UpdraftPlus Review – A Reliable WordPress Backup Plugin

Are you looking for an UpdraftPlus review? Then you’re in the right place. In this post, we’re doing an UpdraftPlus review. UpdraftPlus is a very popular WordPress backup plugin. It has millions of users with thousands of 5-star ratings. Without further ado, let’s start.

If you have a WordPress website, then it’s very important that you think about taking backups. It is normal for a WordPress website to crash or malfunction. Again, if you’re not taking proper security measures, it might also be subject to hacking. One of the best ways of combating these issues is by taking backups. This will ensure that no matter what happens to your site, your core website files are safe and you can safely restore those whenever necessary.

Even if you’re a seasoned WordPress developer, it’s still a good idea to take backups. For that reason, many WordPress users rely on the UpdraftPlus plugin.

UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular WordPress plugins when it comes to backing up your WordPress site. It has 3+ million active installations on wordpress.org with high ratings. In this post, we’re doing an UpdraftPlus review and we’re going to talk about its key features, pros and cons, pricing, etc.

What is UpdraftPlus?

UpdraftPlus is a popular WordPress plugin mainly known for its easy backup and restore features. With over 3 million active installations, UpdraftPlus is the “Go to” choice for many WordPress users. UpdraftPlus is considered to be an easy and reliable website backup and restoration plugin. The plugin has a free and a premium version.

If you ask why this plugin is so popular, then we might say because of the generosity of the free version. The free version of the plugin allows you to backup and restore your WordPress website with a few clicks. Usually that is more than enough for many WordPress users. However, if you do require some advanced features such as incremental backups, more online storage options, etc. then you can upgrade to the premium version.

Regardless of its popularity, this will be an UpdraftPlus plugin honest review.

Key features of UpdraftPlus

Let’s take a look at some of the key features of UpdraftPlus.

Manual & scheduled backups

With UpdraftPlus you can manually take backups. If you’re too busy, then you can also schedule backups and the plugin will automatically backup your site for you. That’s truly a reliable feature of this plugin. The interface might look dated, but it’s still very simple to use. Take a look at the screenshot below:

As you can see, you can backup your site by clicking on the “Backup Now” button. That’s pretty straightforward. Again, all the backups you’ve made will be displayed below. From there you can restore any backup or delete it if it’s no longer necessary.

Multiple backup storages

UpdraftPlus also lets you backup your website files to remote storages. In the free version you have a few options when it comes to remote storage locations. But the premium version unlocks more options. Even with the free version there are quite the options. For example, you can back up to Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud Files, FTP, DreamObjects, OpenStack Swift or Email.

While UpdraftPlus premium unlocks more remote storage options, you gotta admit the benefits of the free version. For most of the developers with a low budget, this is more than enough.

One-click restore

A handy feature that we found was the one click restore. Well, it’s not exactly one click, but a few clicks. All your backups will be listed in a single place. You can choose which backup you want to restore and click on the restore button. Then you can choose what files you want to restore and then begin the restoration process. This is quite simple and doesn’t require much input from the user.

Again, if you want to download your backup files manually, that is also possible. You can download the database, plugins, themes, uploads, and other files manually to your system.

Site migration 

UpdraftPlus also provides a migration feature. You can download backups from a source site and then restore them on the destination site. However, if you have the premium version of UpdraftPlus, you can utilize the direct site to site migration. With it you can link two sites then migrate back and forth as many times as required. This is a really handy feature for developers who need to migrate to development site to live site and vice versa.

The premium version also provides a few more migration facilities such as selective migration. This allows you to choose which plugins, themes, and database tables you want to migrate.

Incremental backups (premium)

UpdraftPlus has some really amazing backup features. It probably has almost every backup feature that you can imagine. Let’s talk about the incremental backup as this caught our attention. So what does this feature do? Well, you know every time you backup, it takes some server resources. With this feature you can backup only the incremental changes made rather than taking full backups. This saves time and server resources.

Multisite support (premium)

The multisite support is also a mentionable feature, although it’s only available in the premium version. You can backup and migrate subsites and more with UpdraftPlus. Again, you can migrate a single site into a WordPress multisite network or migrate a subsite into another multisite network.

Free vs Premium: What’s the difference?

We’ve talked about some of the features of UpdraftPlus. We also discussed some of the premium features as well. But what are the major differences between UpdraftPlus free and premium? We mean for many developers, UpdraftPlus free is sufficient. Why would you upgrade to the premium version? Here are some arguments that might change your mind.

• Cloning and migration: There may come a time where you might feel the need to migrate to a new domain. Although it’s easy to do if you don’t mind the manual work. A program called UpdraftPlus Migrator clones your WordPress site and moves it to a new domain directly and simply. This feature however, isn’t present in the free version of the plugin.
• Anonymisation functions: Now here’s a security feature from UpdraftPlus. If you want to strengthen up your security, then UpdraftPlus premium gives you the anonymisation function in which personal data in your database backups are anonymous.
• Pre-update backups: This is also a neat feature. It automatically backs up your WordPress website before any updates to plugins, themes, and WordPress core. In this way, if something goes wrong you can immediately restore the backup that was just made.
• Backup non-WordPress files and databases: The premium version of this plugin lets you backup WordPress core files along with non-WordPress files and databases. This is also a handy feature in case you have other files except WordPress.
• Backup time and scheduling: With the free version you can schedule backups and your backups will be made automatically. However, the premium version of UpdraftPlus gives you much more options in that department. You can now set exact times to create and delete backups.
• WP-CLI support: If you use WP-CLI for managing WordPress sites, then it’s safe to assume that you’re an advanced user. For an advanced user, UpdraftPlus premium gives you the CLI support you need.
• Lock settings You can also lock access to UpdraftPlus so that you can have control over which users can take and restore backups.
• UpdraftVault Storage: UpdraftPlus has it’s own storage called UpdraftVault. 
• Fast, personal support: This is something that you might have guessed already. If you’re using UpdraftPlus premium you can expect expert support from the developers.

These are some of the features that you get with the premium version. Now let’s also note one important thing here. All these premium features could be considered extra. If we ask ourselves, why do we need a backup plugin in the first place, it’s for backing up and restoring our WordPress site right? That’s what the free version of UpdraftPlus gives you. Let’s break it down.

With UpdraftPlus free you can:

• Backup your site easily
• Keep as many backups as you need
• Restore any backups with a few clicks
• Schedule backups
• Backup to some remote storages
• Migrate

Now, for most WordPress developers, these backup and restore features are more than enough. In fact, you can set your UpdraftPlus backup schedule, set remote storage, specify number of retention, and you’re good to go. You don’t have to do anything as UpdraftPlus will back up your WordPress site automatically.

Now if you look at the premium features and compare, you’ll begin to understand that it’s meant for advanced users. This is something that many WordPress users appreciate and this might be the reason why UpdraftPlus is so popular.

👉 Video: UpdraftPlus Review

Pros and cons

Now since this is an UpdraftPlus review, we should also talk about the pros and cons. Let’s start with the pros:

• Generous free version
• Easy to use, even for beginners
• Multiple cloud storage options
• Trusted by millions

Now that you look at all the benefits, it’s quite easy to understand why this plugin has millions of active installations. We don’t think there’s any disadvantage or demerits of the plugin. But if we have to make some statements, here’s what we can say about the cons of this plugin:

• Some important features require the premium version
• UI could be more modern
• Limited support for free users

The UI actually didn’t bother us that much, but for many users it might look dated. And if we’re a free user, we can expect some limitations in terms of support.

Pricing overview

Now let’s also talk about the pricing of this plugin. In the future if you do decide to upgrade to UpdraftPlus premium, or if you require it now, this will help you out.

There are 5 plans for UpdraftPlus premium:

• Personal: $70/ year up to 2 sites
• Business: $95/ year up to 10 sites
• Agency: $145/ year up to 35 sites
• Enterprise: $195/ year for unlimited sites
• Gold: $399/ year for unlimited sites

Note that you can choose the currency and select your country as VAT will be applied. In that case the pricing might change.

Final verdict: Is UpdraftPlus worth it?

It’s time for our final verdict. The answer to the question you’ve all been waiting for. Is UpdraftPlus worth it? Our answer is yes, most definitely. If you’re looking for a free WordPress backup plugin, then you can check out UpdraftPlus. In our opinion, any new or average WordPress user can use UpdraftPlus for backup purposes. If you need to upgrade to the premium version and get more advanced features, the option is still there.

👉 Also Learn: How to Create a WordPress Staging Site (Complete Tutorial)

Conclusion

So that brings our UpdraftPlus review to an end. We looked at the different features of the plugin, explored some amazing features offered by UpdraftPlus, compared the free with the premium, weighed the pros and cons, and also took a look at the pricing. Overall, we can say that UpdraftPlus is a complete solution when it comes to backup for WordPress. We can all see why this plugin is so popular and beloved.

If you’re looking for a WordPress backup plugin, then UpdraftPlus is a strong choice. Let us know your thoughts on UpdraftPlus in the comments.