Website backups are a crucial part of website maintenance and security, and UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular WordPress backup plugins. But is UpdraftPlus free?
The answer is yes and no. UpdraftPlus offers both a free version and a premium version, so website owners of all levels can benefit from its features.
If you’re a website owner, you’re probably always looking for great tools to help improve your site. UpdraftPlus is one such tool, quickly becoming popular among website owners.
In this article, we’ll explain what UpdraftPlus is and how you can use it for free.
Let’s start
What Is UpdratPlus?
UpdraftPlus is a WordPress backup plugin that makes it simple to create full backups of your WordPress website, including all files, databases, and plugins.
It also allows you to quickly restore your website from any of the backups that have been saved.
The plugin also includes advanced features like incremental backup scheduling, cloud storage integration, and automated backups.
UpdratPlus lets you back up your website to cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and many more.
UpdraftPlus also allows you to restore your backup from within the WordPress dashboard. It also offers a range of additional features, like automatic file deletion and secure file storage.
Read More: Top 12 WordPress Plugins For Every Business Website
Is UpdraftPlus Free?
Yes, UpdraftPlus is free, but it also has a premium version with advanced features.
The free version is fully functional and ideal for new websites. With the free version, you can back up your site manually or automatically, and you can schedule the time the backup should be done.
The free version also allows you to specify the storage location of your backup website.
Read More: Are WordPress Plugins Free?
Is Updraft Plus Good?
UpdrafPlus is a useful backup plugin, even with the free version. So what makes UpdraftPlus a good backup plugin?
Let’s look at it:
1. Easy to Use
Unlike those complicated plugins, UpdraftPlus is incredibly easy to use—just install, configure, and run.
Its intuitive interface helps you quickly set up automated backups and restorations, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to back up your data. We will look at how to use it for backup later.
2. It Is Secure
Security of your website data is important. UpdraftPlus is a secure, reliable backup solution for all of your data.
With UpdraftPlus, your website data is secured.
3. Tons of Storage Options
UpdraftPlus provides numerous backup storage options. This is important because storing your backup on your website’s server means that when the server crashes, you lose your website with the backup.
It’s also a good idea to have multiple storage locations so that if one fails, you still have a backup in another location.
UpdraftPlus provides you with multiple cloud locations, such as:
- Google Drive
- Dropbox
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Backblaze
- Amazon S3
- Rackspace Cloud Files
- Microsoft Azure
- Google Cloud
- WebDev
- pCloud
- OpenStack (Swift)
- DreamObject
You can also send it via email.
Additionally, UpdraftPlus offers UpdraftPlus Vault, a cloud storage service of its own (though it costs extra).
4. It Serves As Restore Tool
With UpdraftPlus, you don’t only get a backup tool but also a restore tool.
As a result, you will be able to migrate your entire website to a new server.
Read More: Should I Use WordPress? 11 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress For Your Business Website
How To Download UpdraftPlus
Now you’ve seen how UpdraftPlus can help you back up your website and keep it safe. How do you download the plugin?
Installing and activating UpdraftPlus is easy.
First, log into your WordPress dashboard.
Go to your plugin menu from your left navigation bar and click “Add New”.
Search for “UpdrafPlus” in the search bar.
Click on “Install” and wait for it to finish the installation.
Finally, click on “Activate” to activate the UpdraftPlus plugin on your website.
How To Use UpdraftPlus To Backup Your WordPress Website
Let’s take a look at how you can use UpdraftPlus to back up your WordPress website.
Step 1:
After installing the UpdraftPlus plugin and activating it, to use the plugin, go to “Settings” and then “UpdraftPlus Backups”.
You can click “Backup Now” under the “Backup/Restore” tab to immediately back up your website, but doing so will require manual labor.
Additionally, you might forget to regularly back up your website, so let’s use an automatic process to do so.
Step 2:
To back up the website automatically, let’s first make these settings.
First, select the “Settings” tab of the UpdraftPlus plugin at the top.
Next, select how often you want to back up your website under the “File backup schedule”.
You have several timeframes to choose from; choose the one that best suits your website.
Frequent backups are required if your website’s content is frequently updated.
Please remember to back up your website files and database.
Step 3:
The next step is to choose your backup location. That’s where you want your backup to be stored.
Scroll down and choose where you want your backup to be stored. There are numerous backup locations to be used, as mentioned above.
Choose the location that suits your needs; in this tutorial, we will use Google Drive as our backup storage.
Step 4:
Choose Google Drive, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the “Save Changes” button.
Your changes will be saved, but for your backup to be uploaded to your Google Drive, you need to give UpdraftPlus authorization to access your Google Drive.
You can do this by clicking on the “Sign in with Google” button. This will redirect you to the Google Account sign-in page. Sign in with your Google account.
Give UpdrafPlus access by clicking the “Allow” button.
Step 5:
You will be taken to the UpdraftPlus website; click “Complete setup” to complete the setup.
You will then be redirected to the UpdraftPlus settings tab. Scroll down and click on the “Save Changes” button.
That’s it; you’ve now configured UpdraftPlus to back up your WordPress website to Google Drive automatically.
UpdraftPlus will send you an email anytime a backup is completed.
How To Restore A UpdraftPlus Backup Manually
The reason you should back up your website is to have a copy in case you lose it due to a hack, a server crash, or if you want to start over.
So let’s look at how you can restore your website from the UpdraftPlus copy.
Step 1:
To restore your website, you need to start with a clean slate, so first delete your WordPress website and its data and make a new WordPress installation on your domain.
Step 2:
Next, install and activate the UpdraftPlus plugin on your new WordPress website.
Go to “Settings” and then “UpdraftPlus Backups” after the installation.
Step 3:
Select the “Backup and Restore” tab. This will bring you to the backup page. Scroll down to “More Tasks”.
If you backed up your website to your computer, which is not recommended, you can now click on “upload backup file” and select the backup file from your computer.
Since we backed up the website and uploaded it to Google Drive, we are going to restore it from Google Drive.
To restore the website, we will use the backup we made and uploaded to Google Drive.
Step 4:
First, connect your UpdrafPlus plugin to your Google Drive. To do this:
Go to the UpdraftPlus settings tab and select Google Drive. Follow the instructions to give UpdraftPlus access to your Google Drive, as you did in the backup section.
After granting access to UpdraftPlus, click on the “Save Changes” button.
Step 5:
Then, under the Backup and Restore tab, select “Rescan remote storage”. UpdraftPlus will search your Google Drive for backups and display them below.
Look for the recent backup and click on the “Restore” button next to it.
This begins the restoration process.
Next, select the component you want to restore and click next.
UpdraftPlus will download all files from Google Drive.
Finally, click the “Restore” button to begin the process of restoring your site from the backup.
And there you have it; you have your website back.
UpdraftPlus Free vs Premium
UpdraftPlus is a great tool. You can complete all the above tasks with the free version; however, it also has a pro version.
There are unquestionably differences between the free and pro versions.
Let’s take a look at that and see if paying for the pro version is worth it.
The UpdraftPlus premium version offers everything in the free version plus:
Free 1GB UpdraftVault storage: The UpdraftVault is a UpdraftPlus remote storage where you can store your website’s backups.
The premium version of UpdraftPlus offers more integrations than the free version; you can integrate with applications such as:
- WebDAV
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Google Cloud
- Microsoft Azure
- SFTP/SCP
- Encrypted FTP
- BackBlaze
With the UpdraftPlus premium, you can send your backup files to multiple locations.
UpdraftPlus’s free version only allows you to restore backup files using the UpdraftPlus plugin; however, the premium version allows you to restore backup files from other restore plugins as well.
The Premium Version stands out due to its secure, encrypted database. This allows users to keep their data private and prevents privacy leaks.
The Premium version includes incremental backup. The incremental backups mean UpdraftPlus will track changes and back up your website from the previous backup. These backups are smaller.
For a startup or small website, the UpdraftPlus free version is good enough. For a big website with high traffic and frequent content, investing a small amount for UpdraftPlus Premium to keep it extra safe will be a wise decision.
Final Thoughts
Building a website and populating it with content takes time and money, so it is prudent to keep it secure.
However, you can’t control everything; a government website itself is susceptible to hacking and crashes. This means that anyone could experience it, so safeguard your website by keeping a backup so you can restore it in an emergency.
Follow this comprehensive tutorial and you will be fine.
Thank you for your time
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