Losing important website data is one of the biggest nightmares any website owner can have! Creating regular backups of your website is the best thing you can do to safeguard your website data and to avoid website downtime. If you have set up regular backups of your website, you will have more peace of mind and also you will be safe in catastrophic conditions where your website is hacked or is inaccessible. If you are using WordPress, backing up your website data is an easier task because there are many free and paid WordPress backup plugins that are highly effective and easy to use.
When it comes to WordPress, you have to choose from a huge number of plugins and extensions, this can get really time consuming! So here are the 7 excellent plugins for backing up your WordPress website:
Important tip : Many web hosting companies provide the option of regular website backups, but it is your responsibility as well to backup your website. In this way you will have your own website backups in place instead of completely replying on the web hosting company.
#1 UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is a free WordPress plugin that enables you to create complete backup of your website. You can either store your website backup on the cloud or you can download it on your computer. You can select the files that you would like to backup and this plugin provides support for scheduled backups and for on-demand backups as well. UpdraftPlus automatically uploads your backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, FTP, SFTP, email or any other cloud storage service. This plugin also has a premium version that comprises of add-ons to migrate or clone website, enable database search along with multisite support. If you use the premium version, you are also entitled to support services.
Highlights:
- Creates backups of files and restores them
- Backups can be saved to many cloud services
- Enables you to setup automatic website backups
- This plugin is fast and uses lesser server resources
- Tried and tested on many websites
#2 WPBackItUp
The WPBackItUp plugin is a free WordPress plugin that safeguards your website against the hackers, host outages, malware etc. This plugin literally creates backup for every post, comment, setting, theme, media files and the backup can be uploaded and restored with just one click. WPBackItUp creates compressed backups of your website; therefore, no matter how big your website is, you can easily download the backups from your WordPress dashboard. This is the most widely used, tested and reliable plugin. If you are using this plugin, you get professional support. The premium version of this plugin provides more attractive features and flexibility.
Highlights:
- No complex configuration and no advanced knowledge required
- Easy to use and setup
- Create as many backups as you want, unlimited backups
- Backup cancellation feature – cancel your backups at any time
- Customize what you want to backup on your website
#3 BackWPup
The BackWPup plugin can be used for saving your complete installation including the content in /wp-content/ folder and push the backup to any external backup service like FTP, S3, Dropbox etc. This plugin enables you to restore an installation with a single .zip file. You can optimize the database and check and repair it. The premium version of this plugin provides better features along with the support option.
Highlights:
- WordPress XML support
- You can send logs and backups through emails
- Multi-site support for network admin
- File backup
- Generate a file with installed plugins
#4 Backup & Restore Dropbox
This plugin creates WordPress backups and restores them to or from the local storage or uploads the backups to Dropbox. If you prefer using Dropbox for storing your important files, then this is the most appropriate plugin for you as it provides easy and secure Dropbox backup and restoration for website. This is a bug-free plugin and through this plugin you can secure, backup and restore all your projects like website, blog, online store etc.
Highlights:
- Unlimited Dropbox backups and restores
- Unlimited local backups and restores
- Complete control over included and excluded files
- Notification logging on screen and in file
- Automatic database optimization before WordPress backup
#5 BackupGuard
BackupGuard is a full-fledged website backup and restore plugin that offers the simplest way to backup, restore and migrate your website. With this plugin you can backup and restore files, databases or both. There is a paid version of this plugin as well that is perfect for a smooth website migration. No additional libraries are required for the functioning of this plugin and it provides support for large websites as well. The best thing about BackupGuard is that it works perfectly in low memory and shared hosting environments.
Highlights:
- Create backups of your website as many times as you want
- Support provided for multisite WordPress network
- The user can also cancel the backup process anytime
- Ability to determine the custom exclude paths and database tables
- User can see live progress report of the current backup and restore activity
#6 Backup WD
Backup WD is one of the most efficient and widely used WordPress Backup and Restore Plugin. This plugin is easy to use, full fledged and free. It enables you to backup your complete website including files and database tables within a short span of time with just a few clicks. You can securely backup your website and automatically store the backup to any desired cloud storage. This plugin supports automation abd scheduling and you have the liberty to decide when to schedule your website backups.
Highlights:
- Create unlimited number of website backups
- Automatically save your backups to any cloud storage or choose from a wide range of off-site storage locations
- Choose what to backup and exclude files and folders from backup
- View all your backup files as a list and restore the ones you want
- Manage all your website backups through one dashboard
#7 BackUpWordPress
With the BackUpWordPress plugin you can backup your entire website along with your database and website files. You can schedule the backups to whatever time suits you. This plugin needs PHP version 5.3.2 or later. The backups generated with this plugin are stored in the /wp-content/backups directory and you can also change the directory if needed.
Highlights:
- Easy to use and no setup required
- Option to have every backup emailed to you
- Works on Windows and Linux server
- Exclude files and folders from backups
- Translations for Spanish, German, Chinese, Romanian, Russian etc.
