1. UpdraftPlus

It can automatically upload your backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, S3, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email, and several other cloud storage services.

Besides backing up each WordPress website, UpdraftPlus also allows you to easily restore backups directly from your WordPress admin panel.

UpdraftPlus also has a premium version with add-ons to migrate or clone websites, database search and replace, multisite support, and several other features. The premium version also gets you access to priority support.

Pricing: Free (UpdraftPremium Personal for $70)

Review: UpdratPlus is the most loved WordPress backup plugin in the market. It has over 2 million active installs and a 4.9 out of a 5-star rating average. While the free version has a lot of features, we recommend upgrading to UpdraftPlus premium to unlock all-powerful backup features.

2. Jetpack Backup

Jetpack Backups is a popular WordPress backup plugin by Automattic, the company created by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg.

Jetpack backup plugin offers automated daily and real-time cloud backup solutions without slowing down your site. You can easily set up Jetpack backups and restore previous backups within a few clicks.

The higher plans of Jetpack also offer security scans and several other powerful features.

There are a few downsides of using Jetpack backups for beginners.

First, it is a recurring expense that can add up if you have multiple WordPress sites because you pay on a per-site level.

Second, the purchase flow is quite complicated, and they force you to install the Jetpack plugin to purchase a subscription. The good news is that you can manually disable all the unnecessary features of Jetpack except for backups, so they don’t slow down your site.

Lastly, backups are stored for only 30-days on the lower plans. If you want an unlimited backup archive, then you would have to pay $49.95 per month per website which is significantly more expensive for beginners when compared to other solutions listed here.

Pricing: From $9.95 per month for Daily backups or $49.95 per month for real-time backups.

Review: Jetpack Backup is a premium backup service with a premium price point. If you’re already using JetPack for other features like JetPack CDN for photos, social media promotion, Elastic search, etc, then it’s good value to purchase their Complete plan bundle for the best value. If you’re just after real-time cloud backups for WordPress, then you can also look at BlogVault in our list because they offer more affordable pricing for beginners.

3. BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy is one of the most popular premium WordPress backup plugins used by over half a million WordPress sites. It allows you to easily schedule daily, weekly, and monthly backups.

With BackupBuddy, you can automatically store your backups in cloud storage services like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, Stash (their cloud service), and even email it to yourself.

If you use their Stash service, then you also have the ability to do real-time backups.

The biggest advantage of using BackupBuddy is that it is not a subscription-based service, so there is no monthly fee. You can use the plugin on the number of websites mentioned in your plan.

You also get access to premium support forums, regular updates, and 1GB of BackupBuddy Stash storage to store your backups. In addition, their iThemes Sync feature lets you manage up to 10 WordPress sites from a single dashboard.

You can even use BackupBuddy to duplicate, migrate and restore websites.

Pricing: $80 for Blogger Plan (1 Site License)

Review: BackupBuddy is a cost-effective premium WordPress backup solution for you. It has a full set of features you’ll need to backup, restore and move a WordPress site. In a nutshell, it’s a powerful UpdraftPlus and VaultPress alternative that you can use.

4. BlogVault

Besides backups, it helps you to recover your website easily. You can store a 90-day backup archive on lower plans, and a 365-day backup archive on higher plans, so you can recover your site from any mishap.

It also has a built-in staging site feature to let you test your website easily. Plus, they provide an easy option to migrate your website to another host.

BlogVault features are very promising for small businesses, and their real-time backup plan is quite affordable when compared to Jetpack backups (half the price). However if you compare it to self-hosted plugins like Updraft or BackupBuddy, then the cost per site is more expensive.

Pricing: $89 per year for Personal Plan 1 Site License for daily backups. $249 per year for real-time backups.

Review: BlogVault is an easy-to-use WordPress backup solution. It creates offsite backups, so your website server will not be overloaded with your backups. The pricing seems very affordable for small businesses who want real-time backups but don’t want to pay the premium pricing of Jetpack backups.

5. BoldGrid Backup

BoldGrid Backup is an automated WordPress backup solution by BoldGrid, which is a website builder powered by WordPress.

It allows you to easily create your website backups, restore your site after it crashes, and you can even use it to move your site when switching hosts. You can set up automated backups or manually create backups with one click.

BoldGrid Backup comes with an automated fault protection feature that automatically creates a backup of your site before it updates. If an update fails, it automatically rolls back your WordPress site to the last backup. It’s a great feature that protects you against update errors.

With BoldGrid Backup, you can store up to 10 backup archives on your dashboard and more in a remote storage location like Amazon S3, FTP, or SFTP.

Pricing: $60 per year (Includes all of BoldGrid Premium tools & Services)

Review: BoldGrid Backup is a simple WordPress backup plugin that you can use to create your website backups. The advantage of using this plugin is the bundle of other powerful tools you’ll get with the purchase of this plugin.

6. BackWPup

BackWPup is a free plugin that allows you to create complete WordPress backups for free and store it on the cloud (Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, etc), FTP, email, or on your computer.

It is extremely easy to use and allows you to schedule automatic backups according to your site’s update frequency.

Restoring a WordPress site from backup is also very simple. The BackWPup Pro version comes with priority support, the ability to store backups on Google Drive, and some other cool features.

Pricing: Free (Premium plan is also available)

Review: Used by over 600,000 websites, BackWPup is a great alternative to other backup plugins in the list. The premium version of the plugin adds more powerful features including easy and quick website restoration from the backend with a standalone app.

7. Duplicator

As the name suggests, Duplicator is a popular WordPress plugin used to migrate WordPress sites. However it also has backup features.

It does not allow you to create automated scheduled backups which makes it less than ideal primary WordPress backup solution for a regularly maintained site.

Pricing: Free

Review: Duplicator lets you create manual backups of your WordPress site easily. If your web host creates regular backups, you can use this plugin to create backups to use on a staging environment. It’s a great site migration plugin.

TL;DR

Each WordPress backup plugin in our list has its pros and cons, but all of them offer complete WordPress file backup as well as full database backup features.

If you run a small to medium size website and hate paying monthly fees, then we recommend UpdraftPlus. It comes with all the powerful features like backup encryption, encrypted backup transport, and tons of cloud storage options.

Whichever WordPress backup plugin you end up choosing, please do NOT store your backups on the same server as your website.

By doing that, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket. If your server’s hardware fails or you get hacked, then you don’t have a backup; which defeats the purpose of setting up regular backups.

This is why we highly recommend storing your backups on a third-party storage service like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, etc.

We hope this is helpful to you and please reach out if you have any questions!