How to Backup WordPress Site for Free? (Starter’s Guide)

How to Backup WordPress Site for Free? (Starter’s Guide)

Are you interested in learning how to back up your WordPress site without any cost involved? If so, stay with us.

Consider waking up one day to discover your website facing a crisis, be it a cyberattack, an update gone awry, or a simple error. These unexpected issues can strike at any moment.

This underscores the importance of safeguarding your website. Regularly backing up your site is the key to ensuring the safety of your website’s content, design, and settings. The great news is that, when it comes to WordPress websites, you can accomplish this for free!

In this beginner’s guide, we will walk you through the process of backing up your WordPress site without incurring any expenses. Follow these straightforward steps to fortify the security of your WordPress site. Let’s get started!

In this blog, we will explore:-

a. WordPress Site Backup?
b. Why should you bother with making a back-up of your wordpress             website.
c. Backup plugins

WordPress Site Backup?


WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world, powering millions of websites across the internet. Whether you run a personal blog, an e-commerce store, or a corporate website, ensuring the security and integrity of your WordPress site is crucial. This is where WordPress site backups come into play. In this article, we’ll delve into the concept of WordPress site backups, their importance, different backup methods, and how to implement a robust backup strategy.

Why should you bother with making a back-up of your wordpress    website.?

Well, you already know the importance of a “Backup” in this mobile era, still, Creating backups for your WordPress website is essential for several reasons:

  1. Data Loss Prevention: Websites are susceptible to data loss due to various reasons, such as hacking attempts, malware infections, server failures, or accidental deletions. Backups ensure that your data, including content, images, and configurations, can be restored in case of data loss.
  2. Security: Cybersecurity threats, like hacking and malware attacks, can compromise your website’s integrity. Regular backups act as a safety net, allowing you to revert to a clean, uncompromised version of your site.
  3. Update and Plugin Compatibility: Sometimes, WordPress updates or plugin installations can lead to compatibility issues or errors. Having a backup enables you to restore a working version of your site if such problems arise during updates.
  4. Peace of Mind: Knowing you have a backup gives you peace of mind. You can experiment with your website, make changes, or try out new features without the fear of irreversible damage.
  5. Disaster Recovery: Natural disasters, server crashes, or hosting provider issues can lead to data loss. Backups are crucial for disaster recovery, ensuring your site can be up and running again quickly.
  6. Website Migration: When moving your site to a new hosting provider or domain, having a backup simplifies the migration process. You can easily transfer your website’s content and settings to the new location.
  7. Historical Data: Backups can serve as historical archives of your website. You can access previous versions of your site’s content and design, which can be valuable for reference or content retrieval.
  8. Time and Cost Savings: Without backups, recovering a compromised or broken website can be time-consuming and costly. Having a backup reduces downtime and the potential expenses associated with fixing issues.
  9. Client Trust: If you manage websites for clients, providing regular backups demonstrates professionalism and a commitment to safeguarding their online assets, which can build trust and confidence.

In summary, creating regular backups of your WordPress site is a crucial aspect of website maintenance and security. It ensures that your website’s data and functionality are protected and can be restored in the event of unforeseen issues or data loss.

Backup Plugins

A. UpdraftPlus (Freemium)

UpdraftPlus is a popular WordPress backup and restore plugin that comes in both free and premium versions. The free version of UpdraftPlus is fully functional and can back up and migrate your website without any issues. However, the premium version of UpdraftPlus offers a range of additional features that can make it even better.

Advantages –
  1. Easy to use: UpdraftPlus is easy to install and use, even for beginners.
  2. Scheduled backups: You can schedule automatic backups of your website with UpdraftPlus.
  3. Multiple storage options: UpdraftPlus supports multiple remote storage options, including Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, and more.
  4. Migrate/Clone tool: The premium version of UpdraftPlus comes with a Migrate/Clone tool that allows you to easily migrate or clone your website to a new location or domain.
  5. Reporting: UpdraftPlus provides detailed reports of your backups and restores.
  6. Encryption: The premium version of UpdraftPlus offers encryption for your backups to ensure that your data is secure.
Cost-

Since Updraft offers both free as well as paid services, you can choose to opt for whatever your needs are. However with premium, you get the following benefits and with minimal costing-

B. BlogVault (Freemium)


BlogVault is a WordPress backup and security service that offers both free and premium plans. The free version includes automated backups, one-click restoration, security scanning, and limited customer support. The premium plan provides real-time backups, a staging environment for testing changes, enhanced security features, migration tools, collaboration options, priority customer support, cloud storage integration, and performance optimization tools.

Advantages

here are some advantages of using BlogVault for WordPress backup and security:

1.Automated Backups: BlogVault simplifies the backup process by automating it, ensuring that your website is regularly backed up without manual intervention
2.One-Click Restore: In case of data loss or website issues, the one-click restore feature allows for easy recovery, minimizing downtime and potential data loss.
3.Real-Time Backups: Premium plans offer real-time backups, capturing changes immediately to keep your site up to date.
4.Staging Environment: Premium plans include a staging environment for safe testing of changes before implementing them on your live site.
5.Enhanced Security: Premium plans provide advanced security measures like firewall protection and malware scanning to protect your site from threats.
6.Migration Tools: Simplify the process of moving your website to a new server or domain
7.Collaboration Features: Ideal for teams, enabling multiple members to manage backups and security settings.
8. Priority Support: Premium plans offer faster and more comprehensive customer support, reducing downtime during issues.

Cost-

(For 10 Sites)

1. Basic – 1 Year License – 399$/Year, Includes – Backup & Staging
2. Plus- 1 Year License – 799$/Year, Includes – Backup, Staging & Security
3. Pro- 1 Year License – 1999$/Year, Includes – Backup, Staging & Security

(For 3 Sites)

1. Basic 1 Year License – 199$/Year, Includes – Backup & Staging
2. Plus- 1 Year License – 349$/Year, Includes – Backup, Staging & Security
3. Pro- 1 Year License – 899$/Year, Includes – High Frequency Backup

(For Single Site)

1. Basic 1 Year License – 89$/Year, Includes – Backup & Staging
2. Plus- 1 Year License – 149$/Year, Includes – Backup, Staging & Security
3. Pro- 1 Year License – 299$/Year, Includes – High Frequency Backup

C. JETPACK (FREEMIUM)

Jetpack is a popular WordPress plugin that offers a variety of features, including a backup solution. Jetpack Backup provides users with the ability to back up their WordPress website’s content and settings, ensuring that data is safe and recoverable in case of unexpected events such as data loss, security breaches, or technical issues.

Advantages-

1. Automated Backups: Jetpack Backup allows you to schedule automated backups of your WordPress site. You can choose the frequency of these backups, such as daily, in real-time, or other intervals, depending on your plan.
2. Backup History: Jetpack typically retains backup copies of your website for a certain period. This allows you to restore your site to a specific point in time, providing flexibility in data recovery.
3. Easy Restoration: Restoring your site from a backup is usually straightforward. Jetpack provides a user-friendly interface for one-click restoration, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
4. Security: In addition to backups, Jetpack offers various security features, including firewall protection, malware scanning, and brute force attack protection, to help safeguard your website.
5. Real-Time Backups (Premium): Premium plans often include real-time backups, ensuring that changes to your website are backed up immediately.
6. Backup to the Cloud: Your backups can be securely stored in the cloud, reducing the risk of data loss due to server issues or physical disasters.
7. Multisite Support: Jetpack Backup can be used with WordPress Multisite, allowing you to back up and manage multiple sites from a single dashboard.

Cost-

Security Pack – 6.90$/month (For 1st Year)
Complete Pack – 16.77$/month (For 1st Year)

D. Backwpup

BackWPup is a popular WordPress plugin that provides backup and restoration functionality for WordPress websites. This plugin is designed to help users create and manage backups of their website’s data, files, and database, ensuring data security and disaster recovery.

Advantages

1.Backup Flexibility: BackWPup provides various backup options, including full site backups, database-only backups, and custom selections of files and directories. This flexibility allows you to tailor your backups to your specific needs.
2.Automated Backups: You can schedule automated backups on a regular basis, such as daily, weekly, or monthly, reducing the risk of data loss due to human error or technical issues.
3.Backup Destinations: BackWPup supports multiple backup destination options, including local storage, FTP, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more. This ensures that you can choose a secure and convenient location for your backups.
4.
Compression and Encryption: The plugin offers compression to reduce backup file sizes, saving storage space and speeding up backup and restoration processes. Additionally, you can often encrypt your backup files for added security.
5.
Database Optimization: BackWPup may include features to optimize your website’s database, improving overall site performance.
7.Migration Tools: It simplifies the process of migrating your website to a new server or domain, making it a valuable tool for site development and transfers.
8.Email Notifications: You can set up email notifications to keep you informed about the status of your backups. This feature ensures that you’re aware of any issues or successful backups.
9.Multisite Support: BackWPup is often compatible with WordPress Multisite installations, allowing you to manage backups across multiple sites from a single interface.

How to Choose the Best Hosting for Your Website?

When faced with the decision of selecting hosting for your business website, you may find it challenging to choose the right option. Hosting options are diverse, making it crucial to determine which suits your specific needs. Let’s delve into how hosting functions and explore the various hosting choices available with Sun Server.

Hosting: The Fundamentals

All websites necessitate an online “home.” Sun Server, a hosting provider, offers space on a server, which is essentially a computer with large, state-of-the-art hard drives that store all the data, images, text, and other content your website contains. This space is made accessible to anyone seeking to access it via the internet.

You might wonder, “Can’t I just host my website on my own computer?” While some individuals manage their own web servers, remote hosting through a company like Sun Server provides numerous advantages that the average person can’t match. Reliable hosting companies offer valuable services, including:
Sun Server Best Hosting

– Ongoing and redundant backups to safeguard against hardware failures.
– Tools like cPanel for efficient website and file management.
– Customer support to aid in account setup and management.
– Climate-controlled environments and expert staff ensuring optimal server performance.
– A technical team available 24/7 to protect servers from failure, imbalanced loads, excessive bandwidth usage, and unauthorized access.

For a typical website, replicating the hosting environment Sun Server offers would be prohibitively expensive, especially considering their affordable monthly rates.

Types of Hosting

Sun Server provides a range of hosting services, including:

1. Shared Hosting
2. Reseller Hosting
3. VPS (Virtual Private Servers)
4. Dedicated Servers
5. Managed WordPress Hosting

Let’s examine these hosting options in detail.

1. Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is an excellent choice for individuals new to website ownership. It is the most budget-friendly option and offers easy setup and maintenance. Shared hosting is suitable for blogs, personal websites, and small business sites with moderate traffic and bandwidth requirements, excluding resource-intensive content like video. Users have access to cPanel, enabling them to install databases, manage email, transfer files via FTP, and monitor bandwidth usage.

As the name implies, shared hosting involves multiple hosting accounts residing on a single server. With Sun Server, you receive a user-friendly web-based Control Panel (cPanel) for straightforward site deployment, email creation, and database management. Server maintenance is handled by others, and after your website is up and running, direct access to cPanel is rarely needed.

Sun Server Shared Hosting

However, shared hosting may have limitations in terms of traffic and bandwidth, as you share server resources with other users. Traffic spikes from your site or others can impact site performance, and certain restrictions apply to what you can install or modify. Sun Server offers three shared hosting tiers:

– Stellar: Ideal for beginners, accommodating up to three domains/websites.
– Stellar Plus: Suitable for those needing additional resources or multiple domains.
– Stellar Business: Ideal for e-commerce and businesses that require more resources and reduced limitations.

2. Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting, another form of shared hosting, is an excellent choice for web designers and developers who maintain their clients’ websites over the long term. Reseller hosting packages are essentially shared hosting accounts with additional tools for reselling hosting space to clients.

sunserver Reseller Hosting

You gain greater control, including a Web Host Manager (WHM) control panel for creating multiple cPanel accounts with individual login details. Reseller hosting is cost-effective and well-suited for web developers working with small business clients.

3. VPS Hosting

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) provide greater flexibility than shared hosting. While it still operates in a shared environment, a VPS allocates server resources differently. VPS is suitable for developers, webmasters, resellers, and resource-intensive websites.

A VPS is a single physical server partitioned into multiple virtual machines, ensuring that one website’s activity does not affect others. This level of hosting allows for more extensive modifications without impacting others’ environments.

4. Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated server hosting is the most powerful option, ideal for demanding websites. However, with VPS or a dedicated server, you assume greater responsibility for setup and maintenance compared to shared hosting.

A dedicated server provides exclusive server access for your website, allowing for extensive changes and custom software installations. Technical expertise or a server management administrator may be necessary to manage a dedicated server effectively.

5. EasyWP: Managed WordPress Hosting

EasyWP, a form of shared hosting, offers a simplified entry into hosting, especially for WordPress users. With EasyWP, Sun Server simplifies the setup process, eliminating the need to install WordPress or navigate complex cPanel settings.

Sunserver WordPress Hosting

It’s a convenient choice for business owners seeking a quick website launch. Note that EasyWP lacks FTP or cPanel access, limiting certain modifications to the WordPress open source code and databases.

Utilizing Sun Server for Hosting and Domains

If you already have a domain registered with Sun Server, you might wonder whether to opt for their hosting services as well. In the early days of the internet, it was common advice to avoid having a single company manage both domains and hosting. However, that advice is no longer relevant.

Sun Server offers numerous advantages for hosting your website where you register your domains. Dealing with one company for support and account management simplifies your operations. Managing DNS and site administration becomes more straightforward, eliminating the need to switch between different company websites.

Considering these advantages, choosing Sun Server for both your domain registration and hosting can be a sensible decision.

What is Domain Vault and why do I need it

Domain Vault by Sun Server is a premium domain protection service aimed at safeguarding your most valuable domain assets. We prioritize security in our domain offerings, with essential features such as Domain Privacy, Registrar Lock, and Auto-Renewal already included as standard. These free features are further reinforced by default security measures like two-factor authentication and security alerts.

Domain Vault takes security to the next level, specifically tailored for customers seeking maximum protection for their most critical domains. It functions as a secure repository for safeguarding one of your most valuable company assets.

At the core of Domain Vault is the robust Registry Lock feature, which combines human and machine security to virtually eliminate the possibility of unauthorized changes to your domain nameserver settings or transfers out of Sun Server without your consent.

In addition, we’ve implemented extra identity verification checks for any domain changes that are vital for your business. To enhance the product’s security and efficiency, we’ve assembled a dedicated team of specialists who ensure that all your requests are processed swiftly and securely.