A WordPress incremental backup plugin is a must-have addition to any WordPress based website. They offer significant advantages over traditional backup methods that not only speed up the process but also reduce overall server load. In this article, I’ll describe the importance of backing up your site, even if your host does it for you, and why WP Time Capsule is the best option available to you.
Why you need to backup your website, even if your host does
We’ve all heard it before. You must be responsible for your own backups to ensure that your website data isn’t lost. Don’t think it won’t happen to you, because there will come a time when you will need to restore your site from a backup.
Many hosts will do this for you, but how reliable is it? Speaking from experience, most of the time they are very reliable, but sometimes their backups don’t work, and without your own restore points you could be in peril. I have personally experienced two instances where the host has failed. The first was with my very first client who hosted the website themselves. The second was with a blog I own. In both cases, the host had failed to provide a backup service as described and the best I got was a sorry. Sorry didn’t bring the websites back. I had to step up and take responsibility for my own websites. So what are the options?
Backup options
- You have the manual method. Using CPanel or FTP and PHPMyAdmin, you can manually log into your hosting account and create a manual backup. This works, but is time-consuming and a task that can be easily forgotten.
- Full site backup plugins. These are the most common methods. There are several popular plugins in the WordPress repository such as Backup Buddy and UpdraftPlus. Both allow you to connect to cloud storage such as DropBox and Google Drive, but because they do full site backups each time and also zip the files, this causes a huge load on your server resources and can slow your site down significantly.
- WordPress incremental backup plugin. This is the way of the future and offers significant benefits over the other two. First of all you have the copy of the site on your cloud storage app. Secondly, instead of doing a full site backup each time, they create one initial site backup then once that backup has been created it will only backup the changes made to your website. So instead of backing up a 5GB site each time, it will back up a 5GB site once then only backup the changes when there have been changes. Unfortunately, this option comes at a cost, but for only a very small fee you can be secure from loss of precious data.
So looking at the options above it becomes clear that a WordPress incremental backup plugin is the best option. But which one should you use? There are a few options out there with the best two being VaultPress and WP Time Capsule. Both offer a very similar service for very affordable prices.
The best WordPress incremental backup plugin
If you want real-time live backups with plenty of restore options, access to a staging site and ease of use, then the best option for a WordPress incremental backup plugin is WP Time Capsule.
With WP Time Capsule you have access to one of the easiest interfaces for backups imaginable. It will begin by asking you to create an account and then selecting a cloud service to save your files to. If you use GSuite you may have access to unlimited storage, so this will be ideal. Once you have selected a cloud storage service to use you simply click the start process and it runs in the background. You can even close the page and even shut down your PC and it will run in the background.
Restoring is just as easy. Simply select a date and time and you can perform a full site restore or only selected files. Additionally, when restoring the site it will only restore the files that have changed, meaning the restore will be much faster and much ore granular.
How much does it cost?
OK, so here’s the clincher. As mentioned before this does come at a cost, but it’s not huge, and there is a 30 day free trial with no commitment or payment details required. For $49 a year you can add up to 2 websites. Comparing that to VaultPress who charge $5 per website per month the savings can be quite significant. In reality, you’re only paying as little as $2 a month for two websites with 30 days of restore points. The next level up will allow you to add up to 10 websites with restore points up to 120 days with the cost per website being as low as $1.
Another huge benefit is the staging environment that’s included with all plans. If you are unfamiliar with staging sites they are something you need to start using as soon as possible.
With a staging site, you can perform tests and changes without the risk of damaging the live site. This is hugely important to WooCommerce websites in particular. By testing plugin and theme updates as well as new plugins and themes prior to pushing live you can be sure that there’s no downtime or loss of sales.
To take advantage of the service offered by WP Time Capsule and their no commitment free trial, simply follow this link and signup. Their step by step process will guide you through setting it up and you’ll be off and running in no time.
I have been working with WordPress and WooCommerce since 2012 and have developed a deep knowledge of the content management system. Since 2012, I have developed several plugins and designed dozens of websites utilising different frameworks, CMS’s and programming languages. I am proficient in PHP, Python, Java, C, C++, R and JavaScript with limited experience in Go, Kotlin and Swift.
Educationally, I have a Master’s degree in cyber security a Bachelor’s (Hons, First Class) in Applied Research and a Graduate Certificate in Data Science. I’m currently undertaking PhD studies investigating IoT cybersecurity. I recently graduated with First Class Honours and Masters of Information Technology, receiving the Executive Dean’s Award for studies undertaken in the 2021 and 2022 academic years. I have worked in the information technology industry for the past 11 years primarily as a software/web developer specific to design, optimisation, network management and security. My research interests are in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and Beyond Networks, information security for wireless networks and software development.
Google Scholar ID: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=0KvpwNEAAAAJ&hl=en
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8113-1296
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