In order to correctly backup WordPress you have to not only backup both the files and the database. BackupBuddy plugin excels in its ease of use for backing up, migrating, and restoring your website. After all, what good is a backup plugin if you have no clue how to get your website back when you need it?
Other Popular WordPress Backup Plugins
myRepono
There are several popular plugins for creating WordPress backups. We have recommended myRepono in the past because it is a reliable way to make sure your site is backed up. The restore for myRepono is not for the faint of heart though. You’ll need good technical skills or a developer to help you get your site back. We still recommend the service though because it is a solid and inexpensive way to not only backup WordPress, but other mySQL databases, as well. Even if, you use the BackupBuddy plugin; it is always good to make sure you have a Plan B in place.
VaultPress
On the other end of the spectrum, VaultPress provides an easy to use realtime WordPress backup service with automated restores, disaster recovery and support to help you in your time of need. At the Premium level, you can also get continuous security scanning, and they have one-click fixers for security threats. The Premium service is $40 a month* and is a very comprehensive solution.
BackupBuddy Provides a No-Fuss Automatic WordPress Backup
To create a WordPress backup with BackupBuddy it’s as easy as logging into your website and clicking the Database Backup or the Complete Backup. Depending on the size of your site and your technical skills you have the following options for backup destinations:
- Download Locally: The easiest of the bunch. When the backup is finished click on a link in the control panel and you can download the file.
- Amazon S3: This can be a little intimidating for nontechnical folks, but the best option for long term storage of your backup files. There is a fee for storing, transferring and using server time on Amazon’s S3 service, but it’s very inexpensive and offers practically limitless storage.
- Dropbox: Creating a WordPress backup to Dropbox is easy to setup for nontechnical folks. It’s nice to have a backup that automatically comes to your computer. There are limitations on the size of the website you can backup though.
- Email: This is another easy option for nontechnical folks. There are limitations on the size of the website you can backup though.
- FTP: Relatively straight forward to set this up. FTP will never be as easy as Dropbox or email for backups, but this is a good alternative to Amazon S3 if your hosting provider allows outgoing FTP transfers. GoDaddy and many others do not.
- Rackspace: This appears similar to the Amazon S3 option. Like Amazon S3, cloud file storage on Rackspace is also inexpensive.
Hosting Limitations
If you have a dedicated server, virtual private server, or use a premium hosting service like Copyblogger’s Synthesis you can skip right over this section. Your server can handle it.
For the rest of us that are pinching pennies, or just don’t have the performance needs of a premium service one has to be careful when picking web hosting providers. DevelareHosting.com uses the same back end as GoDaddy’s servers, and for shared hosting, we have had good results overall. Some of the sites running BackupBuddy 2.x had sporadic timeout issues, but we have been monitoring sites that have upgraded to BackupBuddy 3.x and due to the performance improvements they timeout issues have gone away.
BackupBuddy has a great wiki article on the performance and compatibility issues with shared hosting accounts. Our recommendation is that if you have issues with your host, it is time to switch. There are too many good options out there to settle for sub-par hosting, even at the shared hosting level.
Pricing
The folks at iThemes.com offer several options for purchasing BackupBuddy directly from them. At the personal level, prices* start at $75/year and go up to $150/year for the Developer package. For ease of use and options offered, the pricing is very competitive.
In addition, Develare has purchased a Developer license and will install and configure the BackupBuddy plugin for all clients who have an active maintenance agreement at no additional cost. Contact us for details.
Conclusion
BackupBuddy offers an easy to use and competitively priced WordPress backup option for users ranging from novice to expert. In order to protect yourself against server failure, software errors, virus attacks, and other security issues we highly recommend that you backup your WordPress installation.
* Prices current as of 06/30/2012
