What is BackupBuddy

BackupBuddy is an immensely popular wordpress backup plugin.  Since its launch in 2005 , it has been installed on over 100,000 wordpress sites. There are thousands of customers and IThemes (parent company behind BackupBuddy) has been constantly churning out new features and improvements.  It supports features like Remote and Local Backup Storage, Backup Scheduling, Site Restoration, Email Notifications etc.

The only slightly negative thing is that it is a premium plugin and costs 75 USD for use on 2 websites (1 year of support and updates).  Dont get me  wrong, I am all for paying for quality products , but choice is always a good thing. In this post I will list down 5 free plugin for creating backups of your wordpress blog.

If BackupBuddy is good, Why Look for alternatives?

As I already said, Backupbuddy is a premium plugin and it costs 75USD for use on two websites. Many a times users do not want to spend money on backing up less critical / low trafficked websites. Thats where the need for free backup plugin comes in.

Now selecting a free backup plugin is not an easy task.  Searching the wordpress plugin repository with tag “backup” throws up over 85 results. If you are a wordpress beginner, then good luck in choosing the right plugin.

In this post we have made an attempt to list some  of the best free backup plugins. During the research, a lot of  parameters like Number of downloads, Frequency of Updates, Support Forum Activity etc were taken into account. It has  taken us over 20 hours to test and compile this list. I hope our readers will find it useful.

5 Free Alternatives to BackupBuddy

1) UpDraftPlus (Recommended)

Updraft Plugin- BackupBuddy Alternative

Updraft Plugin- BackupBuddy Alternative

In my opinion, this is the best alternative to BackupBuddy. 

With over 1 million active installs and a 5 star rating, this plugin has stood the test of times. A lot of plugins are started and are quickly abandoned, but updraft plus is different. When I first published this post (in Jan 2013) Updraft’s free version was at 100,00 downloads, it has now grown to over 1 million active installs. It is obvious that these guys are doing something right.

A quick look at the support forum shows that developers are quick in responding to queries and are willing to help the users.  In my opinion support is as crucial as the product quality. These guys seem to be doing fine on the customer support part.

Updraft now has a premium version . Check it out here

Updraft-free is a feature packed plugin. It supports local backups as well as remote backups.  In remote destinations, it supports Amazon S3, DropBox, Google Drive, FTP and Email.  It also has a restore feature, which allows you to restore the whole WordPress site from a backup. This can be a really must-have feature for some users.

The premium version provides additional features like choosing multiple remote locations, cloning & migration, automatic backups etc. Do check it out.

2) WordPress To DropBox:

WordPress to DropBox- BAckupBuddy Alternative

This is an extremely popular plugin for backing up your WordPress site to DropBox.    It is a simple plugin designed to do one and only one thing: Backup your WordPress site to DropBox.  To use this plugin, simple connect it with your DropBox account. Once connected, you can start creating backups.  Every time a backup file is created , it is sent to the DropBox account.

It supports Backup Scheduling, Partial Backups and  Email notification (available in Pro version – $19 USD)

3) Backup WordPress

BackUp WordPress- BackupBuddy Alternative

This is another plugin which is quite popular with wordpress users. It has over 400,000 downloads (as on 11 Jan 2013) and a look at support forums show that users have been happy with this plugin. It is a simple plugin and allows for complete site backups as well as database only backups.  It also has a neat email notifications feature, so once a backup is created, the plugin automatically sends you a notification mail.

One problem with this plugin is that the backup is stored on your server. So in case  server crashes, you will  lose your backups  along with the original website.  I personally believe that storing backup on same server is as good as not taking backups at all. One way to overcome this limitation is by attaching the backup file to the notification email. This is not a fool proof workaround as the attachment will fail is backup file size is over 10 MB.

4) BackwpUp

Backwpup – BackupBuddy Alternative

Another feature packed plugin with support for local and remote backups . In addition to supporting standard destinations like FTP, Dropbox and Amazon, this plugin also supports Rackspace, Google Drive, MS Azure and Sugar Sync. Now this is some array of choices you have.

I found this plugin a  bit confusing though. The way it works is that a user needs to create “Jobs” before backups can be created. A “Job” is effectively a Backup schedule and supports configuration parameters like destination, backup file format, frequency, email notifications etc. Once a Job is created it can then be executed to create a backup.

Its not an easy plugin for a beginner, here is a detailed tutorial which  provides a configuration guide for  Backwpup Plugin.

5) Backup Scheduler

Backup Scheduler – BackupBuddy Alternative

Another new comer which has found good adoption among the users. As of writing of this article, this plugin has over 35,000 downloads (as of 11th January 2013). It is a simple plugin with a nice and easy interface. It supports local backups as well sending backups to a remote destination via FTP.  It supports backup scheduling , email notifications and deletion of old backups. It is a perfect plugin for beginners as there are no advance settings and interface is easy to understand.

All the above plugins while free are of high quality and are good enough for many website owners.  Many a times users do not need all the bells and whistles which come with the premium plugins.

So If you are a wordpress website owner and have been putting off taking regular backups due to the price, you now no longer have a good excuse.

[xyz_lbx_default_code]