8 Best WordPress Backup Plugins
Losing your WordPress site can be devastating. Whether from a hack, server crash, or simple mistake, your business and hard work can disappear in seconds without proper backups.
The good news? The right backup plugin can protect everything with just a few clicks. This blog brings you the eight most reliable WordPress backup plugins available today.
From simple backups to advanced features like incremental saving, cloud storage, and one-click restoration, these tools ensure you’ll never lose your site again.
Understanding How Backup Plugins Work
When choosing the best plugins, it’s important to understand how they function. WordPress backup plugins work by copying your site’s files and database to a secure location so you can have a safety net in case of an issue.
Zip Compression vs. Streaming
While effective, this method can strain server resources and lead to timeouts on larger websites. On the plus side, the archive can then be sent to external storage, but this additional step can sometimes make the restoration process less reliable.
More advanced technologies, like streaming backups, send data in small chunks in real-time to a mirror server, reducing server load and preventing failures during the backup process. This method is faster and more reliable and is used by plugins like WP Umbrella and BlogVault.
Most backup plugins also leverage incremental backup technology, storing only changes made since the last backup to optimize storage and bandwidth. This minimizes redundancy, produces less CO2 emissions, ensures backup integrity, and prevents issues caused by incomplete transfers, making it an efficient solution for websites that undergo frequent updates.
Best WordPress Backup Plugins: Quick Overview
| WordPress backup Plugin | Best For | Key Features | Pricing |
| WP Umbrella | Agencies & developers managing multiple sites | Centralized dashboard for encrypted backups, updates & uptime monitoring. GDPR compliant. | $1.99/month/site 14-day free trial available. |
| UpdraftPlus | Users needing automated backups with cloud storage | Feature-rich, quick restore, multi-location storage and encrypted backups | Paid plans start at $70/year. Free plan available. |
| BackWPup | Flexible backup needs without easy restore | Reliable backups with external storage options. Pro version needed for basic features like auto-restore | Paid plans start at $69/year. Free plan available. |
| Duplicator | Migrating sites between hosts/domains | Best for moving sites or creating local-to-live deployments | Paid plans start at $49.50/year. Free version available. |
| WPvivid | Simple yet powerful backups & site cloning | Incremental backups, easy migration for testing environments | Free version available, paid plans start at $49/year. |
| BlogVault | Agencies & businesses managing multiple sites | Reliable backups, easy staging, seamless migrations | Starts at $149/year. 7-day free trial available. |
| VaultPress (Jetpack) | Sites with frequent updates | Real-time backups, point-in-time restore capabilities | Pricing: Starts at $4.95/month. No free version available. |
| Solid Backups | Sites needing real-time backups & security | Includes malware detection and enhanced security features | Starts at $8.25/month, billed annually. No free version available. |
1. WP Umbrella
TL;DR
Best for agencies, developers, or businesses managing multiple WordPress sites. It’s ideal for those who need a centralized dashboard for backups, updates, and performance monitoring of all their websites. WP Umbrella provides a clean and reliable backup process that doesn’t affect your site performance and doesn’t let any trash on your server.
WP Umbrella is a leading WordPress backup plugin. It offers a powerful yet simple approach to website protection with its incremental backup system that only stores changes made since the last backup.
This minimizes server load and prevents performance issues that plague other backup plugins. With just a few clicks, you can set up automated backups that run in the background while you focus on growing your business.
Beyond backups, WP Umbrella also provides comprehensive WordPress management tools to keep your sites secure and up-to-date. The platform monitors your sites for security vulnerabilities, tracks plugin updates, and delivers detailed maintenance reports to your clients.
All this comes with a user-friendly interface that makes complex website management tasks simple and efficient, even when handling dozens of WordPress sites.
Key Features
- Incremental backup that only saves changes, minimizing server load
- Flexible scheduling options (hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly backups)
- One-click restoration for your entire site or specific components
- Secure European storage with full GDPR compliance
- 50-day backup retention for comprehensive protection
- Encrypted backup files for maximum security
- Selective backup options to include or exclude specific files
- Performance-friendly design that won’t slow down your site
- Automatic backup reporting integrated into client maintenance reports
- White-label capability for agencies and professionals
- REST API and SFTP or SSH restoration methods to recover sites even when your server’s down
- Centralized dashboard to manage all your website backups in one place
- Background processing that doesn’t interfere with site operations
WP Umbrella Pricing: WP Umbrella has transparent pay-as-you-go pricing. It offers a 14-day free trial; no credit card required. Paid plan starts at $1.99/month/site.
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2. UpdraftPlus
TL;DR
Ideal for users who need a reliable, feature-rich backup solution with extensive cloud storage options. It’s perfect for those who want to automate backups and restore their site quickly in case of issues.
UpdraftPlus is the go-to WordPress backup plugin for over 3 million websites. It gives you peace of mind with simple, one-click backups that protect against hacking, crashes, bad updates, and those “oops” moments we all have.
The free version provides comprehensive backup capabilities for all WordPress files, databases, plugins, and themes. The Premium version adds extra storage options, automatic pre-update backups, and faster site migration tools. You’ll also gain the ability to migrate sites in minutes, anonymize personal data, and manage your backups through the WordPress Command Line Interface.
Key Features
- Complete manual or scheduled backups (every 2-12 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly)
- One-click restoration directly from your WordPress dashboard
- Website migration capabilities are built right in
- The premium version offers additional remote storage locations (OneDrive, Azure, Google Cloud, etc.)
- Automatic backups before WordPress or plugin updates (Premium)
- Incremental backup support to save server resources (Premium)
- WordPress Multisite compatibility with granular control (Premium)
- Ability to anonymize personal data for development migrations (Premium)
Pricing: Free version is available; paid plans start at $70/year.
3. BackWPup
TL;DR
Choose BackWPup when you need flexible backup options but don’t necessarily need easy restore capabilities. The free version gives you solid backup features, but you’ll need to restore manually unless you upgrade to Pro.
BackWPup is a leading WordPress backup plugin with over 700,000 active users and 12+ million downloads worldwide. It shields your site against crashes and data loss through a straightforward interface. The newly redesigned 3-step wizard simplifies creating backups; just choose what to back up, when to schedule it, and where to store it.
The free version handles basic backup needs, while the Pro version adds powerful features like automatic restores, encrypted backups, and more storage options. You can easily store your backups in multiple locations, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive.
Key Features
- Store backups in multiple cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive
- Set automatic backup schedules
- Receive email notifications so you always know your backup status
- Keep your backups secure with encryption (Pro version only)
- Restore your site with just one click when needed (Pro version only)
- Move your site to a new domain without the technical headaches (Pro version)
- Manage multiple WordPress sites from one dashboard (Pro version)
- Get personal support directly from the development team (Pro version)
Pricing: Free version is available; paid plans start at $69/year.
4. Duplicator
TL;DR
Duplicator excels at moving WordPress sites between hosts or domains. If you regularly build sites locally and need to move them to live servers or manage multiple similar sites, Duplicator makes the process incredibly simple.
Duplicator is a powerful WordPress backup and migration plugin trusted by over 1.5 million professionals. It’s beginner-friendly, with a visual interface that walks you through each step of the backup or migration process.
What makes Duplicator stand out is how it simplifies both backups and site migrations. You can create complete WordPress backups in minutes and set up automated schedules to protect your site. When it’s time to migrate, the 2-step Migration Wizard makes moving your site faster and easier than traditional methods.
Key Features
- Schedule automatic backups to run daily, weekly, monthly, or even hourly
- Store your backups securely in cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3
- Restore your site with just one click using Recovery Points when something goes wrong
- Protect your backup files with industry-standard AES-256 encryption
- Transfer websites in minutes instead of hours with the simplified migration wizard
- Import backups directly from server to server without downloading files first
- Move WordPress multisite networks or convert a subsite to a standalone site
Pricing: Free version is available; paid plans start at $49.50/year.
5. WPvivid
TL;DR
Suitable for users who want a simple yet powerful backup solution with incremental backups and easy migration capabilities. It’s great for those who need to clone sites for testing purposes.
WPvivid is an all-in-one backup and migration plugin built for site owners, freelancers, and agencies. With over 600,000 active installations and 10 million downloads, it offers reliable backup solutions at an economical price—especially valuable if you manage multiple websites.
What makes WPvivid stand out is its smart learning mode that automatically adjusts backup parameters for shared hosting environments. Its migration engine includes a snapshot feature that prevents crashes during site transfers, ensuring your live site stays operational even if restoration attempts fail.
Key Features
- Create custom backups by including or excluding specific files, folders, and database tables
- Set up both regular and incremental backup schedules to save storage space
- Export and import sites through multiple pathways (web server, remote storage, or direct site-to-site)
- Store backups across popular cloud services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon S3
- Control how many backups to keep with flexible retention rules for different backup types
- Assign specific backup permissions to different user roles on your WordPress site
- White label the plugin interface with your branding for client sites
- Receive backup reports via email to multiple addresses with customizable notifications
Pricing: Free version is available; paid plans start at $49/year.
6. BlogVault
TL;DR
Developers, agencies, and businesses managing multiple WordPress sites. It’s particularly beneficial for those who need reliable backups, easy staging, and seamless migrations.
BlogVault focuses on business-critical WordPress sites that can’t afford downtime. It stores encrypted copies of your backups across multiple data centers without extra cloud storage fees. BlogVault excels at quick recovery to get your site back up fast when disaster strikes. However, the user interface can appear outdated and even clunky for some, and the migration can take hours, especially for larger WooCommerce stores.
Key Features
- Restore your site with one click
- Set up staging sites to test changes before pushing them live
- Migrate your WordPress site to any host with no technical hassle
- Track all website changes with an activity log
- Back up WooCommerce sites in real-time to capture every order as it happens
- Handle WordPress multisite installations easily, whether subdomain or subdirectory
- Store backups securely across multiple encrypted data centers
Pricing: 7-day free trial available. Paid plan starts at $149/year.
7. VaultPress Backup (Jetpack)
TL;DR
Ideal for users who want real-time backups and point-in-time restore capabilities. It’s suitable for sites with frequent content updates.
VaultPress Backup by Jetpack is a real-time WordPress backup solution that captures every change as it happens. VaultPress’s real-time backup capability and integration with WordPress.com’s global infrastructure are what sets it apart.
Unlike host backups that might run once daily, VaultPress saves changes instantly to the secure Jetpack Cloud, letting you restore your site even when your host is down.
Key Features
- Save every change with real-time cloud backups
- Restore your site with one click
- Access and restore backups from anywhere using the Jetpack mobile app
- Track site changes with a 30-day activity log showing who did what and when
- Migrate your entire WordPress site to a new host in minutes
- Protect your data with encrypted backups
- Start with 10GB of backup storage
Pricing: Starts at $4.95/month.
8. Solid Backups
TL;DR
Ideal for users who need real-time backups and malware detection. It’s suitable for sites requiring enhanced security features.
Solid Backups offers a cloud-first WordPress backup solution that won’t slow down your site. Unlike traditional backup plugins that run on your hosting server, Solid Backups uses SolidWP’s cloud infrastructure to handle the heavy lifting.
This approach means your backups run faster and use minimal server resources. After your first backup, the system only backs up changed files, saving space and time.
Key Features
- Get daily, incremental backups that only save what’s changed
- View your backup history with a detailed Activity Timeline
- Manage all your backups from one central dashboard
- Store backups securely in the cloud instead of on your server
- Free up hosting resources with cloud-powered backup processing
- Track exactly which posts, pages, and uploads were backed up
Pricing: Starts at $8.25/month, billed annually.
FAQs: WordPress Backup Plugins
Your backup frequency depends on how active your site is. If you publish daily, back up daily. If you post weekly, weekly backups might be enough. Ask yourself: “How much content am I comfortable losing if something goes wrong?” Let that guide your schedule.
Yes, and you should. The plugins we’ve discussed offer automation features that make regular backups effortless. That said, it’s always advised to manually verify your automatic backups occasionally to ensure they’re working correctly.
The easiest solution is to use dedicated WordPress backup plugins. Options like WP Umbrella or UpdraftPlus make creating backups as simple as clicking a button. Many WordPress hosts handle backups for you automatically. Providers like Bluehost, Hostinger, and SiteGround include regular backups as part of their hosting packages. Either approach works well; choose what’s most convenient for your situation.
Follow the 3-2-1 rule: maintain at least three backups stored in two different formats with one copy kept offsite. This might mean keeping backups on an external drive, in cloud storage, and on a USB stick. Multiple backups protect you if one becomes corrupted.
No, WordPress doesn’t include automatic backup features out of the box. You’ll need to set up backups yourself. The easiest solution is installing a backup plugin like WP Umbrella. These plugins let you schedule automatic backups at whatever frequency works for your site.
You can back up your WordPress site without plugins in two popular ways: through your web host or manual FTP backup. For more detail, here’s an article on backing up WordPress sites without plugins.