One of the best things you can do for your business is to backup your website regularly – and the best ways to do that is by using a WordPress plugin for backup purposes.
But knowing which one to choose can be confusing. There are countless options available in the WordPress plugin directory, and many of them offer very similar features. In this article, we’re going to walk you through some backup basics – and talk about which plugins offer the best solution.
What is a Website Backup?
Think of a website backup as an insurance plan for your website: it helps ensure that in the event of an emergency you can get everything back up and running with minimal time or effort.
Basically, it’s like a photocopy of your site. It takes all of your important files, your content, your uploads, your everything, and saves it to an external location.
You can run backups as frequently or as infrequently as you need, but as a good rule of thumb, the more often your site changes, the more often you should create a backup. That means that if you just completed an update, added a new theme, or posted a new blog, you should probably backup your site.
Luckily, you don’t have to remember to do any of this on your own: there are a lot of WordPress plugins for backup purposes that make it easy to run scheduled automated backups as often as you’d like.
WordPress Backup Plugins You Can Trust
If you’re ready to choose the right backup plugin for your business, don’t just install the first one that you find in a Google search. Do a little research first. While the plugins might all seem similar at face value, they all have different features.
We recommend looking for a product that:
- Backs up to off-site storage
- Encrypts your information
- Allows for a custom schedule and automation
- Offers reliable backup recovery
- Makes website migration easy
Here are the options we recommend most often to our clients, and why we love them:
UpDraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is an excellent free option that allows full, manual, or scheduled backups of all your files including your database, plugins, and themes. You can backup to Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3 right out of the box, and restoration is easy (even with no coding knowledge).
BackupBuddy
BackupBuddy has been around for almost a decade and protects more than half a million websites. With just a few clicks, it allows you to easily backup your entire website from your WordPress dashboard. In addition, you can schedule automatic backups, save files to a remote location, and restore your files quickly.
VaultPress
VaultPress comes from the developers responsible for WordPress itself. The plugin conducts security scans on a regular basis, can easily identify threats and fix them, and offers real-time cloud backup for your site. It’s included with the popular Jetpack plugin – but you need a subscription to use it.
BackUpWordPress
BackUpWordPress is an easy to use plugin that immediately backs up your website directly out of the box. From there, you can complete manual backups from your dashboard or schedule automated backups whenever it works for you. The plugin automatically stores backup files to the /wp-content/backups location of your website, but you can easily change the path if you want to.
BackWPup
This free plugin includes both remote backups and the ability to create an automated schedule. It can also optimize, check and repair your database. The pro version comes with the option to backup to multiple destinations for each job.
WordPress Backup Plugin by BoldGrid
The WordPress Backup Plugin by BoldGrid offers a ton of useful features at the free level and further expands on them at the premium level. For example, the free version offers a generous 1GB of storage and archives up to 5 backups, while the premium version offers 10GB of storage and up to 10 backups. In addition, you can set automatic backups for any day and time you choose and save to several offsite locations.
Your WordPress Plugin for Backups
Finding the right WordPress plugin for backup solution for your website doesn’t have to be difficult. If you have questions about the plugin you’re currently using or finding a new one, let us know in the comments or reach out to our friendly customer service team today.