No.1: InboxDollars (It might take years to build an online presence, but it only takes a single instant to lose it entirely. If you think this is fear mongering, think again. Millions of cyber attacks are being performed every single day, and it’s only a matter of time when your site will become a target for whatever reason. Even without such an apocalyptic scenario, servers might crash, catapulting your data into oblivion. That’s why you have to be prepared, and have a backup plan in action. Which is the reason why there are backup plugins for WordPress, BackupBuddy being among the most popular ones.
Of course, having a plugin isn’t absolutely necessary. You can always do manual backups by downloading all the data and storing it somewhere safe. However, it’s a tiresome recurring task that quickly turns into burden. You would have to do it at least once a month to ensure that you always have an updated version. Why bother when there are automated solutions that will do it for you?
How Does Backup Buddy Work?
Bad news first: this plugin might seem to be a costly little tool, considering that it doesn’t bring any new values to your business. The basic plan would get you two websites to backup, one year of updates, support and access to Stash Live. As well as one gigabyte of Stash cloud space. If you have multiple websites or more than 1GB of data, you will have to pay more.
Those of you who are reluctant about this investment, consider how much it would cost you to lose all of your data. The math is clear: better to pay a relatively small fee once a year for BackupBuddy than to risk entirely losing your source of income.
Now for the technical matters. If you’ve ever installed at least one plugin in WordPress, you will know how to install this one too. All it takes are a few clicks. You will get to set up a couple of parameters, such as scheduling backups, choosing the destination, and you’re good to go. The beauty of this plugin is that you can set it and forget it. Should you experience a catastrophe and lose your website, all you need to do is click a button to restore everything.
Another great thing is that all the changes you make to your website can be automatically stored on Stash Live cloud storage. That would be the best option for users who update their website on a regular basis. However, if only do it once a week or even less frequently, you can schedule full backups on weekly or monthly bases.
But what happens if or when you fill out that 1GB of Stash cloud with BackupBuddy? No worries – you can also send your backups to your Dropbox account, Google Drive, Amazon S3 or your email.
Alternative WordPress Plugins
Naturally, if you don’t like Backup Buddy, there are plenty more fish in the sea. In the following text, I will outline two of the best alternatives to BackupBuddy, one of which is even free. Just in case you are not ready to allocate money for this.
UpdraftPlus Free WordPress Backup Plugin
Hail to the world’s most popular backup plugin! It has over two million downloads, and counting. The best thing about it is that you can use its basic functionality for free. It will let you backup your data and send it to a cloud storage, with Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and email as options.
The paid version offers additional cloud systems including Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV. As you can see, it offers even more cloud options than Backup Buddy. Plus, the premium version features data encryption, migrating and cloning options, as well as unlimited support.
JetPack VaultPress Backup & Security Plugin
Have you heard of Automattic? It’s a software company founded by Matt Mullenweg. If the name rings a bell, that’s because the man was one of the founders of WordPress itself. Well, VaultPress is a plugin that’s part of a more elaborate Automattic’s JetPack plugin for security, performance, and site management. If you already use JetPack, it’s easy to add VaultPress as an option. Unlike Backup Buddy, the price is determined on a monthly basis and only covers one site at a time.
Note that the basic plan will only store your data for a month, which is another downside for beginners. But the reason why I am proposing it as one of the best backup plugins is that most people already use JetPack. So, VaultPress won’t be that expensive, and it still offers wonderful (and upscalable) features. Simply speaking, it will not only safeguard your website data. It will also raise your site’s security to a higher level, protecting you from bruteforce attacks and spam.
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