UpdraftPlus

Creating regular backups is the best way to protect your website from all kinds of bugs, errors, and security threats.

Over the years, we’ve tried various backup plugins across WPBeginner and our partner sites, including JetPack Backups and Duplicator. This first-hand experience has taught us that every WordPress website has different needs, so it’s essential you find the right backup plugin for you.

That said, in this UpdraftPlus review we’re looking at a plugin that lets you backup your files and databases to a wide range of cloud storage services. You can also schedule these backups to happen automatically, or create a manual backup at any point.

Is UpdraftPlus the must-have backup plugin for you? Let’s find out, in this detailed UpdraftPlus review.

UpdraftPlus Review: Why Use It in WordPress?

UpdraftPlus is a popular backup plugin that allows you to create a complete backup of your WordPress website. You can then store this backup on your computer or upload it to a cloud storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

UpdraftPlus can create these backups automatically based on a schedule set by you, but you can also create backups on-demand. Typically, it’s a good idea to create a manual backup before making big changes such as updating to a new version of WordPress.

At some point, you may need to restore a backup. For example, you might revert to an earlier version if your site gets hacked, or you encounter a serious WordPress error.

With UpdraftPlus, you can restore your most recent backup with ease.

If you have a limited budget or you’re just getting started, then you can download the lite version of UpdraftPlus from the official WordPress repository.

This free plugin allows you to backup your site to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, or Openstack Swift.

You can also send your backups to an email address.

However, the premium plugin supports some additional storage options. This includes Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and UpdraftVault.

You can even store the same backup in multiple locations and encrypt your database, for extra WordPress security.

UpdraftPlus Review: Is It the Right WordPress Backup Plugin for You?

While you could backup your site manually, smart website owners save time by using a WordPress plugin. With the right plugin, you can create a backup schedule and store these files in a secure location automatically.

With that in mind, in this UpdraftPlus review we’ll see if it’s the right backup and migration plugin for your WordPress website.

1. Automated WordPress Backups

With UpdraftPlus, you can create an hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly, or monthly backup schedule that suits your website. For example, if you post two new WordPress blogs a week, then you might backup your files every fortnight and backup your database once per week.

Meanwhile, if you run an online store then you’ll typically want to backup your site as often as possible. This way, you can avoid losing order information, customer payment details, and other important data.

WordPress stores all its posts and pages, links, comments, and website settings in the database, so you’ll need to backup both your files and database. However, you can use separate schedules, based on what works for your website.

After selecting a backup frequency, you can choose how many backups UpdraftPlus should store in the cloud.

Once UpdraftPlus reaches this number, it will start replacing the oldest backup with newer WordPress backups. In this way, UpdraftPlus can help optimize your storage space.

You can change these settings at any point, so if you’re unsure then you can select a larger number and then reduce it if the backups start taking up too much space.

For more information, please see our guide on how to backup your site with UpdraftPlus.

2. Multiple Storage Locations

Typically, it’s a bad idea to save your backups in the same location as your website. If you do, then you risk losing both your website and backup files if something goes wrong.

Instead, UpdraftPlus allows you to save your backups to all the most popular cloud storage services, including Dropbox, Rackspace Cloud Files, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive.

You can also backup to FTP, SFTP, and WebDAV servers, or send your UpdraftPlus backups to an email address.

Simply select the service or location you want to use, and UpdraftPlus will walk you through the set up process.

3. UpdraftVault Storage

With UpdraftPlus, you can backup your WordPress website to a range of cloud storage services. However, the people behind this plugin also provide UpdraftVault, which is a built-in storage space that you can use to store and manage all your backups.

UpdraftVault is built on Amazon S3, which according to the UpdraftPlus website promises 99.999999999% reliability, redundancy and high scalability.

Even better, since it’s designed specifically for UpdraftPlus users, you can backup your site to UpdraftVault with just a few clicks.

If you invest in a premium UpdraftPlus plan, then you’ll get 1GB of storage included, with the option to buy more. Alternatively, you can upgrade to the Gold plan, which includes 50GB of UpdraftVault storage.

4. Backup to Multiple Locations

It’s best practice to backup your site to multiple locations. That way, even if you lose access to one backup you’ll still have a fallback that you can use.

The good news is that UpdraftPlus can backup to several destinations at the same time. This means you don’t have to run multiple separate backups.

5. Include and Exclude Files

According to the UpdraftPlus website, this plugin is proven to backup sites of 100GB, with the file size only limited by your web host. However, large websites can take a long time to process, and will take up more storage.

With that in mind, you may want to exclude files from your backups. By default, UpdraftPlus will include all the WordPress plugins, themes, and uploads in your backups. However, you can exclude this content simply by unchecking a box.

If you leave the ‘Uploads’ box checked, then you can create some exclusion rules for this content.

For example, you can exclude all your uploaded PDF files, by creating a rule that ignores files with the .pdf extension.

6. Built-in Encryption

By default, UpdraftPlus sends data to your chosen cloud storage location over an encrypted connection, while also encrypting it on the server.

For added security, UpdraftPlus can also encrypt your database with a passphrase.

If you have the encryption key and you’re restoring from the UpdraftPlus settings interface, then it will decrypt the database backup file automatically. Alternatively, you can type your passphrase into the UpdraftPlus interface.

7. Automated Email Reports and Notifications

Backups play an important role in keeping your website safe. With that said, if an automated backup fails then you’ll want to know about it as soon as possible.

To help you out, UpdraftPlus can send a notification to your WordPress admin email every time it successfully creates a backup.

If you upgrade to the premium backup plugin, then these reports will include extra information such as the size of the backups, where they’re stored, and the entities included in the file. These reports will also include cryptographic checksums so you can verify the integrity of your backups.

If you don’t receive this email, then it means the backup has failed. You can then start looking into the problem, so you can fix this WordPress error as soon as possible.

Alternatively, premium UpdraftPlus users can opt to receive error reports when UpdraftPlus encounters a problem.

8. Detailed Reports and Statistics

As already mentioned, UpdraftPlus premium can send detailed reports to your site admin, or any other email address of your choosing.

However, you can also see a complete record of all your backup activities in the WordPress dashboard, along with any warnings and error messages. This is particularly useful if you run a multi-author WordPress blog, or share the dashboard with other people.

9. Create Manual Backups

With UpdraftPlus you can backup a website, blog, or online marketplace based on a set schedule. However, you can also create a backup on-demand.

For example, you might create a manual backup before making a big change such as installing a new WordPress theme.

With that done, you can undo the major change, simply by restoring your manual backup.

When creating a manual backup, UpdraftPlus will include all your files and WordPress database by default. It will also use the same remote storage location that you use for your automated backups. However, you can change these settings if you need to.

With that done, just click on the ‘Backup Now’ button and UpdraftPlus will go ahead and copy all your files and WordPress database.

10. Incremental Backups

Another option is creating incremental backups based on an hourly schedule.

After performing an initial full backup, UpdraftPlus will only backup the changes that occurred since the previous backup. Typically, this means your backups will complete faster and take up less space on the server.

11. GDPR Compliance

Many WordPress websites contain personal data, such as the customer’s phone number, email address, and form submissions.

With that said, when cloning or backing up your website it’s important to follow security and privacy laws such as GDPR. For example, if a site contains personal information then you can’t simply clone it to a development site.

The good news is that UpdraftPlus has an Anonymisation Function that can automatically anonymise any personal information it finds in your WordPress databases. With that done, you’ll have a backup that’s ready to deploy to a staging site and complies with data protection laws.

12. Restore Backups with Ease

If you ever need to restore a backup, then UpdraftPlus makes this process easy.

Even if your WordPress site gets hacked or you want to start completely from fresh, you can simply delete everything and install WordPress again. With that done, just install and activate UpdraftPlus and you’re ready to restore your backup.

If you saved the backup on your computer, then you can just click the ‘Upload backup files’ link to upload and restore the file manually.

Alternatively, you can connect UpdraftPlus to your remote storage location, such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

After selecting your storage location, simply follow the onscreen instructions to authenticate your website with the remote storage service.

After a few moments, you should see all your available backups. Simply go ahead and choose the backup you want to restore.

Finally, select the components you want to restore.

If you’re using a fresh WordPress installation, then you’ll typically check all the boxes.

UpdraftPlus will then fetch your backup files from the remote location and restore your WordPress website.

This may take a few minutes depending on the size of your backup, and the speed of your Internet connection.

13. Restore Backups from Other Solutions

Do you want to restore a backup made by an alternative backup plugin? For example, your original plugin might not restore backups automatically.

Some plugins, such as BackupWordPress, force users to restore their site manually by uploading the backup via FTP and then importing the database using phpMyAdmin. 

If this is the case, then UpdraftPlus can import and restore backups made by BackupWordPress, BackWPup, and WordPress Backup to Dropbox. It can also import generic SQL backups, such as uncompressed and gzip-compressed files.

14. Supports WordPress Multisite

Do you run a WordPress multisite network?

UpdraftPlus is a multisite-compatible plugin so you can create automated backups for every site on your network. You can access the backup panel in the network dashboard, and then backup or restore individual sites within your network.

You can also import backups from stand-alone WordPress sites into a multisite network.

15. Migrate Your WordPress Website

Do you want to move your website to a new WordPress hosting provider? To make sure everything goes smoothly, we recommend using a WordPress migration plugin.

If you buy a premium UpdraftPlus license, then you’ll also get access to Migrator. This tool allows you to duplicate a site and move it to a new domain name or host. Migrator can even move a standalone blog or website into a WordPress network.

When you restore a site using Migrator, you’ll have the option to perform a search and replace. This feature will look up the site’s original address and replace all instances of that location with the new address.

This can help you avoid broken links, redirect issues, and other strange behavior. It can also save you a ton of time compared to updating these instances manually.

16. Create a Cloned Test Site

Sometimes you may want to see how your site looks with a new theme, layout, WordPress plugins, or other content. In that case, UpdraftPlus gives you access to UpdraftClone.

This tool allows you to clone your website with just a few clicks. You can then use this temporary site as a sandbox and try out all kinds of changes.

Since this test site is hosted on the UpdraftPlus servers, you’ll need to buy tokens to create and maintain these staging sites. While some tokens are included in UpdraftPlus Premium, you may need to buy more if you regularly create cloned sites.

17. Community and Professional Support

UpdraftPlus is designed with ease of use in mind, especially if you’re creating automated backups. Simply set your schedule and storage location, and UpdraftPlus will handle the rest.

However, sometimes you may have questions or need help to get the most out of UpdraftPlus. For new users, we recommend checking out their How to Backup Your WordPress Site guide. There’s also an FAQ where you’ll find lots of helpful information.

Community support is a big part of UpdraftPlus. If you’re using the free plugin, then you can post your questions to the UpdraftPlus forum on WordPress.org. For more information, please see our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support.

Meanwhile, if you’re a premium user then you can access the paid support forum.

Do you prefer one-on-one help? If you’re a premium user then you can also submit a support ticket and get help directly from the UpdraftPlus team.

UpdraftPlus Review: Pricing and Plans

If you run a startup or small business website, then you can download and use UpdraftPlus for free, from the official WordPress repository.

However, if you want to unlock advanced features such as incremental backups, detailed reports and WordPress multisite support, then you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plugin.

All the premium plans come with 12 months of professional support and updates, plus all of UpdraftPlus’ advanced features and storage options. However, the plan that’s right for you will vary, depending on the number of websites where you want to use UpdraftPlus:

• Personal. For $70 per year, you can use UpdraftPlus on up to 2 websites.
• Business. Priced at $95 annually, this plan allows you to use UpdraftPlus on up to 10 websites. With that said, this is a good option if you run multiple sites, such as several affiliate marketing blogs.
• Agency. For $145 per year, you can use UpdraftPlus on up to 35 sites. For that reason, we recommend this plan to WordPress developers, agencies, or anyone who manages a portfolio of client websites.
• Enterprise. Do you run a large WordPress development agency? For $195 per year, you can install UpdraftPlus on an unlimited number of websites.

Do you need additional storage, or extra UpdraftClone tokens? Then you may want to look at the UpdraftPlus Gold plan, as it includes 50GB of UpdraftVault storage and 10 UpdraftClone tokens.

UpdraftPlus Review: Is It the Right WordPress Backup Plugin for You?

After looking at the features, support, and pricing, we’re confident that UpdraftPlus is a powerful WordPress backup plugin. It’s a great option if you want to set your own backup schedule or create backups on-demand.

If you have a limited budget or want to try UpdraftPlus for free, then you can download the lite version from the official WordPress.org website. However, if you want to unlock all the remote storage options, backup to multiple locations, or use other advanced features, then you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plugin.

UpdraftPlus has a range of licenses depending on the number of blogs or websites where you want to use this plugin. For example, Personal allows you to use UpdraftPlus on up to 2 websites, so it’s perfect if you run a single blog or website. Meanwhile, Enterprise allows you to use UpdraftPlus on as many websites as you want, so it’s a great choice for bigger businesses or even WordPress development agencies.

We hope this UpdraftPlus review helped you decide whether it’s the right backup plugin for you. You may also want to learn how to boost your WordPress speed and performance, or see our expert pick of the best contact form plugins.

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