According to an annual survey by Help Net security, 10% of organizations don't back up their data at all. This can result in data loss as well as downtime and cyber attacks.
Fortunately, WordPress backup plugins can help you avoid this fate. While you can manually backup your WordPress website using the cPanel offered by your hosting provider, you can also use a plugin for additional, automated backups.
Below we'll look at plugins that will help ensure you regularly backup your WordPress site.
Best WordPress Backup Plugins
- BlogVault
- Backup Buddy
- Jetpack Backup
- WP Time Capsule
- BackWPup
- UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
- Duplicator
- WP Database Backup
- WPVivid Backup Plugin
The WordPress plugins below will help you automate the backup process. Let's take a look at your best premium and free options.
1. BlogVault
BlogVault is an all-in-one solution for website management. It offers incremental backups to its secure cloud servers and differential restores so you can recover your site faster.
You can test changes and updates to your site with BlogVault’s staging tool as well as migrate to new domains, servers, or hosts without worry. If you have an online shop, BlogVault can also protect all of your orders with its WooCommerce backup integration.
Pricing: Basic plan including daily automatic backups is $89 per year. Advanced plan with real-time backups is $249 per year.
Pro tip: If you manage multiple websites, BlogVault is ideal. You can backup, stage, and migrate your multi-site installations quickly and easily with this plugin.
2. Backup Buddy
Backup Buddy allows you to schedule your website's backups as needed. You can even direct the backup files to any offline storage destination. The plugin also makes the process of moving your WordPress site to another host or domain simple and secure.
Pricing: Blogger plan for backing up one site is $80 per year. To backup additional or unlimited sites, it offers plans ranging from $127 to $499 per year.
Pro tip: You can back up your entire WordPress website, including all files and your database, in five steps with this plugin.
3. Jetpack Backup
Jetpack Backup offers real-time backups of your content. You can restore from any backup point on desktop or mobile in one click.
Jetpack Backup makes website monitoring easy. It automatically logs every change so you can figure out exactly what — or who — broke your site and prevent it from happening again.
Pricing: $119 per year
Pro tip: Jetpack Backup offers full, incremental, and differential backups in real-time so you have total power and flexibility over your backups.
4. WP Time Capsule
WP Time Capsule reduces the amount of time spent and storage used for full-site backups, and any change you make on your website will be backed up automatically.
You can also restore your site with one click, so making edits and updates isn't a stressful experience. You can check your edits in real time using the Staging feature as well.
Pricing: Business plan for backing up two sites is $49 per year. To backup additional or unlimited sites, it offers plans ranging from $99 to $199 per year.
Pro tip: WP Time Capsule is the only premium plugin with a basic plan that allows you to back up two websites.
5. BackWPup
BackWPup saves your website and accompanying files and sends them to external storage services such as Dropbox, Microsoft Azure, S3 services, and FTP.
The plugin helps you optimize your database and repair content if damaged. You can send backups to your email, and with the Pro version, encrypt your backups and restorations for further protection.
Pricing: Premium plans range from $69 to $349 per year.
Pro tip: If you're looking for an extra level of protection, this premium plugin encrypts backup archives and allows you to restore encrypted backups.
6. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
UpdraftPlus allows you to restore your website's functionality in one click as well as schedule backups or even split the backup process into multiple archives
The plugin offers the ability to send backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud, DreamObjects, FTP, Microsoft OneDrive, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV, OpenStack Swift, or email.
Pricing: Free. Premium version with incremental backups starts at $70 per year.
Pro tip: The free version of this plugin allows you to store your backups in the most remote storage location, including Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, S3, Rackspace, and email. The premium version offers seven additional locations as well.
7. Duplicator
Duplicator is a backup plugin that helps you duplicate, clone, move, and transfer an entire site from one location to another.
It requires a bit of technical knowledge and doesn't allow you to schedule backups like other plugins, unless you purchase the Premium version. Still, this free plugin works well for manual backups as well as backups for specific sections of your site.
Pricing: Free. Premium version with scheduled backups starts at $69 per year.
Pro tip: You can create a backup copy of all website files — referred to as a Duplicator package — then migrate your entire site to a new host, domain, or staging site. Here’s the step-by-step process.
8. WP Database Backup
WP Database Backup allows you to schedule your website's automatic backups and download them via your WordPress dashboard.
You can send backups and reports to your email address or save backup files to services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, or FTP. If you need to restore from a specific date, you can search backup files by date.
Pricing: Free. Premium version for backing up and restoring an entire site starts at $22.
Pro tip: This free plugin allows you to perform manual backups or schedule daily or weekly backups for your database. If you want to backup your entire website, then you can upgrade to the premium version.
9. WPVivid Backup Plugin
WPVivid offers scheduled, automatic site backups and one-click restores and migrations. The plugin allows you to send backups to remote storage services as well as migrate websites or files to new hosts and domains efficiently. You can also customize backup content and lock backups to prevent auto-deletion.
Pricing: Free. Premium version with incremental backups starts at $49 per year.
Pro tip: This free plugin scans your WP media library to find unused images and provides you the option to clean specific or all unused images. It also offers basic image bulk compression, resizing and lazy loading before backups and migrations.
What is the best backup plugin for WordPress?
While there’s no such thing as “the best” backup plugin, there are a number of plugins that will be ideal for certain business purposes. Below we’ll break down which premium plugins are best for specific use cases.
- Best for multisite backups, staging, and migration: BlogVault
- Best for backing up an entire website and database: Backup Buddy
- Best for real-time backups: Jetpack Backup
- Best for backing up more than one website: WP Time Capsule
- Best for encrypting backups: BackWPup
What is the best free backup plugin for WordPress?
If you're on a budget, then you may need a free backup plugin. The good news is there are plenty of free tools for backing up and restoring a WordPress site. Below we’ll break down which free plugins are best for specific use cases.
- Best for backing up to cloud options: UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
- Best for backing up a site before a migration: Duplicator
- Best for backing up and restoring database in one click: WP Database Backup
- Best for optimizing images before a backup: WPVivid Backup Plugin
Choose your WordPress backup plugin
Without frequent and reliable backups, your website's data can be lost in a flash. That's why performing backups is critical — a WordPress plugin can automate the process, saving you valuable time while keeping your website safe and secure.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
