As web professionals we all know the importance of backups yet backups for some reason seem to be low on the priority list when setting up a new WordPress site. What is worse, is that clients abdicate responsibility and rely on their web hosting company to do the backups for them which is a huge mistake. Most hosting companies do backups nightly, however they are for disaster recovery for server failure not ‘Oops I deleted a number of important WordPress items and can’t seem to get them back’. Murphy's Law will get you every time so it’s best to be prepared and ready in the event of an issue.

The following are my 5 top picks for backup plugins for WordPress, all have some pros and cons, the main thing is, any of the following is better than nothing at all.

Vault Press is one of the best feature rich WordPress backup plugins you will find. There is no free option available, however entry price for plugin is $5 per month or $55 per year per site. This per site price could get expensive if you have multiple sites but for the single sites it’s a great option. Vault Press gives you simple and easy backup or restore functions with lifetime backup storage (with active plan) plus added security scans on some plans. With the automated backup and restore options, real time backup monitoring, and review and fix options, Vault Press is top of its class.

Many moons ago I used Updraft as a backup tool, it was very simple in design and didn’t have many options available, with UpdraftPlus it’s a game changer. With options to burn, UpdraftPlus gives the user every option available for backup locations from Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon S3 to local storage via SFTP/FTPS/SCP. You choose destination with folder options. You can create scheduled backups or trigger a manual backup at any time. The backup control is in your hands with options to backup files or database or both it’s entirely up to you. You can even backup and download to your local computer. The only downside if there is one is it might be slightly more difficult for beginners than other plugins but with the flexibility UpdraftPlus gives users, it will not take someone long to figure it out. Plus with the many FAQs on UpdraftPlus website and support forum you won’t be left alone.

Backup Buddy would be the most popular premium backup plugin for WordPress. With the ability to easily schedule backups daily and store them in Dropbox, Amazon S3, FTP and even email it to yourself. Backup Buddy also gives you an option to backup to their cloud service called Stash where you get a massive 1GB of storage for free. Backup Buddy is the number one pick for web professionals with a unlimited site option for developers for a once-off fee. Another neat feature Backup Buddy has is their backup profiles. You can customise your backups per site to suit individual site requirements. One of the neatest features for web professionals is the "move WordPress to new host" option. Once you have finished developing the site and get signed off you can quickly and easily migrate the site to its new host or location.

BackWPup Free as the name suggests is a free plugin that allows you to create complete WordPress backups. With backup options to Dropbox, Amazon S3, FTP, on your computer or simply email yourself, BackWPup Free has some features that the premium WordPress backup plugins have.

It is exceptionally easy to use and allows you to schedule automatic backups as desired. BackWPup also comes in a PRO version that has priority support, ability to store backups on Google Drive and some really neat setup wizards that, if you’re like me and love simple step-by-step WIZYWIG then – go PRO! With pricing starting at $75 per site and a developer license for $190 for 10 sites it is well worth the investment.

Backup WordPress comes in two versions Free and Premium. The free version is a complete WordPress backup plugin with automatic scheduling support. You can create different schedules for your database and/or files, down to a hourly timeline. The single biggest drawback of the free version is that it doesn’t allow you to store your WordPress backups to a cloud storage service.

With the premium version it gives you options on backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, etc, and you only pay for the backup option you want. With prices starting from $24 for a single site and $99 for the developer version Backup WordPress is certainly a viable option.

Conclusion

Each WordPress backup plugin has it’s own pros and cons. No matter which one you choose you will come out a winner. A winner because you are in the minority that actually takes the time to setup and schedule a backup of your WordPress site.