Most people searching for an UpdraftPlus review are comparing WordPress backup plugins because they need to make a decision they can trust. They want to know whether the plugin will protect their site after a hack, failed update, or hosting outage, not simply whether it can create a backup file.
This review is designed to help you make that decision. I tested UpdraftPlus on sites of two different sizes, examined how it backs up a complete WordPress site, checked the restoration workflow, and looked at the practical issues that can affect recovery.
You will find a clear recommendation for UpdraftPlus Free, guidance on when Premium may be worthwhile, and the limitations you should understand before relying on it.
UpdraftPlus Free handles the fundamentals well for most standard WordPress sites, but its real limits only surface once a site grows large and a restore is actually put to the test. This review covers what held up, what didn’t, and when Premium or a managed alternative genuinely changes the outcome.
Is UpdraftPlus a good WordPress backup plugin?
Yes, for the majority of WordPress sites. UpdraftPlus covers the core job well: scheduled backups, a choice of remote storage destinations, and full or selective restores, all delivered through a clean, uncluttered settings screen. It’s one of the most widely installed backup plugins in the WordPress directory, which reflects years of sustained, broad use rather than a passing trend.
That reliability comes with a condition attached, though. It depends heavily on your hosting environment and on whether you’ve verified an actual restore, not just a completed backup. A plugin can run flawlessly on a small site and still hit friction once that same site grows in size and complexity, which is exactly the question the rest of this review is built to answer.
How I tested for this UpdraftPlus review
I built two WordPress sites: one at 890MB, representative of a typical small business site, and one at 10GB, representative of a media-heavy site with a large uploads folder and an active database. On each, I ran a scheduled backup, an on-demand backup, a full restore, and a partial restore, then checked whether the site came back fully functional and whether the plugin versions matched what I started with.
What’s included in UpdraftPlus Free?
UpdraftPlus Free covers manual and scheduled backups, a choice of remote storage, and component-based restores. Specifically, it includes:
- Manual and scheduled backups, from every 2 hours to monthly, allowing you to choose a WordPress backup schedule based on how frequently your site changes
- Separate schedules for files and WordPress database
- A choice of remote destinations: Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace Cloud Files, FTP, DreamObjects, OpenStack Swift, or email
- Component-based backups covering the database, plugins, themes, uploads, and other files. These are among the different types of WordPress backups that make selective restores possible.
- Full and partial restores
UpdraftPlus Free lacks multi-destination backups and precise, time-of-day scheduling. However, it does include basic retention limits that automatically delete your oldest backups when you reach a set maximum count.
While these limitations rarely impact standard WordPress sites using a single cloud destination, they are vital for agencies and large operations needing strict backup redundancy, exact overnight scheduling, or advanced, age-based retention rules.
Backing up the sites
The backup completed, but a warning appeared partway through: “A very large file was encountered,” with no indication of which file or what to do about it. The 890MB site, by contrast, backed up without a single warning from start to finish.
UpdraftPlus documents support for sites up to roughly 12GB, so a warning at 10GB arrived earlier than expected. It’s worth stressing that this reflects one specific test environment, since hosting resources, PHP limits, and file distribution all shape the outcome, and a different host might handle the same site without any friction at all. That sensitivity to environment is itself the useful finding here: the outcome depends as much on your server as it does on the plugin.
Restoring the sites
The 890MB restore worked cleanly. It took about five minutes, and the site came back fully functional once it finished, with the dashboard briefly unavailable during the process, which is normal for any restore rather than a warning sign.
The 10GB restore did not complete. About two minutes in, it stopped with a “critical error” message and no further detail. I ran it a second time to rule out a one-off glitch, and it stopped at the same point both times. If this happens during an actual emergency, avoid repeatedly restarting the process. Instead, follow a structured method to restore WordPress from a backup and verify that the selected backup is complete.
A separate detail is worth flagging on its own, since it has nothing to do with site size: a selective restore rolled several plugins back to older versions, including ones that had shipped security updates since the backup was taken. That’s an expected side effect of restoring an older snapshot rather than a flaw in the plugin, but it’s exactly why every restore should end with a version check and, where required, safe updates to restored WordPress plugins before the site goes live again.This is also where backups and site security intersect directly: a plugin quietly reverted past a patched vulnerability is a real, if temporary, exposure.
Where does UpdraftPlus store backups, and why does it matter?
By default, backups sit on the same server as the live site, inside wp-content/UpdraftPlus. That’s fine for initial setup, but it means a server-level problem can take down the site and its only backup at the same moment.
Connecting remote storage resolves this. Free supports several providers, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon S3, but can only send to one destination at a time. Premium adds more providers and allows the same backup to reach multiple destinations simultaneously, which is the sturdier setup for anyone who’d genuinely lose something if a single storage account failed.
UpdraftPlus Free vs. Premium: what actually changes
| Feature | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Manual and scheduled backups | Yes | Yes |
| Backup at a set time of day | No | Yes |
| Auto-delete aging backups | No | Yes |
| Backup before core, plugin, or theme updates | No | Yes |
| Incremental backups | No | Yes |
| Multiple simultaneous storage destinations | No | Yes |
| Back up wp-config, custom folders, non-wp_ tables | No | Yes |
| Direct site-to-site migration | No | Yes |
| Database encryption and data anonymization | No | Yes |
| WP-CLI and Multisite backup support | No | Yes |
| Support | Community forum | Direct support |
Two Premium features earn their cost regardless of site size. Pre-update backups create an automatic safety net right before an update that could break the site. Incremental backups save only what changed since the last run instead of re-uploading the entire site every time, similar to editing a shared document with tracked changes instead of emailing a brand new copy every time one sentence changes.
UpdraftPlus Premium pricing
As of this review, UpdraftPlus Premium pricing was:
- Personal: $70/year, 2 sites
- Business: $95/year, 10 sites
- Agency: $145/year, 35 sites
- Enterprise: $195/year, unlimited sites
- Gold: $399/year, 50GB of UpdraftVault storage included
When does a managed backup service fit better?
UpdraftPlus asks you to own the schedule, the storage connection, and the restore testing yourself. For most site owners, that’s a reasonable trade. For larger or revenue-critical sites, it becomes a heavier lift, since a failed restore there carries real cost rather than just inconvenience.
That’s the gap managed services are built to close. BlogVault, for instance, runs backups off the server entirely rather than through it, which sidesteps the resource-contention issue this test ran into directly, and stores copies independently so a hosting outage can’t take out the site and its backup together. It also builds in test restores on a staging copy before anything touches the live site, which addresses the exact blind spot this review was designed to expose. It’s one option among several in that category, and the right fit comes down to how much hands-on setup someone wants to own versus hand off.
FAQs
Is UpdraftPlus free to use?
Yes. The free version covers manual and scheduled backups, remote storage, and full or partial restores. Premium adds incremental backups, pre-update snapshots, multiple destinations, encryption, and direct support.
Can UpdraftPlus handle a large WordPress site?
It’s documented to support sites up to roughly 12GB. In this test, a 10GB site triggered a warning during backup and failed to complete a restore on two separate attempts. Results depend heavily on the hosting environment, so testing the actual site in question is the only reliable way to know where it stands.
Where does UpdraftPlus store backups by default?
UpdraftPlus stores backups by default on the hosting server itself, unless remote storage is connected. Setting that up should be one of the first things done after installing the plugin.
Does restoring with UpdraftPlus downgrade installed plugins?
It can. A selective restore reverts components to the version saved in that backup, which may predate a later security update. Plugin and core versions should be checked immediately after any restore.
Is UpdraftPlus Premium worth paying for?
For anyone who needs incremental backups, pre-update snapshots, multiple storage destinations, or encryption, yes, those are real capabilities Free lacks. Premium doesn’t by itself resolve a host running low on memory or execution time during a large restore.
Conclusion
UpdraftPlus is a reliable choice for most WordPress sites when paired with remote storage and a tested restore. Larger or business-critical sites should test recovery on their actual hosting environment before relying on it. Whether you choose UpdraftPlus or a managed service, never skip the restore test.
Shivani enjoys crafting guides that make every aspect of using WordPress simple and easy to follow. When she's not glued to her laptop, you can find her buried in a good book or occasionally, painting.
