In need of the best WordPress backup plugins? Well, you’re in the right corner of the internet.
Backups/restorations are the most foundational part of managing a WordPress website. Just imagine your website crashing. All of your data and content efforts will go down the drain.
With WP backup plugins, you can keep copies of all of your files to recover from a crash or cyber attack.
Moreover, you can fully restore your content from your most updated backup. In this guide, we’ve listed the best WordPress backup plugins for you.
Table of Contents
1. WP STAGING
A Fast Staging & Backup Tool, Ideal for Small and Huge Site Changes ⭐
Key Specifications
PROS
CONS
WP STAGING Features ⚒️
WP STAGING lets you create an exact copy of your website, popping this information into a subfolder of your central WordPress install. You’ll know you’re working inside of the staging site due to the unmissable orange admin bar in the top section.
It’s great to have when you need to do simple updates or to test out a new plug-in. Place all of this into a separate staging “container,” any changes made will not affect your live site. There is also no need to fiddle with additional configurations.
They also let you create backups (clones) of your WordPress website. For a guide on backing up with WP STAGING, see their video tutorial.
We’d only be wary about making any major changes using this plugin without using the advanced options of the pro version. The staging sites created with the free version are based on the same install as the original WP website. This means it draws from the central database, so there’s some debate on whether this is the best practice long-term for large sites/tests.
Fortunately, you can create a staging site to another database and can even clone your entire production site to another server with the pro version by using the very fast acting backup & restore feature. This setup then will be suitable for even major enterprises.
That said, it’s extremely easy-to-use, with a temporarily free version and operational speeds that put it in the top-ranking category for staging plugins—use on up to 100 websites.
WP STAGING Price 💰
Get a free version that will let you clone your website. In other words, you can create a staging website from your live site for free.
On the other hand, you’ll need to order a pro package in order to migrate your staging site into your live site or to clone this to a subdomain, external database, or custom domain. This costs a one-time fee of between £65-£370, depending on your needs.
You will also be covered with this fee for any migrations to a different domain registrar or web host provider.
2. UpdraftPlus
One of the Best WP Backup Plugins Around 📘
Key Specifications:
PROS
CONS
UpdraftPlus Features 🧰
We trust this as it’s rated the most actively used backup solution for WordPress, and it’s currently boasting over a million active installations.
Even the free version of the plugin lets you do the essential backups (full, manual or scheduling them), securing all of your website files, your database, themes, and plugins.
Restoration is also enabled on the free version and easy to do, requiring very little technical know-how. It also has support for the top cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3.
And though the free version comes with everything most website owners will need, you can boost the level of control by jumping onto the premium version. Either way, overcome server crashes, hacking attempts, and buggy updates so that a simple user error doesn’t trash your WP site
UpdraftPlus Price 💰
As we’ve said, you’ll get all the basic backup features you need for free, but UpdraftPlus stands out for offering enterprise-grade plans, ranging from Personal to Business, Agency, Enterprise, and Gold levels. (This starts from free for Basic, £54/year for Personal to £306/year for Gold.)
But, for paid plans, get extra support for Dropbox storage, Rackspace, Amazon S3, Cloud Files, and Google Drive.
Plus, free updates/support/storage—and multiple storage destinations, automatic backup pre-update, incremental backups, migrator, importer, detailed insights, WP-CLI integrations, ad-free, greater files no.s, better database options, corrected backup time, FTPS/SCP/SFTP, WebDAV, Microsoft OneDrive, and network/multisite.
(NB. The Gold version also gives you 50GB storage for websites with lots of busy media or a busy e-commerce website unlimited cloud subscription to UpdraftCentral, and an unlimited number of UpdraftPlus licenses.. saving you up to £320 a year)
3. BackupBuddy
The Next-Most Trusted WP Backup Plugin 💽
Key Specifications:
PROS
CONS
BackupBuddy Features ⚙️
Another fast backup tool that will perform well even if you are with a cheap hosting.
If you want the short of it, it does everything you need to do regarding backups, it’s a dedicated backup plugin that’s easy to use. For our team, what’s most impressive is the push and pull options for migrating changes in the staging site across the live site.
An example of push and pull is migrating a user comment occurring in your live site across to your staging site while in the mid-process of working on changes.
But you may want to know, actually creating staging sites with BackupBuddy isn’t straightforward. We would recommend WP Staging over BackupBuddy in the sense, as it’s a dedicated plugin that is streamlined for doing that kind of operation, letting you handle updates without fussing around with WP-config files.
As the last thing, once a backup is finished, you can easily download the zip file. Get email notifications when the plugin is finished or requires attention. And the Import tool restores your website even if something goes wrong mid-backup.
BackupBuddy Price 💰
Prices begin at £60 a year for the blogger plan level, with a 30-day refund policy.
You get one year of plugin updates, with ticket support for any technical issues, and 1GB of Stash storage space. The Freelancer plan is £93/year for 10 sites, and unlimited sites for £146 on the Gold plan (5GB storage space).
(Any additional storage space can be purchased separately. For free storage increases, we’ve posted before on how you can boost WordPress’ upload limits.)
4. Jetpack
The Official WordPress Backup Plugin 🛰️
Key Specifications:
PROS
CONS
Jetpack Features 🛠️
Automatically save your website changes by scheduling it, so that when your website crashes, you can easily restore the most recent site version in a single click.
As an added layer of security and trustworthiness, as WP are the official developers of Jetpack. And, as one of the foundational plugins in the WordPress suite, chances are lower of having bugs or incompatibilities with updating your website version—meaning fewer crashes and/or faster rectifications.
(That’s not to mention regular updates.)
If you have a WordPress site you would have seen this before, Jetpack is one of the first plug-ins you see on the installation screen.
What this means for you, natural integrations into the WordPress dashboard, including activity logs to see all the actions taken on your website.
Jetpack Price 💰
Jetpack is included in pretty much every best WordPress plugin guide out there.
But is Jetpack free?
The answer is both yes and no. Jetpack’s free version comes with pretty much all the essential backup features you need. But, once you hit an offering that isn’t there, you’ll be popped up to a paid tier.
These extra features include things such as daily backups, performance optimisations, activity logs, malware and anti-spam protections, and more. And, features become more robust when you climb to the Business plan, which we would not generally recommend.
Costs range from £4-£38 on the yearly plan. The cheapest paid gives you daily backups with restores and unlimited site storage; while the highest plan adds on-site searches, real-time scans, and CRM bundles.
5. WP Time Capsule
The Next-Most Trusted WP Backup Plugin 🦕
Key Specifications:
PROS
CONS
WP Time Capsule Features 🔧
A great WordPress backup plugin (that lets you test it out for free).
As the name suggests, it captures a copy of your website so that you can revert back to it if an update, plugin or some other event causes your website to fatally crash.
On the free trial, backups are in real time, with files automatically copied before each update so that you don’t lose any important files. The restoration function is also free. For additional security, you have the option to encrypt any database backups, ensuring that you stay GDPR compliant.
WP Time Capsule is particularly efficient because it only copies the changed files and database rather than the entire content of your website. You also have the option to store content on cloud storage sources such as Amazon S3, Google Drive, Wasabi, and more.
Keep in mind, there are some rare circumstances where you might want the whole website backed up. WP Time Capsule gives you an advantage in minimising the use of server resources if backing up the entire website is not critical. For one, it doesn’t compress your backup files into a zip.
WP Time Capsule Price 💰
To get started, register for an account on the WP Time Capsule homepage, install the free plugin.
Then, connect the plugin to your cloud app, so that you can store WordPress backup files to your chosen location (e.g. Amazon S3). Once you’ve done a full backup, schedule times for backing up any recently changed files.
The free trial lasts a month. Get a full refund if you don’t like it. After this, the first plan (Business tier) will cost you £36/year, Freelancers £73/year and Agency £367. One-time payments are different. Business level covers you for up to 2 websites, Freelance 10 sites, Agency unlimited.
Please note, the restoration window (how far back you can restore from) differs depending on your plan level. Business is a month, Freelancer a half-year, and Agency lets you rewind back across the full year.
Summary- What is the Best WordPress Backup Plugin?
No doubt, UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress backup plugins around.
WP Staging however offers you additional powerful website backups/cloning and staging capabilities. For any serious blog we cannot afford to lose its content suddenly, we recommend using a combination of both.
(In other words, WP Staging is superb for making any updates, and UpdraftPlus for automating backups. A comprehensive solution.)
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