Scheduled backups, storage destinations and restore controls
UpdraftPlus combines manual and scheduled backups with component-level restores. Free schedules range from every two, four, eight or 12 hours to daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Remote destinations include Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3-compatible storage, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, OpenStack Swift and email. During a restore, users can choose components such as plugins, themes or the database, then follow a few-click process. This gives site owners options for regular backups and selective recovery.
Moving a site with the free and Premium migration workflows
The free migration workflow transfers a site by downloading its files and database from the source, then uploading them to the destination. Search and replace is built into both versions to update old location strings, while Premium migration can be initiated directly from the source site. The free route suits users comfortable handling the transfer between sites; Premium offers a more direct process.
What Premium adds to backup and recovery
Premium adds controls for backup timing, storage, recovery and administration.
- Update and incremental backups: create a backup before updates and add changes to an existing backup rather than repeatedly creating full copies.
- More storage choices: add providers including OneDrive, Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze, SFTP, SCP, pCloud and WebDAV, plus UpdraftVault.
- Retention and destinations: control how many backups are kept, send backups to multiple locations and set specific run times, such as low-traffic periods.
- Reports and integrity checks: receive detailed reports with cryptographic checksums for checking backup-file integrity.
- Import and multisite support: restore backups from other plugins and use the plugin with multisite or multi-network setups.
- Broader data coverage: back up non-WordPress files and databases, and encrypt databases.
- Administration and assistance: manage backups and migrations through WP-CLI and access Premium support. These additions are most relevant to sites needing more control over backup policy or recovery scope.
A broad backup tool with support activity to weigh
UpdraftPlus covers backup, restore and migration needs, but its public support outcomes are worth considering alongside its breadth.
- Freshness and standing: it is among the directory’s most widely installed plugins, has an excellent rating backed by many reviews, and was updated within the last week.
- Support activity: 54% of 50 support threads were resolved, indicating that public-forum outcomes are not uniformly conclusive.
- Support access: free users use the public forum, while Premium customers can submit a ticket directly. Sites relying on timely help should weigh that difference when choosing a version.
