When talking about website backups, most users ask why one needs them in the first place. It is like asking why one needs a spare tire in their car – you only realize its value when any of your car tires go flat – by when it is too late! The same is true for website backups. If your website is compromised, it could take your days to identify and resolve the issue. You don’t need us to tell us what this could mean for your business – disgruntled customers, lost revenues, loss of user data, and a damaged brand reputation. With a backup on your side, you can retrieve your data and restore your site in just a couple of minutes.
But, there’s a catch. Not just any backups would do, you need a backup that is guaranteed to work. This is why it gets harder to pick the right backup tool for you – considering the array of options you have. In this article, we look at two of the leading WordPress backup plugins, UpdraftPlus and BlogVault, and help you pick the right one for your website and we have compared BlogVault and BackupBuddy in this post.
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Before we dive in, it’s important to know the features that you should look out for while selecting your backup plugin.
Bottom Line: BlogVault is a unique WordPress Backup and Security plugin and it is better than BackupBuddy on various aspects like it automatically backs up your website. It manages everything of your WordPress site including Migration, Staging and Merging across multiple secure and robust servers. You can try BlogVault yourself by taking the free trial.
BlogVault vs BackupBuddy 2024 | Which Backup Tool Should You Pick?
Choosing The Right Backup Tool, While there is no dearth of backup plugins in the market, here are six features to look out for in a backup tool:
1. Complete backups: Your backup tool must offer backups of both website files and database tables. With even small elements of missing, it would be impossible to restore your WordPress site.
Additionally, incremental backups are an efficient way of performing backups, as the entire website data is broken up into smaller fragments and only those that have modified files or tables are backed up – each time. If you manage multiple WP sites, taking bulk backups of all these websites can be challenging. Hence, your backup tool must also offer an independent dashboard, from where you can configure all your websites.
2. Independent storage: Make sure your backup tool offers offsite and independent locations for storing your backups so that they are safe from whatever it is that affected your website server.
3. Multiple and encrypted backups: Ensure that you have multiple backups or versions. This ensures that you have access to the best version to restore to your website. Additionally, backups must be securely encrypted so that hackers cannot use them even if they manage to access them.
4. Easy restore functionality: Many backup tools are good at performing backups but are challenging to use when you actually need them most – while restoring your site. Ensure that your backup tool provides easy access to your backup files, and they can be quickly restored to your website.
5. Real-time backups: If you are running an eCommerce store or an online business heavily dependent on capturing every transaction, your backup tool must offer real-time backups. These backups are executed on a real-time basis whenever any WP file or table changes.
6. Add-on features: Finally, check if your backup tool offers additional features such as WordPress Staging and migration. Staging ensures you can test your backup versions before restoring them. Migration ensures that you can quickly move your site to another WordPress host or location.
Now that we have that out of the way, let us compare the two most popular backup plugins in the market today – BlogVault and BackupBuddy.
BackupBuddy
Developed by iThemes, BackupBuddy is a popular backup plugin that has been used in over half a million sites since 2010. It offers website backups, restores, and migration.
If you want to know more about BackupBuddy then you can check our detailed BackupBuddy Review.
Widely used as a free backup tool, it can create a complete backup of your entire WordPress installation, including webpages, posts, user comments, plugin and theme files, core WP files, and the database.
BackupBuddy – Features
First, let us look at some of the standard backup features that BackupBuddy has to offer:
Complete backups: Including all WP installation files and databases. On completion of the backup process, you can download the backup file of your website easily in ZIP format, or upload the same to a third-party cloud storage platform. BackupBuddy also sends a notification email immediately on backup completion.
Scheduled backups: Where you can configure backups to be executed automatically without any human intervention. Depending on your website needs, you can choose to schedule your automatic backups every hour, twice a day, daily, weekly, monthly, and more.
Offsite storage: Your backup files are stored in a safe and remote location. BackupBuddy supports a range of remote storage locations, including Amazon S3, BackupBuddy Stash, Google Drive, and Dropbox.
Easy restoration: BackupBuddy features the user-friendly ImportBuddy tool that can be used to restore your site using the latest backup file.
In addition to these in-built features, BackupBuddy offers several add-on features, including:
BackupBuddy Stash Live: Real-time, cloud backups that periodically take a snapshot of your files to track live changes.
Website staging: Where website developers can test changes or updates on a temporary staging environment before pushing the changes to the live website. It also has the website cloning feature to create a replica of your live site.
Website migration: To facilitate the migration of your website to another web host.
BackupBuddy – Pricing
Here are the three main packages – depending on the number of websites.
Blogger: $80/year for 1 website
- 1-year plugin updates and ticketed support
- 1GB storage space
- 1-year access to Stash Live
Freelancer: $127/year for 10 websites
- 1-year plugin updates and ticketed support
- 1GB storage space
- 1-year access to Stash Live
Gold: $199/year for an unlimited number of websites
- 1-year plugin updates and ticketed support
- 5GB storage space
- 1-year access to Stash Live
BlogVault
Trusted by over 400,000 WordPress websites, BlogVault is a popular backup tool that is easy to install and use. Along with offering a complete backup solution for both websites and databases, BlogVault is packed with all the features of a reliable plugin – backups & restores, website management, migration, staging, and a centralized dashboard.
BlogVault – Features
Complete backups: Automatic scheduled backups, unlimited on-demand backups, and real-time backups. Over 90 days of backup archives.
Zero-overload backups: Backups use BlogVault’s dedicated servers with minimal impact on your server. It also used incremental backups to further minimize this load. This ensures that your website speed is never impacted. Independent centralized dashboard: Enables you to manage backups of multiple sites along with plugin/theme updates.
Offsite storage: That can be accessed even when your website has crashed or is non-operational.
1-click restore from the dashboard: You can choose from multiple versions. BlogVault’s Test Restore functionality allows testing of available backups on a staging site before merging them on your live site.
Inbuilt automated staging: Password-protected staging that enables you to test any updates, code/design changes, or new features without any impact on your live site.
Integrated website migration: That allows you to move your website to over 10,000 other web hosts. Other related features include automatic URL rewrites, multisite migration, and single-click migration.
BlogVault – Pricing
Essentially, BlogVault offers the following three categories – basic, plus, and advanced based on the features you need.
Basic: Basic features like 90 days backup archives, complete backups (including automatic backups, staging, multisite support, and migration), website management (updates, user management, website hardening), and site performance check.
Plus plan: Basic plan features plus WordPress security (malware scanning and removal)
Advanced plan: Plus plan features – plus real-time backups and uptime monitoring.
Apart from a limited-period free trial version, here are the four plans priced based on the number of websites:
Personal: 1 website
- Basic: $89
- Plus: $149
- Advanced: $249
Small Business: Up to 5 websites
- Basic: $199
- Plus: $359
- Advanced: $549
Developers: Up to 20 websites
- Basic: $499
- Plus: $799
- Advanced: $1499
Agency: Over 20 websites
They also have custom plans for agencies that include additional features like white-labeling, performance and uptime monitoring, and client-reporting.
Quick Links:
- BlogVault Vs UpdraftPlus: Which is Better WP Backup Tool?
- How To Check Website Backups To Avoid Future Disasters
- 7 Best Cloud Backup For Windows (Pros & Cons)
Conclusion: BlogVault vs BackupBuddy 2024 Which is Better ?
Both BlogVault and BackupBuddy have trusted premium plugins that offer comprehensive backup features. They’re easy to use, reliable, and trusted by the WordPress community.
BackupBuddy’s plans are easier on the pocket – especially if you run a blog on WordPress or manage only a few sites. It is reliable, easy to use, and effective – even for non-technical users.
BlogVault’s dedicated backup servers and features like website management, inbuilt security, and firewall, through the MalCare integration, white-label, and uptime monitoring make it a good choice if you manage and maintain multiple websites. Also, some of BackupBuddy’s premium add-on features like staging and migration are integrated into BlogVault’s basic plans.
We hope this article was helpful. Are any other features you look out for in a backup plugin that we may have missed? Let us know in the comments below.
