I want two things out of my backup plug-in for WordPress. The ability to backup and download the site on-demand, and the ability to use the same tool to migrate the site to another staging server for development, testing, and eventual migration back from whence it came.
Sophisticated backup utilities can do much more. There are functions for automated backups, notifications, mult-site, e-commerce, etc. My needs are simple for most of my WP work so I need an equally simple backup and migration solution. The complex solutions will be addressed on the complex projects.
Some hosting companies include backups as part of the hosting plan. Some include services where the web site can be copied (pulled) from a live environment to staging and copied (pushed) back to live when the work is done. I’ve used those, but they are not substitutes for positive control of a backup. I need to backup the backup on occasion.
I don’t mind paying provided the cost isn’t too high or the structure too prohibitive.
I plan on returning to this space to update my experiences with different backup and migration solutions as experience permits.
All-in-One WP Migration
This plug-in is about as one-click and foolproof as I’ve seen. But I don’t use it.
The backup file it generates is HUGE, at least three times larger than most other solutions. The .wpress file extension seems to contain a mix of SQL statements and XML which contributes to the bloat. That larger file size extends transmission time considerably.
Importing a site with the free version has a 360 mb file limitation, which is not hard to exceed with this file type. The paid version solves that, of course, but I find the price a little steep.
To get the .wpress file up to another site via FTP requires a paid extension. The extension is like a plug-in for the plug-in. It is impossible to get around that by a manual FTP. As of this writing the license is $99 and $29/month, which is too expensive for my pocket.
Duplicator
This is a very popular, widely used backup and migration site. I’ve used the free version for small sites a lot. However, when the site gets to be a bit larger, I’ve run into time-out problems. Time-outs are a restriction from the web hosting provider, but it seems other vendors have designed around this problem.
Not long ago I ran into a problem with the collation capability was preventing the site from being imported to another hosting company. Upgrading the MySQL version on the destination location was not an option. I ended up leaving Duplicator and used another solution to get the site migrated.
Shortly after I heard grumblings of discontent over Duplicator from other developers at a WordPress meetup. There other “gotchas” I hadn’t experienced including a security vulnerability, so I decided to look a little harder at other solutions.
UpdraftPlus
https://UpdraftPlus.com
The free version of UpdraftPlus is nice for backing up sites. It divides the backup into five parts:
- Database
- Plugins
- Themes
- Uploads
- Others
When I backup a site, I usually backup everything. Plugins and themes are upgraded constantly. The database contains a lot of the content which often works closely with the uploads. However, I rather like the parsing of the backup into chunks like this as it helps troubleshooting. It also makes processing large sites more efficient.
You can’t use the free version for migration, however. Whatever the site name is on the save, it has to be the same name on the restore. If the site is being migrated to a different URL, you’ll need to pay for Updraft Migrator.
https://UpdraftPlus.com/migrator/
Migrator allows you to change the URL on a restore. I haven’t tried it yet, so I can’t vouch for its effectiveness.
As of this writing the Migrator add-on is priced between $30 and $70 depending on the support options and number of licenses. The pricing is modest. On April 2020 I licensed the Migrator plug-in for $30 and my initial opinion is very positive.
Installation notes: The Migrator plug-in needs to be installed from the purchased zip file. If the free UpdraftPlus exists as a plug-in when Migrator is installed, the installation will fail.