Do you fear losing all your website database, traffic, sales, and content either through server crashes or website hackers? This can affect your business activities, SEO rankings, and also damage the relationship with customers and website visitors. Regularly backing up your website is one of the most important steps you can take against losing all your data. A backup plugin can restore all of your WordPress website content if you ever have any problems. It can be overwhelming trying to pick the best WordPress backup plugin for your needs because there are tons of options to choose from in the plugin store. In this article, we will help you choose the best WordPress backup plugin for your website.
Importance of backing up WordPress
Data backups are extremely important. Once you mess up with your WordPress website, unless you have a data backup, it is going to be extremely difficult to recover your hard work. Years of preparations, planning, and writing content will all go in vain. Just because you didn’t have a simple backup.
So like any other application, a backup is extremely important for a WordPress website in order to safeguard your hard work all the time. In fact, it is very important to take regular backups. If you don’t want to do it manually, there are automatic backup plugins available which will do the job for you.
Best backup plugins for WordPress
There are many backup plugins you can use on your WordPress website. We are going to discuss some of the most significant ones out of them in this article. These are the best backup plugins available on the WordPress repository or as a premium plugin.
1. UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is ranked as one of the best-rated WordPress backup plugins on the internet. With its simplicity and powerful solutions, it is easy to use without much technical experience. You can run full backups, manual backups, and scheduled backups. There’s also an option to choose which files you want to backup. UpdraftPlus is compatible with almost all cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud, Amazon S3 Microsoft Azure, and much more. UpdraftPlus will compress your WordPress files while backing up saving disk space as well.
It is a free plugin with options to upgrade to its paid version which provides access to advanced features like larger backup storage space, additional backup options, easy site duplication, and so on.
2. VaultPress
With Vaultpress backup plugin installed on your WordPress website, you get real-time backups, migrations, and security benefits all in one plugin. It helps you keep up-to-date with daily or real-time syncing. In no time and with few clicks you can easily setup VaultPress backups. In addition to backups, you can use it for file repairs and restores. It scans your site daily, helping you locate and eliminate malware, spammers, viruses, and other security threats. This reduces the chances that you’ll lose vital information on your website.
3. BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy is a popular backup plugin that covers your entire WordPress installation. It even allows moving your WordPress website from one host to another. This backup plugin allows you to schedule your website’s backups and protect your work online daily, weekly, and monthly. You won’t have to do this manually.
It is easy to navigate around BackupBuddy as it enables you to backup your entire website, and schedule automatic backups. You can also save your backup files in secure locations, and restore your files quickly from your WordPress dashboard.
4. Duplicator
Migrate, move, or clone. You can do all these with Duplicator without any downtime. This versatile WordPress plugin is used to migrate WordPress sites, it also has a backup and restore feature. Duplicator works by creating simply a zip file (package) containing all your site’s plugins, themes, content, and database backup. You can then download them offline, and migrate across the same or different servers.
As a developer, it saves you the stress of manually configuring themes and installing new plugins each time you build a new site. It is a great plugin but you should have a basic understanding of how it works before you attempt to use it on your website.
5. BackUpWordPress
BackUpWordPress is a simple backup plugin with essential features that are worth looking into. This free WordPress backup plugin is easy-to-use with a rudimentary setting for even those without little technical experience. You can set up a manual backup from the dashboard, or schedule automatic backups, and also receive email notifications. It will back up your entire site, including your files, databases at a convenient time. The backups made with this plugin also consume less memory; this is good news if you’re operating in a shared host environment.
6. BackWPup
BackWPup is worth considering if you’re looking for a free WordPress backup plugin. It is also easy to use and stress-free as it doesn’t complicate things with many options. It allows you to store your WordPress backups on your computer, FTP, email, or external backup service such as Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, and so on. Additional features include WordPress XML exports, database backups, file backups, database optimization, and many more.
There is also a pro version with advanced functionalities like a backup to multiple destinations, the ability to store backups on Google Drive, and so on.
7. WP Time Capsule
This is one of the easiest and most user-friendly backup plugins available on the internet for beginners. It provides the solution if you’re just looking to back up your files, and not your entire WordPress site. It consumes fewer server resources, and you can back up your website on cloud storage sites like Google Drive, Amazon S3, and Dropbox. You can set up your backup schedule and the plugin will automatically handle the rest. The calendar view option is another great feature if you want to restore content from a previous date.
8. WP DB Backup
This is only a database backup plugin, meaning you’ll have to back up your media files manually. It could be the right plugin for you if you don’t update your WordPress site often. The interface can be a little complex for novice users. You’ll have to backup and restore your WordPress database on your own. You can download the backup to your computer or even send it with the files to your email. In other words, It won’t affect your website speed because the backups aren’t stored.
9. BlogVault
BlogVault is a reliable backup plugin for WordPress sites. It offers automated regular website updates and stores them offsite for easy access. Web designers and developers will find this plugin fascinating as it makes their work easier. It comes with a free staging environment and free cloud storage. It creates automatic backups of your website daily.
Besides backups, it makes restoring your website from any mishap simple. It also provides malware scanning and malware removal services. Other features include site migrations, site copying, cloud storage compatibility.
10. WP Database Backup
This is another free database backup plugin if you are only looking to backup your WordPress database and not your files. WP Database Backup helps you set up a schedule for your website’s automatic backups with a few clicks. You can backup file downloads from your WordPress dashboard and also store them in multiple destinations. It supports Dropbox, FTP, Google Drive and can also send reports and backups to your email address.