WordPress Backup Guide: Never Lose a Site Again
How to back up WordPress the right way — full-site, incremental, offsite, and restore drills you can trust.
What Belongs in a Backup
WordPress files: core, themes, plugins, uploads.
Database: everything.
wp-config.php and .htaccess (or Nginx equivalent).
Any custom scripts or cron jobs outside WP.
Recommended Plugins
UpdraftPlus (free tier is great; Premium adds incremental + more destinations).
BlogVault (paid, real-time backups, staging, migration — best-in-class).
Jetpack Backup (real-time incremental, one-click restore, VaultPress-based).
Duplicator (great for migration + one-off backups).
Where to Store
Never on the same server. Options: S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, host-provided offsite.
Redundancy: two different providers reduces catastrophic loss risk.
Backup solutions compared
| Solution | Real-time | Offsite | Restore ease |
|---|---|---|---|
| UpdraftPlus (free) | No | Yes (manual setup) | Medium |
| UpdraftPlus Premium | Incremental | Yes | Easy |
| BlogVault | Yes | Yes | Excellent |
| Jetpack Backup | Yes | Yes | Excellent |
| Host backups (Kinsta etc) | Daily | Same provider | One-click |
Backup Schedule
Content-heavy or ecommerce: daily minimum, real-time incremental ideally.
Marketing / brochure sites: weekly full is usually fine.
Retain: 14 daily + 4 weekly + 6 monthly is a reasonable rotation.
Test Restores
Every quarter, restore to a staging site.
Time the restore — you'll want to know your RTO (recovery time objective).
Verify DB, uploads, and configuration all restore cleanly.
Host-Provided Backups
Managed hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, Rocket.net) include daily backups + one-click restore.
Great convenience but keep a separate offsite backup — never single-point-of-failure your backup strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I back up?+
Content-heavy: daily. Ecommerce: real-time. Static-ish: weekly. Always retain multiple points to recover from delayed discovery of issues.
Do host backups count?+
They're convenient but not sufficient alone — always maintain an independent offsite copy.
What's the fastest recovery option?+
BlogVault or Jetpack Backup — one-click restore from a separate cloud, often under 10 minutes.
Are backups a security tool?+
Yes — a hacked site can be restored from a clean backup. Combine with malware scanning to know when to restore.
Should I keep backups forever?+
No — rotate old ones to control storage costs. 6–12 months of monthly retention is usually enough.