
- Site crashes due to tweaking of a line or two of code
- Update to a plugin or theme that goes wrong
While all these can be scary for you, the good news is that you can use a good WordPress backup plugin tool to help you restore your site quickly, with less downtime.
But what should you look for in a WordPress backup plugin and what features really matter? Here are some of the main things to look out for:
Backup method
Your plugin should allow you to choose what you want to backup. However, there are different types of backup methods available such as:
- Database backup that only backs up your database
- Scheduled backup that allows you to automate backups to run without manual input
- Complete backup for your database, files and all the contents of your site
Backup location
A good backup plugin for WordPress will support sending your backup files to Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3 among other remote locations. This way, you can restore your files even if your site is down or gets hacked.
Reliability
A good WordPress backup plugin should allow you to back up your entire WordPress installation. You need backups that always work, so your backup file should not be corrupt, incomplete, damaged, or have the wrong format, otherwise, it would mess your whole website.
Simple and easy to use
The backup plugin you use should be extremely easy to use and make the whole process simple and doable. If possible, the process of backing up, restoring, and migrating your site should be one-click functions that don’t need techie skills to do.
The restoration process should also be quick such that when things go wrong, you won’t worry about time spent on fixing things. You should also be able to restore your site pronto right from your WordPress dashboard.
Backup tests
A good backup plugin will also give you the option to test your backup so that you know for sure that the backup works. One of the ways this is made possible is through offering staging websites.
Minimal load
The backup plugin you settle on should ensure your site’s speed and performance aren’t compromised because of the backup. Find a plugin that uses and moves the bulk of the load to their own servers and not load them onto your server.
Frequency
Flexible frequency of backing up your site is another important factor, so check for a plugin that can back up your site daily or monthly, or allows you to schedule one any time.
Best BackupBuddy Alternatives (Free & Paid)
If you’re looking to change from BackupBuddy WordPress backup plugin, or you want to see other options available before settling on one, here are the best BackupBuddy alternatives (free and paid) you can use right now.
1. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is the strongest contender to BackupBuddy.
It is a leading and trusted WordPress backup plugin that allows you to back up your site, restore it, and even clone it in case of simple user errors, server crashes, hacking, or dodgy updates, which can ruin your site.
The plugin is easy to use, trusted to help you keep your site safe and is complete with features and advanced tools for backing up and restoring your plugin.
UpdraftPlus performs complete manual and/or scheduled backups of your site’s components, allowing you to set schedules every 4, 8, or 12 hours. This way, you can back up your site daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. It also allows you to restore the backups right from your WordPress cPanel.
UpdraftPlus offers free and Premium ($42 per year) plans. The Premium plan offers more features such as cloning and migration through the Migrator feature, incremental backups, fast and personal support, and pre-update backups. It also lets you backup non-WordPress files and databases.
UpdraftPlus Premium also allows you to set exact times for backups, encrypt sensitive databases and backup external ones, and get sophisticated reports and emailing capabilities.
Unlike the free plan, you don’t get ads with UpdraftPlus and you can use the Importer feature to restore backups from other plugins.
Both free and premium UpdraftPlus plans let you backup your site to remote storage options such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and others.
Other strong features you’ll find in UpdraftPlus include UpdraftVault, an embedded storage option for your backups, UpdraftMigrator to clone and migrate your site to a different domain or host, and UpdraftCentral to backup multiple sites.
Now worry less about server crashes, hacking, dodgy updates and human errors. UpdraftPlus keeps your Wordpress site safe and simple. Get it today.
2. BlogVault
BlogVault is a WordPress backup plugin that allows you to back up your entire website including your files, database, WordPress themes, and other components of the site. You can back it up using automated or schedule backups, and store the site in remote locations or offsite.
The plugin does incremental backups as well, with cloud storage options such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and more in a single click. You can back up your site daily, weekly, or monthly, and enjoy the best security measures, plus restore your site when you face any security issues or technical problems that cause the site to disappear or go offline.
If you want to migrate your website from one domain or hosting to another, BlogVault allows you to do that. Plus, you can have an external backup, for example, you can download a copy of your site to your computer.
BlogVault works with many web hosts and has a 100 percent restore rate with secure cloud backups, free built-in staging, and bulk site updates. It’s an all-in-one solution for complete website management so that you can save time and money instead of using multiple solutions for different functions.
BlogVault doesn’t have a free version, but it offers only one premium version that gives you reliable backups trusted by thousands of site owners. You also get a centralized dashboard from where you can manage your site with beautiful and comprehensive reports, and an exclusive white-label solution is available for agency customers to grow revenues.
The plugin also backs up WooCommerce stores with 24/7 data protection with offsite storage, and easy recovery of your site anytime with 365 days of backup archives.
3. VaultPress
VaultPress is one of the most powerful WordPress site backups and security plugins. It protects you from hackers, host failure, viruses, malware, exploits, and user error among other serious security threats.
Whether you’re an individual, professional, or agency, you can get powerful features such as automated backups, site migration, and automated file repair to fix threats like viruses, malware, and others in one click.
VaultPress also restores your site in case of anything and brings it back to where it was quickly, and painlessly, without contacting your host. File scanning also helps detect and remove malware, viruses, and other exploitable security issues that lurk on your site.
The plugin also provides spam defense, which protects your readers, SEO, and reputation by blocking all spammers automatically. Everything you have on your site from pictures, posts, and pages, comments, settings, and revision are kept safe with VaultPress.
VaultPress also keeps backups of your site and syncs all your content daily or in real-time. You can also download your database, themes, plugins, and uploads. If you have troubleshooting issues, there are experts ready to help you fix your website.
VaultPress offers real-time backups for $20 per month, and daily backups for $3 per month. Real-time backups are recommended for larger sites such as eCommerce stores, membership sites, and news organizations, while daily backups are good for restaurants, brochures, resume sites, and blogs.
A JetPack Personal plan is available for small businesses, personal sites, and startups at just $39 per year.
4. WP Time Capsule
WP Time Capsule is another WordPress backup plugin that offers a smart and advanced solution to back up your site. It’s best known for its incremental backup feature, which helps backup efficiently and automatically.
Each change you make or that happens on your site gets backed up instantly, so you always have automatic and updated backups. This way, you can protect your site from hackers and restore it to a point in time before the hacking event in one click.
When you want to test changes or updates on your site before it goes live, WP Time Capsule allows you to do that without any lapses in performance. The plugin only backs up the changes and the unchanged data remains intact.
With WP Time Capsule, you need not rely on your host for backups. You can send them to the cloud app you want such as Amazon S3, Google Drive, or Dropbox because it really is your data.
The plugin is not only affordable, but also light, fast, efficient, simple, and offers cloud privacy so you can safeguard your site knowing you have the best backup and restore plugin that offers an efficient workflow.
WP Time Capsule also offers a white label solution so you can change all its details to your own brand and clients won’t know about it. This is especially so for agency customers with a portfolio of clients.
5. BoldGrid Backup
BoldGrid Backup is a powerful WordPress backup plugin that protects your site with easy, automated, remote, and safe backups.
One of its features, Total Upkeep, offers automated remote backups and tools for restoring your site. It also rolls back failed updates automatically.
You can manually create backups or pick a date and time for automated backups in one click. It also remotely backs up your site and stores the backups via Google Drive, Amazon S3, SFTP/FTP, and works with automatic backup.
Safe and consistent backups are available that check to make sure your hosting account gives you the support you need and keeps the integrity of the backups.
BoldGrid Backup offers one license for an unlimited number of sites through Total Upkeep Premium, and you can use it on any site you own from $2.50 per month.
Total Upkeep Premium helps prevent website crashes from happening by using BoldGrid Backup’s site check, which monitors the site for any errors that could end up in a site crash, automated site protection, and save a copy of the original files in case you want to make any changes.
If you want to migrate your site, Total Upkeep allows you to do that using a “magic link” to automate the process between sites. You can also get your site back online in a few hours, fix crashed sites, and restore a single file within the backup browser.
6. BackWPup
BackWPup is a backup plugin for WordPress sites that you can use to save your whole website’s installation and push to an external backup or storage like Amazon S3, Dropbox, FTP, and more.
In one single backup .ZIP file, you can restore your site’s installation and get your site back up and running. However, the free version of BackWPup doesn’t offer as good an experience as you would get with the BackWPup Pro version.
The Pro version of the plugin gives you first-class support among other features such as database backup, repair, and optimization. It also offers exporting of your WordPress XML, storing your files to third-party services including Azure, RackSpaceCloud, and SugarSync among others.
You can also send logs and backups by email, and get multi-site support for your network admins. The Pro version also encrypts backup archives and you can restore backups in a few clicks from the backend.
Some of the benefits of BackWPup include the ability to select the content stored at a particular time, place, and the professionals of the team will help you with whatever issues you have.
BackWPup is available in different licensing plans: Standard $69, Business $119, Developer $199, Supreme $279, and Agency $349.
7. Duplicator
Duplicator is a good free option to BackupBuddy that doesn’t have a free plan.
It is a super simple backup plugin engineered with simplicity and elegance so you can quickly and easily backup your site.
It’s a trusted plugin with proven technology that runs on thousands of websites, with reliable and premium support that helps you quickly resolve any snags you face. The plugin serves as a simple backup utility and allows you to copy, migrate, move, or even clone a site from one place to another.
Duplicator enables you to pull down a live site for development, transfer sites between hosts, backup sites manually or parts of the site, duplicate the live site to a staging area, and more.
The premium version, Duplicator Pro, takes the free version to the next level by offering features like scheduled backups, cloud storage to third-party services like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and others.
It also offers multi-threaded support for larger databases and sites, and you can migrate your WordPress in one shot.
You also get email notifications, professional support, and connections to your cPanel are direct from an installer. Duplicator Pro also lets you limit your number of stored backups to free up your storage space, filter data, overwrite live sites, and tons of advanced options for customizing your WordPress install and backup.
Duplicator offers different pricing plans. There’s a free version, but Duplicator Pro is available in four plans: Personal $59, Freelancer $79, Business $129, and Gold $359.
If you’re looking for a free tool with more features, you can try UpdraftPlus.
8. All In One WP Migration
If you want a backup plugin that offers complete migration for your site, ultra-fast export, drag and drop import, and convenience backups, All-In-One WP Migration is worth considering.
It’s the perfect solution for your website that allows you to create engaging websites while it takes care of moving the site to any server. The plugin also archives your data in just seconds and takes one click to produce a copy of your site.
You can also drag and drop import your site in a fast, intuitive process designed for large backups, and each time you export the site, you get a backup copy for use later on. The backups are chronologically ordered by date, so you can simply click restore to restore the backup.
It also offers extensions for cloud storage services including Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP, URL, multisite, OneDrive, Box, Mega, and many others.
9. WPVivid
WPVivid is an all-in-one free WordPress backup plugin that helps you backup your site securely to leading storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Amazon S3, and more. You can also migrate your site to a new domain in a single click.
Among WPVivid’s core features include easy site migration, automatic backup, and one-click restore. It’s easy to use, gives you full control and a large database size of 2GB.
The plugin is also optimized to work with any web host and you can set the number of backup copies you want to keep on your servers.
The plugin also lets you split up backups into many parts, and there’s no limit on the backup you can keep. Plus, you can clean up all temporary and junk files, schedule daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and 12-hour backups.
You can also back up whatever you want, including the entire website, and download a local copy on your PC from the server or to cloud storage services.
WPVivid is responsive so it works on all devices, PCs, phones, and tablets. You can try it out with the free trial and if you like it, there are different pricing plans ranging from Basic $99, Freelancer $199, or Ultimate $299.
10. WordPress Database Backup (WP-DB-Backup)
WP Database Backup is a free plugin that helps you create backups for your database and restore them in one click. The backups are manual or automated, and you can also store them in third-party services like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, FTP, and email.
Its features include automatic backups on repeating schedules, downloading backup files from your WordPress dashboard, easy installation, reporting, multiple storage destinations, database backup list pagination, searching, and sorting of backup lists by date or database size, and documentation among others.
Wrapping Up
Every website owner has different needs so there’s no one WordPress backup plugin that’s best for everyone. However, considering the important factors and features that a backup plugin must offer its users, we recommend UpdraftPlus for your backup needs.
UpdraftPlus is simple and offers scheduled backups, tons of storage solutions, backup encryption, and doesn’t make you pay monthly fees.
The plugin also has an option for embedded storage for your backups, the ability to clone and migrate your site to another host or domain, and backup for multiple sites.
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