I’ve tested the most used WordPress backup plugins and compared their compression level and backup&restore speed.
The website on which I performed the tests is a WP blog (pcx3.com) that has 2.7 GB in files and database size is 130.8 MB
Tested plugins:
- Updraft backups 🏆 WINNER 🏆
- BlogVault
- BackWPup
- Backup Guard
- Duplicator
- WPVivid
- All-in-One WP Migration
New plugins might be added later on. 🙂
Spoiler alert – the answers are that:
Possibly the best free WordPress backup plugin is UpDraft Backups. It generates backups instantly, and the restoration process is just as fast. ⚡
And because database, uploads, themes, and plugins are stored inside separate .zip files, the plugin is not required for manual restoration.
UpDraft Backups Pro version supports WP-CLI and Incremental backups.
UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is one of the most user-friendly backup plugins that you can find and I personally use it on many sites. Using this plugin the backup was generated in 4 minutes and its total size is 2.2 GB
The upDraft backup plugin doesn’t have great compression but the backup and restore speeds are amazing:
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4m 16s (Start at 18:58:44 – Finish 19:03) | 2.2 GB | 18.51 % | 1m (Start at 19:10:06 – Finish 19:04) |
All-in-One WP Migration
A simple backup plugin that supports many destinations but doesn’t really have any settings that you can configure.
Using this plugin the backup was generated in 3.29 minutes and its total size is 2.84 GB
WordPress All-in-One Migration plugin stores backups as a single .wpress file.
The free version is pretty limited so I couldn’t even run the restore and measure it.
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3m 29s (Start at 19:07:14 – Finish 19:10:41) | 2.84 GB | + 5.18 % | paid feature |
BackupGuard
To be honest I haven’t used this plugin before but the UI is pretty sweet and I like the chunk options that make sure the backup is not terminated due to timeouts.
Both backup and restore took the same amount of time: 6 minutes
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 m (Start at 19:36 – Finish 19:42) | 2.03 GB | 24.81 % | 6 m (Start at 19:52 – Finish 19:58) |
BackWPup
To be fair this plugin offers different types of compression based on the selected archive type: zip, tar, or tar.gz – but I’ve kept the default option .zip
The backup process with the BackWPup plugin took the longest of all tested plugins – 2h 22m 32s!
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2h 22m 32s (Start at 20:03 – Finish 22:22:32) | 2.15 GB | 20.37 % | / |
BlogVault
This plugin is basically a service and after installation, it will connect your website with an account on https://app.blogvault.net/ and automatically start a backup process.
As this plugin doesn’t allow you to store local backups but instead stores them on a remote server, the backup generation speed is also limited to your hosting plan download speed and to their “sync” limits – about 400mb every 8hrs..
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~ 1 day | 2.3 GB | 0 % |
Duplicator
This plugin makes it easier to clone or migrate WordPress to another hosting but can also be handy for backups. However, I must say that this is the only plugin from this list that caused a 524 Cloudflare timeout error during backup generation.
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 m (Start at 23:39 – Finish 22:43) | 2.13 GB | 21.11 % | / |
WPVivid
By compression % and backup time, WPvivid outperformed every other plugin, but the restore process took a bit longer than the first-runner UpDraft Plus.
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 m 29 s (Start at 23:10:24 – Finish 23:13:53) | 1.93 GB | 28.52 % | 4 m 4 s (Start at 23:15:00 – Finish 23:19:04) |
Total Upkeep
I was surprised by the efficiency of this plugin, backup was generated in 5 minutes, but the restore process was completed in under a minute – the fastest restore from all plugins tested!
| time to generate a full website backup | backup size | compression | time to restore backup |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 m (Start at 23:49 – Finish 23:54 ) | 2.07 GB | 23.33 % | 40 s (Start at 23:56 – Finish 23:56:40 ) |
Here are the WordPress Backup Plugins Benchmark results:
| Plugin | time to generate backup | backup size | backup compression | time to restore backup | backup location |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UpDraft 🏆 | 4m 16s | 2.2 GB | 18.51 % | 1m | wp-content/updraft |
| Total UpKeep | 5m | 2.07 GB | 23.33 % | 40s | boldgrid_backup |
| WPVivid | 3m 29s | 1.93 GB | 28.52 % | 4m 4s | wp-content/wpvividbackups |
| Duplicator | 4m | 2.13 GB | 21.11 % | ❌ paid feature | wp-content/backups-dup-lite |
| All-in-One WP Migration | 3m 29s | 2.84 GB | – 5.18 % | ❌ paid feature | wp-content/ai1wm-backups |
| BackupGuard | 6m | 2.03 GB | 24.81 % | 6m | wp-content/uploads/backup-guard |
| BackWPup | 2h 22m 32s | 2.15 GB | 20.37 % | ❌ paid feature | wp-content/uploads/backwpup-1aaa1e-backups |
| BlogVault | ~ 1 day | 2.3 GB | 0 % | ❌ | *remote |
If you plan on storing backups locally (bad idea) and disk size is important, consider WPVivid plugin as it offers better compression. But if you are looking for the fastest possible backups and restores, use the UpDraft backup plugin.
