by Shylaja Sreedharan

Comparison between popular WordPress backup plugins

The following is a comparison between the popular WordPress backup plugins. The most important features have been considered while doing this.

WordPress backup plugins

Notes:

  • blogVault is planning to introduce security features such as malware scanning in the near future.
  • VaultPress includes security scans only for premium customers.
  • BackupBuddy provides just 1 GB of offsite storage on for free. More storage comes at an additional cost.
  • BackupBuddy uses the third party security solution, Sucuri, for scanning your sites.

 

  • http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/ David Anderson

    I realise it’s a sales pitch, but this is more than a little tendentious. It’s expected that you’ll leave out features which other plugins has and yours hasn’t, but I don’t think you’ve fairly analysed the features you have chosen to focus upon.nn1) By “managed offsite backups”, you appear to mean “the cloud storage is managed by the provider of the plugin”. So, blogVault and others can do this – other plugins don’t. It’s very controversial, however, as to whether having your cloud storage managed by the provider of the plugin is a plus or a minus. UpdraftPlus, for example, allows you to send you backup to all of the destinations (e.g. Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, etc.) at the same time. It’s very unclear to me that this safety-through-redundancy is an inferior solution to having all my backup eggs in a single basket – managed by blogVault.nn2) UpdraftPlus has a form of “real-time backup” – it has a feature to allow an automatic backup to take place whenever a plugin, theme or WordPress core is updated. I realise that this doesn’t cover all database changes… but then, neither does yours – e.g. you’ve introduced special support for WooCommerce. But of course, there are thousands of other plugins than WooCommerce that update the database. So a simple “yes/no” answer that puts the boundary where you it best suits your product is a little tendentious, as I say.nn3) Similarly, saying that UpdraftPlus does not allow “test restore to verify your backup” is also rather misleading. Anyone, armed with an UpdraftPlus backup, can test their backups. They simply 1) Install WordPress (most hosting providers have a 1-click installer) 2) Install UpdraftPlus into the WordPress install 3) Drag-and-drop their backups in 4) Press “Restore”. Presumably you mean that somehow you have made this process quicker or easier somehow. But a cross, as if UpdraftPlus cannot do this at all, is not really giving the full picture.nn4) “Single file download support”. This is also very misleading. Multiple of the cloud backup services which UpdraftPlus supports do this. e.g. If you back up to Google Drive, then Google Drive allows you to navigate your zip file via the web, and download single files. That is the feature you say UpdraftPlus doesn’t have. If you are saying that “UpdraftPlus does not do that with *all* cloud storage providers” then yes, OK – but that is an unfair comparison, because your product only has *one* cloud storage option, rather than (like UpdraftPlus) many!nnBest wishes,nDavid Anderson (UpdraftPlus developer)

    • editorbv

      Hi David,nnnNice to see you again on the blog, and thank you again for writing an articulate comment.nnn1. A good backup solution should abstract the offsite storage completely. It is much simpler experience for the end user and also is much safer as the keys for their cloud backup is not exposed.nnn2. Most WordPress users today use it to create posts, pages, images or comments. By any real-time backup solution, we believe this generic use case needs to be addressed. That is why we feel VaultPress supports it.nnn3. blogVault is the only solution which offers a 1-click test-restore mechanism. It is independent of the hosting provider the customer is on. If we take the route of “customer can do X, by doing A, B, C and D”, then there is no end to it, as anything is possible with computers.nnn4. With Single File download support, we have an extremely simple interface.nnnAs explained earlier, we believe that any solution which is convoluted is not the one we believe in and can often not be considered a solution at all. WordPress is being used primarily by non-technical people and to be able to serve them well, it is critical that we aim for the simplest and most robust solutions.nnnRegards,nAkshat

      • http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/ David Anderson

        Hi Akshat,nnnThanks for taking the trouble to reply.nnnMy point really is not to discuss the fine points of the definitions involved when discussing if product X can or can’t do Y. My point is that you’ve consistently chosen to place the dividing lines in places that allow you to put a nice green tick next to your product, and a red cross next to other peoples’, with no explanation of the subtleties involved in doing that. I think it would be best if you stuck to promoting the virtues of your product (which looks like a great product, by the way), rather than finding ways to say that other peoples’ products “can’t do” things that really, they can (just not the way that you see as best/most convenient/has the nicest interface, etc.).nnnBest wishes,nDavid

        • editorbv

          Hi David,nnI think you are missing my point. My point is that if you define the ability of any product by indicating that “under certain test conditions, if the user follows 4 non intuitive steps to accomplish something”, then we can not give the credit of the feature to that product.nnFor example, in a comparison between C language and Java, you will mention points such as Object Orientation and Garbage collection as features available in Java. However both Object Orientation and Garbage Collection can be accomplished in C. Would you call this comparison misguided too?nnIn computer science, a person with a deep understanding of systems can accomplish anything whatsoever.nnThank you for your appreciation. If you would like to try out our service, I can setup a free trial account for you. Would love to hear your feedback.nnRegards,nAkshat

          • http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/ David Anderson

            Whether some of these steps are non-intuitive is a matter of debate.nne.g. To accomplish “single file download”, a user who has chosen Google Drive for their storage has to do this:n1) Visit https://drive.google.com in their web browser (i.e., they visit the Google Drive website)n2) They click on the zip archiven3) They navigate to the file, and download it.nIs this really any different to what they do with your service, except that they visit a different website other than Google Drive’s?nnnYou could reply “that’s if they choose Google Drive! What if they choose something else?”. But that’s part of the equation, of course. The fact that some products, like UpdraftPlus, allow you to use your favourite, known, storage provider instead of having to go with someone you might not have heard of before, can be seen as a positive as well as a negative. It’s not simply tick/cross.nnnI won’t go through the other specifics… my point is not to argue about the definitions you’ve used. It’s the fact that you’ve reduced it all to a simple set of ticks for your product, and crosses for other peoples. It’s very convenient, but I think it’d be best if you just stuck to marketing your product rather than finding ways to imply that other peoples’ products can’t perform operations, which, if someone chose to use a different set of definitions, they can.nnnnBest wishes,nDavid