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Nobody thinks about backups until the day they need one. A plugin update breaks the site, a hacker gets in, or you click the wrong button in the database. That is when you find out whether your backup plugin was actually running, where the files went, and whether they restore.

Backups are one line on my WordPress maintenance checklist; the rest takes about 15 minutes a week.

In my day job, I handle IT incidents, and the first question in every serious outage is the same: when was the last good backup, and has anyone tested restoring it? WordPress is no different.

This list compares the backup plugins worth using in 2026, with real prices and a focus on the part most reviews skip: getting your site back.

What a Good Backup Plugin Must Do

• Back up files and database, not just one of them.
• Store copies off-site (Google Drive, Dropbox, S3 or the vendor’s cloud). A backup on the same server dies with the server.
• Run on a schedule that matches how often your site changes.
• Restore easily, ideally even when you cannot log in to WordPress.
• Keep several versions, so you can go back to before a hack you only noticed a week later.

WordPress Backup Plugins Compared

Plugin	Free version	Paid from	Off-site storage	Restore if site is down	Best for
UpdraftPlus	Yes	$70/yr (2 sites)	Your cloud accounts	Needs WordPress working (or manual)	Most blogs
BlogVault	No	$49.50/yr intro, $99 regular	BlogVault servers	Yes, from its dashboard	Business sites
Jetpack VaultPress Backup	No	$4.95/mo intro, $9.95/mo renewal	Jetpack cloud	Yes	WooCommerce, real-time
Duplicator	Yes (Lite)	$79/yr regular (2 sites)	Pro: cloud destinations	Yes, with installer file	Backups plus migrations
WPvivid	Yes	$49/yr or $99 lifetime	Your cloud accounts	Needs WordPress working	Value
BackWPup	Yes	Pro available	Your cloud accounts	Pro restores from cloud	Free scheduled backups
Your host’s backups	Often included	Varies	Host’s storage	Yes, from host panel	Second layer

Prices checked on vendor sites in October 2026. Intro prices usually rise at renewal.

How I Picked These

I looked at five things: whether backups go off-site by default, how easy a full restore is, whether you can restore when the WordPress dashboard is broken, the load backups put on shared hosting, and the yearly cost for one to three sites.

7 Best WordPress Backup Plugins

UpdraftPlus

Best for: Blogs and small sites. Price: free, Premium $70/yr (2 sites) to $195/yr (unlimited). Storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, OneDrive and more.

UpdraftPlus is the most used backup plugin for a reason. The free version schedules file and database backups and sends them to your own cloud storage, and restoring is a few clicks from the dashboard.

Premium adds incremental backups, automatic backups before updates, a migrator, more storage options and staging. Its main weakness: backups run on your own server, which can be slow on cheap hosting, and restoring needs a working WordPress install.

Best features: free cloud backups, one-click restore, pre-update backups (Premium), built-in migrator (Premium).

Pros

• Excellent free version
• Huge user base and documentation
• Many storage destinations

Cons

• Uses your server’s resources
• Restore needs WordPress running

BlogVault

Best for: Business sites that cannot afford to lose data. Price: Personal $49.50/yr intro ($99 regular), Business $149.50/yr intro. Storage: BlogVault’s servers.

BlogVault does the heavy lifting on its own servers, so backups do not slow your site down. It keeps several encrypted off-site copies, lets you test a restore before doing it, and can restore your site even when WordPress will not load. Staging and migration are included.

It keeps 30 days of backups.

Best features: off-server backups, test restores, restore when the site is down, staging included.

Pros

• No load on your server
• Restores work even if the site is broken
• Test restore feature

Cons

• No free plan
• Renewal doubles the intro price

Jetpack VaultPress Backup

Best for: WooCommerce stores and busy sites. Price: $4.95/mo intro, $9.95/mo renewal (billed yearly). Storage: 10 GB in Jetpack’s cloud to start

VaultPress Backup saves every change in real time: each new order, comment, or edit is backed up as it happens. For a store, that means you never lose the orders placed between nightly backups.

Restores are one click and include an activity log so you can pick the exact moment to go back to. It requires a WordPress.com connection, and storage limits apply on the base plan.

Best features: real-time backups, WooCommerce order protection, activity log, one-click restore.

Pros

• Real-time backups
• Great for stores

Cons

• Requires Jetpack connection
• Storage caps on base plan

Duplicator

Best for: People who also move sites between hosts. Price: Lite free, Pro from $79/yr regular (2 sites), discounts common. Storage: local in Lite, cloud in Pro

Duplicator packages your whole site into an archive plus an installer file. That makes it a backup tool and a migration tool at the same time. Pro adds scheduled backups, cloud storage, recovery points and drag-and-drop imports.

Lite is mainly a manual migration tool, so for automatic backups you need Pro.

Best features: archive plus installer, recovery points, scheduled cloud backups (Pro).

Pros

• Backup and migration in one
• Restore without a working site

Cons

• Scheduling needs Pro
• Large sites can hit server limits

WPvivid Backup

Best for: Premium features on a budget. Price: free, Pro $49/yr (2 sites) or $99 lifetime, up to $149/yr unlimited. Storage: Dropbox, Google Drive, S3 and more.

WPvivid‘s free version covers cloud backups, scheduling, one-click restore and even a basic staging site. Pro adds incremental backups, selective backups and migration, and its lifetime licenses are some of the cheapest in this category.

It is less known than UpdraftPlus, so there are fewer tutorials and community answers.

Best features: free staging, cheap lifetime licenses, incremental backups (Pro).

Pros

• Generous free version
• Excellent value Pro

Cons

• Smaller community

BackWPup

Best for: Free scheduled backups to many destinations. Price: free, Pro available. Storage: many cloud destinations

BackWPup, now from WP Media (the WP Rocket team), schedules full file and database backups to cloud storage for free.

The free version can restore backups you upload manually; Pro restores directly from cloud storage. Its interface is more technical than UpdraftPlus.

Best features: flexible job scheduling, many storage destinations, WP-CLI support.

Pros

• Free and flexible

Cons

• Clunkier interface
• Easy cloud restores need Pro

Your host’s backups (as a second layer)

Best for: A safety net under your plugin. Price: often included. Storage: host’s infrastructure

Most good hosts take daily backups, and managed hosts keep 7 to 30 days of them. They are convenient, but they live with your host.

If the account is suspended or the host has a major failure, they go with it. Use them in addition to an off-site plugin, not instead.

Pros

• No setup

Cons

• Not truly off-site

A Simple Backup Plan (the 3-2-1 rule for WordPress)

1. 3 copies of your site: the live site, a plugin backup and your host’s backup.
2. 2 different places: your host and a cloud account (Google Drive, Dropbox or S3).
3. 1 copy off-site that your host cannot touch.

Site type	Database backups	File backups	Keep
Blog posting weekly	Daily	Weekly	30 days
Business site	Daily	Daily	30 to 90 days
WooCommerce store	Real-time or hourly	Daily	90 days or more

How to set up UpdraftPlus Backups (example)

1. Install UpdraftPlus from Plugins > Add New and activate it.
2. Go to Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups > Settings.
3. Set files to back up weekly and the database daily. Keep at least 4 file backups and 14 database backups.
4. Choose Google Drive (or Dropbox) as remote storage and authorise it.
5. Save, then click “Backup Now” on the main tab to create your first backup.
6. Check your Google Drive to confirm the files arrived.
7. Test a restore on a staging site.

Pick by Situation

• New blog, no budget: UpdraftPlus free plus your host’s backups.
• Business site: BlogVault.
• WooCommerce store: Jetpack VaultPress Backup or BlogVault’s WooCommerce plan.
• Several sites, small budget: WPvivid Pro lifetime.
• Moving hosts soon: Duplicator, and see my guide to the best WordPress migration plugins.

Backups are one layer of protection. Pair them with a security plugin and keep your stack lean using the must-have WordPress plugins list.

FAQs related to Best WordPress Backup Plugins

Conclusion

That’s all about the list of the best WordPress backup plugins.

Install UpdraftPlus today, point it at Google Drive and run your first backup. That alone puts you ahead of most WordPress sites.

If your site earns real money, move up to BlogVault or Jetpack, so backups and restores do not depend on your server. And test a restore. That is the step that turns a backup plan into something you can actually rely on.