Welcome to my BackupBuddy Review 2025.
Running a website isn’t as easy as it seems. You need to take care of various factors such as security, viruses, disasters, and backup of your content. Therefore, the first step should be to create a backup for your WordPress website. But the question is, how does a backup work?
Migrating to a WordPress site can be a headache. You must ensure you export all the posts, images, and other data before you import them to your new site.
It is always advisable to create a manual backup and download your files, but if you use and update your website regularly, it doesn’t really work with the manual backup.
This is why the BackupBuddy Plugin has been introduced. This plugin, created explicitly for WordPress, automatically backs up your site and saves it on various locations such as your computer or cloud storage device.
BackupBuddy makes it easy for you to get started with WordPress migrations. It’s painless. Get your site migrated in just a few clicks with BackupBuddy.
Bottom Line Upfront
BackupBuddy is a great solution plugin for WordPress websites owner. It backs up your work on the internet to many places. You should also have one backup that is not on the internet so your data cannot be stolen by someone trying to steal it. Setting up BackupBuddy is easy, and it’s affordable.
BackupBuddy is a great way to protect your website from data loss. You can back up your site more than once, and use different types of backup. Just set it up and then you’re done!
BackupBuddy Review: Why Do You Need a Backup Plugin?
The Internet isn’t always as secure as we’d like. DDOS attacks, hacking attempts, and data theft bring thousands of websites down daily.
Many website owners are unaware of the value of backups until their data is lost. Data recovery is costly, time-consuming, and utterly avoidable with appropriate backups. There are several WordPress backup options available.
Here’s what we’re searching for in a backup solution for a WordPress-based website.
- Automatically creates backups on a regular schedule
- Stores the backups on the cloud
- Offers painless restore and migration from backups
Let’s look at BackupBuddy and see how well it does all this and more.
Why Trust Us?
Our suggestion for BackupBuddy is based on considerable expertise and testing with numerous WordPress backup plugins. BackupBuddy has been protecting WordPress websites since 2010.
The plugin’s regular upgrades, user-friendly interface, and responsive support make it a great choice. Our judgment is supported by real-world experience in various hosting settings and successful transfers.
Our confidence in BackupBuddy originates from a thorough study of its capabilities, performance, and the critical role it plays in safeguarding and administering WordPress websites.
Why should you use BackupBuddy?
BackupBuddy has been a part of my life since its inception in 2010. Since then, it’s been improved to function on sites of all sizes (I’ve backed up sites as large as 12GB using BackupBuddy) and in a wide range of hosting situations.
I say “most” hosting environments since BackupBuddy does have some basic needs to execute its function, which is a relatively major and significant one.
All these standards are met by default by any standard, paid hosting provider. However, when you use a free hosting company, these standards are frequently not followed, which might be a problem.
I’ve successfully used BackupBuddy on various hosting providers to back up various websites and migrate them (when necessary) to new hosting providers.
The BackupBuddy support team has walked me through the settings I needed to alter for the plugin to perform properly when I’ve run across overly throttled hosting providers (e.g., Go Daddy).
What is BackupBuddy?
BackupBuddy is the first WordPress backup plugin, and it can be installed on any self-hosted WordPress site.
When BackupBuddy performs a backup of your site, you can download a zip file containing all of the backup files, ensuring that your backups are always yours. These WordPress backup tools are also available with BackupBuddy:
- Backups on a Scheduled, Automated Basis – Create backup schedules that operate on a configurable schedule.
- Backup Profiles and Directory Exclusions – Customize the backup BackupBuddy performs (database only, complete, files only) and Store Your Backups Offsite – Store your backups safely offsite. BackupBuddy supports Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud Files, and BackupBuddy Stash (our own offsite storage destination) so you can safely store your backups.
Instead of restoring the entire site, BackupBuddy allows you to restore individual files from a backup. The Database Rollback feature in BackupBuddy is useful for reverting to a previous version of your theme’s stylesheet or template.
Simply upload the ImportBuddy and your backup zip files to restore your WordPress site. ImportBuddy will guide you through the procedures to restore your WordPress site, including your settings, themes, plugins, widgets, and other items.
Why BackupBuddy Plugin?
BackupBuddy does not solely back up your WordPress database, unlike other plugins. It offers to back up your entire installation, WordPress files, WordPress themes, and many more. The most distinctive feature of this plugin is that it covers each component required to protect a website.
What functions does BackupBuddy offer?
The Importbuddy PHP script with BackupBuddy makes restoring a backed-up site a breeze.
You navigate to importbuddy.php in your browser (e.g., www.example.com/importbuddy.php) after uploading the backup zip file of your site and the importbuddy.php file to the directory where you wish to install the website.
The BackupBuddy team at iThemes has continued to improve the plugin and add new features throughout the years, and they are currently doing so. These include the following today:
- The database, themes only, plugins only, media only, or the entire site can be backed up (everything)
- Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual backup schedules are available.
- Backups in real-time
- On the iThemes servers, you get 1GB of free storage (used in conjunction with real-time backups)
- Backup files are automatically sent to Dropbox, Google Drive, or other off-site storage destinations for both manual and automated backups (11 options in total)
- Setup of the site (from staging to live site on the same domain)
- Migration of the website (from one server and domain to another)
- Perform database updates and modifications.
- Tracks and reports on site modifications since the latest backup (helpful for spoofing).
BackupBuddy Features
You might wonder what makes the BackupBuddy plugin quite distinctive from other plugins despite the number of plugins in the WordPress repository.
1) Complete Backups
BackupBuddy does not just back up a database of the website. It takes a complete backup of all the files and themes in the WordPress directory.
Moreover, you can choose a custom backup for a specific file or directory. It also offers to back up non-WordPress-related files and data. Thus, BackupBuddy provides all the backups with just one plugin.
2) Scheduled and Automatic Backups
You can schedule or delay your backup through this plugin. It doesn’t allow you to schedule a backup of the whole database but also a particular component or theme.
- Multiple Backups – It provides a wide range of backups, such as database backups, a combination of backups, or backups of a file or directory.
- Flexible Schedules – It offers a flexible and wide variety of backup intervals such as hourly, weekly, or monthly.
3) Off-Site Storage for Your Backups
A WordPress plugin must offer various off-site storage locations, as one should be skeptical about the servers being down or backups being inaccessible. Thus, BackupBuddy provides various storage locations such as Email, Amazon Web Services, FTP servers, Stash Dropbox, Google Drive, and many more.
Further, it is delivered as a zip file that can be downloaded to the computer. Thus, you can save a particular file at once instead of saving it one by one on your computer.
Unzipping the zipped file will download all your data to your computer. You can later import it to your site as a zipped file.
4) Email Notifications
Unlike other backup plugins, the BackupBuddy plugin notifies the user about the completion or failure of the backup. If a plugin does not notify the user about the completion or failure of the backup, it will serve no purpose to the user until it’s too late.
5) Directory Size Map of Your Site
BackupBuddy provides various interactive tools, one of them being site size maps. Usually, a user cannot see where most of the space is being used on the site.
This tool serves as the best aid for it. Users can check the spaces and junk that take up too much space on the website. You can always exclude or include a directory and look up the size of the particular directory in the backup.
6) Server Tools
This tool tells you about your server and its status. Further, the server tools can quickly find out the PHP versions, PHP memory time, and executions. Furthermore, some tools are essential for a WordPress backup plugin:
- Database Scan and Repair- Our database, too, needs to be malware or error-free and optimized to have a proper backup. Thus, the WordPress plugin scans and repairs the database if needed before the backup.
- Tracks hosting problems- These tools can track down hosting or any related issues. You can look at your server settings and capabilities.
7) Move or Migrate WordPress
No other plugin offers the choice to move the WordPress site to a new domain or host. This plugin offers to move a temporary domain to a live domain. Some more features offered by BackupBuddy plugins are:
BackupBuddy helps a user to clone a WordPress site. It makes a complete copy of your WordPress themes, widgets, databases, etc.
BackupBuddy replaces all the URLs in a site when it is migrated to a new domain. It also replaces text in your database.
BackupBuddy offers a deployment tool to connect your staging site to an existing site, thus making the changes quickly.
8) Secure Your WordPress Site
The BackupBuddy plugin secures and optimizes your WordPress site to make it more secure and efficient. This plugin offers various distinctive features such as:
- Database Scan- This plugin scans and repairs all your databases.
- WordPress Cron Manager- You can delete or view CRON jobs on your low-traffic sites using the BackupBuddy.
- Scanning Malware – A site must be clean and uninfected to have a useful and effective backup. A site containing malware would have a backup, which is usually useless.
9) Customization of Backup
BackupBuddy does not merely back up your whole website but also customizes your entire backup content. You can exclude or include some files or data folders, which can save a lot of time and space. You can back up large-sized files later or as a secondary backup.
10) Free i-Themes Sync Sites
iThemes sync is one such platform that manages all your websites from one place thus saving you time. iThemes and BackupBuddy integrate, which offers various tools such as:
- SEO Checker and Google Console
- WordPress site Monitoring
- One-click Update
- WordPress Plugins and Themes Manager
Backup Buddy Latest Version
BackupBuddy has come up with several updates to date. The latest version is BackupBuddy 8.2. Unlike version 8.1, it has got some remarkable changes that you are surely going to love:
- Deployment of data- The latest version of the BackupBuddy plugin allows the user to switch its database, media, and other plugins from a staging site to a live site. This allows the user to create a test for his live site.
- Faster deployment- The latest version has an increased deployment speed of up to 15x from the staging site to a live site or vice versa. Files can be transferred quickly, and single files can be moved at an increased speed of up to 37%.
- Exclusions and Inclusions- You can exclude files or folders and include additional files outside the media or themes during deployment with great ease using the latest version of BackupBuddy. Thus, you can switch easily to a live site by including some prototypes.
- Change in Visibility– You can change the visibility of the deployed site to visible, not visible, or no change just by looking into deployment settings. This would prevent search engines from indexing this site.
BackBuddy Pricing Plans
Several people would be curious to know about the installation and pricing of the BackupBuddy plugin. The pricing plan given below is as follows:
- The basic pricing starts at $80 and is recommended for bloggers with a storage of 1 GB and storage such as Stash; you can use it on 2 sites.
- A freelancer plan costs $100 with 1 year of updates, 1 GB of storage in Stash and Stash live, and can back up a maximum of 10 sites.
- If you are a developer, buying this plan costs $150; thus, offering 10iThemes sync sites and a backup of 50 sites is recommended.
- A gold plan costs $197 with 5GB of storage space and a backup of unlimited sites.
You can get these plans at low prices by applying a coupon of up to 25% off.
After the successful purchase, you must download the BackupBuddy plugin on your computer. After installation and activation, you will be redirected to the iThemes license page, where you will be asked to enter your password and username. After logging in, click on licensing products, and your license for using BackupBuddy will be activated.
Upon activating the license, you can access various iThemes sites and storage systems, such as Stash and Stash Live.
BackupBuddy Reviews by Users
BackupBuddy Alternatives
Apart from BackupBuddy, there is a slew of other backup plugins that support full-site and database-only backups.
As previously said, these plugins will back up your entire site and do some of the same functions as BackupBuddy. They’re all excellent plugins. However, not all of them perform all of the functions BackupBuddy offers. Here are some distinctions:
1) Updraft
Updraft is a free plugin, but you’ll need to subscribe to Premium if you want to migrate your site, manage multi-site installs, or make database queries and changes.
UpdraftPlus is the most popular scheduled backup plugin in the WordPress repository.
It has over a million active installs and provides comprehensive features to users with an easy installation process and server performance optimization for less resource usage during restores, making it one of the best choices among competitors!
UpdraftPlus comes with 4 different payment plans for you to choose from.
The cheapest option is the Personal plan, which allows two users at $70 each; this can be upgraded into an organization license if needed!
Businesses may purchase 10 simultaneous licenses for 95 bucks, and agencies will find themselves possessing a total of 35 user accounts when they buy them all up (or just as many). Finally, there’s Enterprise Level: Unlimited Users and Items.
2) Vaultpress
Vaultpress is a good option, but it requires a Jetpack subscription. This will necessitate creating a WordPress.com account and installing the Jetpack plugin on your site. Jetpack has been chastised for being too “heavy” (slowing down websites), though this has improved over time.
Automattic’s product is one of the most celebrated names in backup services. With millions upon millions powered by WordPress, it’s safe to say that users can rest assured their site will be well-taken care of with this reliable service provider – vault press & jetpack backups rebranded!
Starting at just under $5 a month, the VaultPress entry package provides users unlimited site storage, one-click restore functionality, and automated daily backups.
For $11.97 a month, you can access anti-spam, a daily automated scan, and comment and form protection features with the Security Daily plan.
For just under $50 per month, the Complete plan comes with real-time scans and backup and an unlimited backup archive to restore site versions.
3) BlogVault
BlogVault is the best backup solution for WordPress. It has backup, restore, and migration features that are some of the best and easiest to use today.
Additionally, its developer tools, monitoring, and site control features help you keep your WordPress site up and running at all times. If you manage multiple client websites, BlogVault is an excellent value choice to ensure all your sites are immune from severe problems, downtime, failures, or any other costly problems.
There are four different BlogVault license options: Personal, Small Business, Developers, and Agency. The difference between the options is the number of sites that you can add to your account. Personal – 1 site, Small Business – 5 sites, Developers – 20 sites, Agency – more than 20 sites.
RELATED – BlogVault Review
FAQ related to BackupBuddy Review
How does BackupBuddy work?
BackupBuddy provides you with a zip file that you may use to upload and restore a broken site, ensuring that you always have the most recent backup of your site. BackupBuddy guides you through the procedures to restore your media files, text, plugins, and more once uploaded. You can also select to restore certain files rather than the entire site if that's what you want to do. You can even set custom backup intervals for automated backups.
What can I do with BackupBuddy?
Scheduled automatic backups, sends files to Google Drive, Dropbox, or 9 other alternatives, real-time backups, database roll-backs, manages domain changes, moves your site to another server and/or domain, managed WordPress staging site, database scan, and repair, and more are all included.
How much storage does BackupBuddy offer?
Each BackupBuddy plugin grants you 1 GB of cloud storage on BackupBuddy's Stash service. The plugin also allows you to automatically erase old cloud storage backups. This suggests that 1 GB is sufficient for 95% of websites. However, if you require additional storage, it is accessible. For about $35 per year, you may have 5 GB of storage.
How much does backup buddy cost?
The cost for BackupBuddy starts at $80 per year for 2 sites. For $297, you can get the gold license and use it on as many websites as you want. You will also be able to get upgrades and lifetime support for those sites.
Is backup buddy good?
BackupBuddy is a safe solution for small websites and bloggers. You should back up your site to more than one destination! This way it is protected if you have any problems. BackupBuddy makes this process easy and affordable.
Is BackupBuddy free?
If you have a BackupBuddy, Plugin Suite, or Toolkit license, the new update is now available for free. There are 3 ways to update: From the WordPress dashboard – Update BackupBuddy from your WordPress - Updates page in your WordPress dashboard.
How do I use backup buddy?
Move your BackupBuddy Full Backup file and the importbuddy.php file to the new directory or server. Then, use your web browser to run the importbuddy.php file. Then, BackupBuddy will guide you step by step through the process of moving your whole website to the new directory or server.
Quick links
- BackupBuddy Pricing
- BackupBuddy Support
- BackupBuddy Pros and Cons
- BackupBuddy FAQ
- BackupBuddy Alternatives
Conclusion: BackupBuddy Review 2025
You will require a full suite of functions from your WordPress backup plugin, which BackupBuddy provides. It has a very well-designed user interface, and on-screen support is provided if needed. Even beginners find it simple to use, and have a clean user interface.
The plugin code is trustworthy and was created by one of the top WordPress developers. It is incredibly reliable and dependable. To keep it safe and secure, it is frequently updated and maintained.
The best expert support makes it the most affordable option to set up backups for a WordPress site.
BackupBuddy from iThemes, in my opinion, is the best WordPress backup plugin currently available.
