Are you looking for a backup plugin for your WordPress site? BackupBuddy is one of the most popular WordPress backup plugins in the market. In this BackupBuddy review, we will take a look at what makes it the top WordPress backup plugin.
Why Do You Need a Backup Plugin for WordPress?
The Internet is not as safe as we would like it to be. Every day thousands of websites go down due to DDOS attacks, hack attempts, and data theft.
Many site owners don’t realize the importance of backups, until they lose their data. Recovering lost data is very expensive, painful, and totally avoidable with proper backups.
There are several WordPress backup solutions in the market. Here is what we are looking for in an ideal backup solution for a WordPress powered site.
- Automatically creates backups on regular schedule
- Stores the backups on the cloud
- Offers painless restore and migration from backups
Let’s take a look at BackupBuddy and see how well it does all this and then some more.
Quick and Easy Setup for Complete Backups
Many beginner level users are not familiar with terminologies used by backup software. This makes it a little difficult for them to make decisions when setting up their backup solution.
BackupBuddy makes it very simple and easy for beginners to set up their backup solution as soon as they activate the plugin.
It shows them a simple form with very easy to understand options. Simply filling it out and saving it will not only setup your backup solution, but will also initiate your first complete backup.
It saves users from an overwhelming number of decisions and options. It starts working within seconds, and you do not need to struggle with the software to make it work.
Automatic Scheduled Backups
Most users don’t have the time to manually back up whenever they update their website. BackupBuddy allows you to quickly set up a schedule for automatic backups and then forget about it.
It will automatically create backups on the schedule defined by you. Depending on how often you post new content on your website, you can adjust this schedule to meet your needs.
Another great feature of BackupBuddy is that it allows you to setup multiple schedules. For example, you can set up a schedule for daily backup of your database, and then another to create complete backups every week.
Store Your Backups on Cloud with BackupBuddy
One of the most important features of any website backup solution is the ability to store backups on multiple locations. BackupBuddy provides a number of options to store your backups securely.
Each BackupBuddy plugin gives you access to 1 GB of storage on BackupBuddy’s Stash cloud storage. The plugin also allows you to automatically delete old backups from your cloud storage. This means 1 GB is quite enough for 95% of websites. However, more storage is available if you need it. Starting with just $35 per year for 5 GB.
BackupBuddy also allows you to save your backups on popular cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox.
It also supports cheap cloud storage services such as Amazon S3 and Rackspace.
Apart from cloud storage, you can also save your backups on your own server, send them to another server using FTP, or email backups to yourself.
Easily Restore and Migrate Websites with BackupBuddy
Many backup solutions make it easy to create backups. But restoring sites with them is not as easier. BackupBuddy, on the other hand, makes it extremely simple to restore your website from a backup.
You restore all your files with one click from the backup. BackupBuddy also allows you to replace selected files from an old backup. This comes in particularly handy when working with themes or editing files on a live site.
BackupBuddy also comes with an easy roll back option for your database. You can select a backup and roll back to the database stored with that particular backup without replacing files.
If you are migrating a website from one server to another or to a new domain name. Then BackupBuddy provides an extremely easy to use migration wizard for that. Simply upload your backup and importbuddy.php file to the new server. Then run importbuddy script to easily migrate your website.
Perform Quick Malware Scans with BackupBuddy
Malware are a common issue with websites. Typically malware is inserted into a website without the site owner’s knowledge. This is usually a script that downloads malicious software or trojans into a visitor’s computer.
Malware can destroy your site’s search engine rankings. BackupBuddy comes with a quick malware scanner built-in. You can use that to check your website against common malware threats. It checks your website using Google safe browsing, Norton safe web, PhishTank, SiteAdvisor, and several other online tools.
If malware is detected on your site, then you can simply restore your site to an earlier backup for a quick fix. However, you will still need to improve your website’s overall security to ensure that this does not happen again.
Pricing and Support Options for BackupBuddy
Pricing for BackupBuddy starts for as low as $99 per year for the Basic single site license. You can buy a Plus license for $199 which entitles you to use BackupBuddy on 5 sites. There’s also an Agency plan at $299 for 10 sites.
Ticket-based support is provided to all subscribers from the plugin’s official support forums. Questions are usually answered in less than a few hours.
Users who prefer to do things on their own will find online documentation quite extensive and satisfactory. You also get access to the official Codex, tutorials, video tutorials, instructions, and support forums.
BackupBuddy Alternatives
A really good alternative to BackupBuddy is Duplicator. It’s an awesome backup and migration plugin for WordPress websites.
In fact, it’s been downloaded more than 30 million times.
You can use it to create a copy of your site in minutes. Then you can use this backup to migrate or move your site from one place to another. You can also use it as a clone or staging site to test out new changes.
There’s a free plugin you can use for basic backup and WordPress migration. However, there’s a pro version with advanced features that’s worth the investment.
- Scheduled backups
- Multiple storage locations including cloud storage to Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3 and FTP/SFTP
- Recovery Points added for very fast emergency site restores
- Database and user creation in the installer with cPanel API
- Custom plugin hooks for developers
- Connect to cPanel directly from installer
- Supports larger websites and database backups
- Migrate an entire multisite WordPress network
- Install a multisite subsite as a new standalone website
- Limit backup numbers to save storage space
- Email notifications
- Professional support
There are a few more backup tools that are worth mentioning. These include UpdraftPlus, BlogVault, and JetPack. However, Duplicator is our top choice.
Our Verdict on BackupBuddy as The Best WordPress Backup Plugin
BackupBuddy offers a comprehensive set of features that you will need from your WordPress backup plugin. It has a very polished user interface, with on-screen help available whenever needed. The user experience is sleek and even beginners would find it quite easy to use.
The plugin code is reliable and has one of the best minds in the WordPress community behind it. It is highly trusted and very reliable. It is regularly maintained and receives frequent updates to keep it secure and safe.
It is the most cost-effective way to set up backups for a WordPress site with good professional support.
We feel confident, that BackupBuddy from iThemes is at the top of the best WordPress backup plugins in the market. We give it the perfect 5 out of 5 stars.
Here is a breakdown of our review score:
5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0 5.0 / 5.0
I’ve had a lifetime license to backupbuddy for some time. I don’t use it very often because it just doesn’t work very often. I’ve gotten more errors and wasted more time fiddling with this plugin than any other plugin I’ve ever worked with on WordPress. Support is super nice and they respond quickly, but it’s just not intuitive enough to bother with anymore.
Backupbuddy works well and is very easy, but only for 80%. For 20% it causes problems in migration creating broken databases.
Back up buddy was already on a website that I was hired to work on. Refused to work! It was quicker and easier for me to go back to my favourite free plugin All-in- one WP Migration which is easy to use and actually works.
I completely disagree … This was the worst paid software performance I’ve experienced in the last 15 years! Support was nearly non existent and what there was of it couldn’t resolve basic issue with push-pull not working correctly. Without writing a tome here, we really wanted it to work and spent hours and hours on it and finally dropped it at the end of the first year … it wouldn’t work consistently and they wouldn’t support and fix the issues.
The $50 version of Backup Buddy was a complete waste of money for me. You have to update it almost every month or you get CONSTANT error emails. I’ll never buy it again. Support was good, but I shouldn’t have to contact support. Waste of time and money.