Having your WordPress site backed up is very important in case your site is hacked or something happens with your server. While I am in the online activity I had my sites hacked a couple of times and it was a good thing that I had them backed up as I was able to restore them fast. With WordPress is very easy to backup your site to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon, FTP, or other cloud company that exists out there.

The year 2022 has come and still, these are the best plugins that you can use to backup your WordPress website for free. I am using both of them on my site and it never had issues.

In case you may have a WooCommerce store then having a good backup is very important to not lose the hard work that you may have putten into building your store with custom plugins like subscriptions, wishlists and other product customizations like recently viewed products, bought together and maybe email customization. With the help of this plugin, you can automatically backup your WooCommerce store and keep your customizations and most important your customer orders.

The best thing is to have your site backed up to an external source so in case something happens with the server to have from where to take your files and perform a restore. I have sites where I publish articles almost daily and it will be a shame to lose the work that I have done.

In this article, I will present 2 plugins that I like and use to backup my sites on Dropbox and Google Drive or any other FTP or SFTP external source. The backup is done automatically at any schedule you decide. The plugins have a free version and it can help you also with the restore part or migrating a site to a new host or domain.

What I am looking for in the perfect WordPress backup plugin

In this area, I will put some key points that a WordPress backup plugin should have in order to do a good job.

BACKUP WordPress on Various Locations

In function of the size of my site or the service that I already have the perfect backup plugin should help me backup WordPress in various locations like Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, SFTP, Amazon spaces, etc.

Backup to be done Automatically

Backup needs to be scheduled and the plugin to do it automatically on the days I choose.

Restore the Backup

If I need to restore the backup in the same site as it was hacked or I want to create a clone to a different domain or subdomain the perfect plugin should have this.

Backup Big Sites

I have websites that have more than 500 articles and GB in size I want the plugin to be able to handle this size and backup my websites.

Be Reliable

If I configure a backup, I want to be sure that it is reaching the storage and in case something goes wrong to have a good copy that I can use. It wants only once when I needed to use the backup.

In the WordPress plugin repository, you will find more plugins that can help back up your WordPress site but from my point of view, these two are the best ones, updraftplus I have used them for years, and never failed me.

Best Free WordPress Backup Plugins

 1#. WPvivid Backup Plugin

A relatively new WordPress plugin that is completely free and will allow you to backup your WordPress database and files to various locations like Dropbox, FTP, Google Drive, etc. It will allow you to do unlimited backups and in case your backup is too big it has the option to split it. Check How To Backup WordPress to Dropbox or Google Drive For Free for detailed steps.

The plugin is in continuous development but some of the important features are:

• Site Transfer – Transfer your site to a new domain, from a development environment to a server or new domain, or from one live server to another. You can also transfer your site to a sub-directory, and all in just a couple of clicks.
• Cloud Storage Provider – you can backup your site to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, Microsoft OneDrive, FTP, SFTP, and more to be added.
• Automatic Backups – Schedule automatic backups on a frequency of your choosing (daily, weekly, monthly – whatever works for your website).
• No Limit on Number of Backups – Make as many backup copies as you think necessary.
• No Limit on Backup Size – WPvivid don’t limit backup size, the only limits may be your cloud storage or hosting account.
• Backup Splitting – If needs be you can split and save backups in multiple parts. This will come in handy if your storage options have size limits.
• Only Backup What You Need – Choose to backup your whole site, files, or just the database.
• Manage Backups Locally – Create local backups or download backups from your cloud storage to local devices.
• One Click Restore – Rest easy that if the worst does happen, your whole website can quickly be restored with just a single click.

 2# UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration

A very easy-to-use plugin, in a couple of minutes you can set a scheduled backup for your files and DB to go on S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email + others. The plugin offers the possibility to do restore also in case you will need it, which is very useful for inexperienced WordPress users. The plugin has also a premium version with more features and options. For the day-to-day users with sites that have hundreds of articles, this plugin does the job really well.

This plugin is used by more than 2 million websites and it is very reliable. The free version it is having the below features:

• Automatic backups – like WPVivid this can also do automatic backups on a specific scheduler
• Various Cloud Storage providers – free version it allows also backing up on different sources like Dropbox, Google Drive, FTP, S3, Rackspace, Email
• Restore – You can restore your backup
• No Limit on Backup Size – the plugin is not limiting you on the size
• Translated in 16 languages – the plugin it has multiple languages to be easier for not English speakers.

The free options are covering most of the basic needs but if you need additional functionality like incremental backups or additional storage options, migration, encryption you need to check the pro version. Here is a comparison with free vs pro.

WPvivid Vs UpDraftPlus

There is no point comparing the pro version with UPDraftPlus as it has more features but when it comes to the free version WPvivid has more features and that’s why I prefer it. Some extra features of WPvivid are:

• Site Migration – you can easily migrate your site where you want. This plugin can help you duplicate your site very easely.

If we are spiking about the extra setting that the UpDraftPlus has over WPvivid you have:

• Multiple Languages Support – if you really need a language to be used you have this option with this plugin.
• More Storage options– in the free version you have some additional options like Rackspace, Email

Conclusions

These are the best free WordPress backup plugins that I am recommending, both of them are doing a great job backing up the site. Because it has the migration option my favorite plugin is WPvivid but both are doing a very good job.

These are the plugins that I am recommending, what about you what plugin are you using to backup your site?