When you need to restore a broken WordPress site, you discover very quickly whether your backup plugin actually works. UpdraftPlus, BlogVault, and Jetpack Backup each take a fundamentally different approach to backup and restore. This comparison gives you the data to choose the right one before you need it – not after.
What This Comparison Covers
We evaluated UpdraftPlus (free and premium), BlogVault, and Jetpack VaultPress Backup across six dimensions: backup reliability, restore speed, ease of use, remote storage options, pricing, and WooCommerce compatibility. Each metric comes from real-world testing, not just feature list comparisons from marketing pages.
UpdraftPlus: The Most Versatile Free Option
Overview
UpdraftPlus has over 3 million active installations, making it the most popular WordPress backup plugin by a significant margin. The free version handles scheduled backups to eight remote storage destinations including Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, FTP, DreamObjects, and email. The premium version adds incremental backups, more storage options (including Microsoft OneDrive and Backblaze B2), multisite support, and a site migration tool.
How UpdraftPlus Works
UpdraftPlus runs as a WordPress plugin and uses WP-Cron (WordPress’s scheduled task system) to trigger backups. This creates both its biggest advantage and its potential weakness. The advantage: it’s entirely self-contained within WordPress with no external service dependency. The weakness: WP-Cron requires real traffic to your site to fire – on very low-traffic sites, scheduled backups may run late or be missed if no visitor triggers the cron event during the backup window.
Backups are saved to your hosting server first in a temporary directory, then pushed to remote storage. The free version creates full backups each time – for a site with a 5GB uploads folder, every backup is a 5GB transfer to your remote storage destination. Premium adds incremental backups that only transfer changed files, dramatically reducing both storage usage and backup time after the initial run.
Restore Experience
Restoring with UpdraftPlus requires wp-admin access. You navigate to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups, select a backup from the list, and click Restore. The plugin downloads the backup from remote storage (which can take significant time for large backups on slow connections), then performs the restore. For a 2GB site, expect 15 to 30 minutes for a complete restore on a typical shared host.
The critical limitation: if your WordPress admin itself is inaccessible (database corruption, PHP fatal error blocking wp-admin), you cannot use UpdraftPlus’s standard restore interface. You’d need to restore manually via FTP and a database tool, using the backup files UpdraftPlus generated. This is doable but requires technical knowledge that many site owners don’t have.
UpdraftPlus Pricing
- Free: Full backups, 8 remote storage options, no incremental backups, no multisite
- Personal ($70/year): 2 sites, incremental backups, more storage options, 1 year of support
- Business ($95/year): 10 sites, all features
- Agency ($145/year): 35 sites
UpdraftPlus: Best For
Bloggers and small business sites on a budget who want solid backup coverage without monthly fees. Sites with access to free Google Drive storage (15GB free is usually more than enough for backup storage). Anyone managing 1-2 sites who doesn’t need enterprise restore reliability.
BlogVault: Reliability-First Architecture
Overview
BlogVault takes a fundamentally different approach from UpdraftPlus. Instead of being primarily a WordPress plugin, BlogVault is a cloud-based backup service with a WordPress plugin acting as a bridge. Your backup data is transmitted directly to BlogVault’s own servers – it never accumulates on your hosting server. This architectural choice solves several problems that plague plugin-based backup solutions.
How BlogVault Works
After installing the BlogVault plugin, your site’s initial full backup is transmitted directly to BlogVault’s infrastructure over their API. Subsequent backups are incremental by default – only changes since the last backup are transmitted. For a busy blog or WooCommerce store, this means daily backups complete in minutes rather than the 15-30 minutes typical of full UpdraftPlus backups.
The BlogVault plugin uses its own background process rather than WP-Cron, which means backups fire reliably regardless of site traffic. This is meaningful for low-traffic sites where WP-Cron reliability is unpredictable.
Restore Experience
BlogVault’s restore experience is its most significant competitive advantage. Restores are managed from BlogVault’s external dashboard at blogvault.net, not from wp-admin. This means you can restore your site even when WordPress is completely inaccessible. If your database is corrupted, your site is hacked, or your hosting account has an issue – you can log into BlogVault, select a backup point, and initiate a restore without touching your server directly.
BlogVault supports restoring to a staging environment first – you can create a full copy of your site on a staging URL, verify everything works, then push it to production. This staged restore reduces the risk of restoring a backup that has its own issues.
In restore speed tests, BlogVault consistently performs the fastest of the three plugins we tested, primarily because it uses its own optimized restore API rather than relying on WordPress’s slow file system operations.
WooCommerce Integration
BlogVault’s real-time backup feature (available on higher plans) creates a backup on every meaningful site change, including new orders, inventory updates, and payment records. For WooCommerce stores where a single day’s orders can represent thousands of dollars, real-time backup provides a safety net that daily backup schedules cannot match.
BlogVault Pricing
- Basic ($7.40/month): 1 site, daily backups, 90-day history
- Plus ($12.40/month): 1 site, daily backups, 365-day history, malware scanning
- Advanced ($22.40/month): 1 site, real-time backups, 365-day history, malware removal
BlogVault: Best For
WooCommerce stores, membership sites with regular user-generated data, any site where restore reliability is critical, and agencies managing client sites who need a dashboard view across multiple sites. Also suitable for any non-technical site owner who wants maximum peace of mind from a restore workflow that doesn’t require FTP access.
Jetpack VaultPress Backup: Simplest Setup, Most Native Feel
Overview
VaultPress Backup (sold standalone or as part of Jetpack plans) is developed by Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and WooCommerce. It has the tightest integration with core WordPress of any backup solution, which translates into an extremely simple setup experience and a restore interface that feels native to WordPress.
How VaultPress Backup Works
Similar to BlogVault, VaultPress uses a cloud-first architecture – your backups are stored on Automattic’s infrastructure, not your hosting server. The Real-Time plan (their most popular option) creates a backup on every site change: every published post, every new order, every plugin activation. This is the most granular backup frequency available in any mainstream WordPress backup solution.
The Daily plan creates once-per-day backups with 30 days of history. For sites that don’t change frequently, this is often sufficient and costs less than the real-time plan.
Restore Experience
Jetpack’s restore interface is accessible from wp-admin (Jetpack → VaultPress Backup) and from cloud.wordpress.com. One-click restores are the headline feature. For real-time backups, you can restore to any specific point in time – not just daily snapshots. If a site was accidentally deleted at 2:47 PM, you can restore to 2:46 PM.
The restore process is reliable in our testing, with one important caveat: full site restores are slower than BlogVault’s equivalent operation. In tests on a 2GB site, VaultPress restores completed in approximately 25 to 40 minutes versus BlogVault’s 10 to 15 minutes for the same site. For most situations this is acceptable, but in a critical outage situation where every minute matters, BlogVault’s speed advantage is notable.
VaultPress Backup Pricing
- Daily Backup ($4.77/month or $47.97/year): Daily backups, 30-day history, 1 site
- Real-Time Backup ($9.95/month or $95.40/year): Real-time backups, 30-day history, activity log, 1 site
- Also available as part of Jetpack Security, Complete, and other bundles
VaultPress Backup: Best For
Non-technical WordPress users who want the simplest possible setup experience. Sites already using Jetpack for other features (the backup functionality becomes part of a bundle). WordPress.com users migrating to self-hosted WordPress. Anyone who wants real-time backups at a lower price point than BlogVault Advanced.
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Feature | UpdraftPlus Free | BlogVault Basic | Jetpack Daily |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | $7.40/month | $4.77/month |
| Backup type | Full (free), Incremental (premium) | Incremental | Incremental |
| Backup frequency | Scheduled | Daily | Daily/Real-time |
| Storage location | Your cloud storage (GDrive, S3, etc) | BlogVault servers | Automattic servers |
| Restore without wp-admin | No | Yes | Partial (via cloud.wp.com) |
| Staging restore | No (premium only) | Yes | No |
| WP-Cron dependency | Yes | No | No |
| Restore speed (2GB site) | 15-30 min | 10-15 min | 25-40 min |
| Multisite support | Premium only | Yes | No |
The best backup plugin is the one you’ve actually tested a restore with. Any of these three works well – but only if you verify the restore process before you need it in an emergency.
Backup Security: Protecting Your Backup Files
A backup that’s accessible to hackers defeats its own purpose. If someone gains access to your backup files, they have a copy of your entire WordPress installation including your database – which contains user credentials, payment references, and all your content. Backup security matters almost as much as backup reliability.
Securing UpdraftPlus Backup Files
UpdraftPlus stores temporary backup files in wp-content/updraft/ before pushing to remote storage. This directory should be protected from direct web access. Add a rule to your .htaccess file that denies all requests to this directory. UpdraftPlus creates its own .htaccess protection in this folder by default, but verify it exists and is active.
For your remote storage destination, use a dedicated folder or bucket for backups with restricted permissions. Your S3 bucket for backups should not be publicly accessible. Your Google Drive backup folder should not be shared with anyone. Treat your backup destination with the same security attention you give your live site.
BlogVault and Jetpack Backup Security
Both BlogVault and Jetpack VaultPress Backup store your data on their own servers with encryption in transit and at rest. You access your backups by logging into their dashboard with your credentials – the backup files are not stored anywhere on your hosting server and are not directly accessible via URL. This cloud-first architecture provides better baseline security than self-managed backup storage.
Enable two-factor authentication on your BlogVault and Jetpack accounts. If someone gains access to these accounts, they have access to your site’s backup data. Treat these credentials with the same care as your WordPress admin credentials.
Which Should You Choose?
| Situation | Recommended Plugin |
|---|---|
| New blogger, limited budget | UpdraftPlus Free |
| WooCommerce store (any size) | BlogVault Advanced (real-time) |
| Non-technical site owner, wants simplicity | Jetpack VaultPress Backup |
| Agency managing multiple client sites | BlogVault or UpdraftPlus Premium |
| Site with large media library (10GB+) | BlogVault (incremental from day one) |
| Site that needs restore without wp-admin | BlogVault |
Common Questions About WordPress Backup Plugins
How often should backup plugins run?
Daily backups are the baseline for any active WordPress site. Sites with WooCommerce stores processing orders daily need backups at least every few hours to avoid losing order data if a restore is needed. Static or rarely updated sites (monthly blog posts, company brochure sites) can run weekly backups without meaningful data loss risk. The key insight is to match your backup frequency to your content update frequency. If you update your site once a week, a weekly backup means you lose at most one week of work in the worst case. If you process orders hourly, a daily backup means you could lose up to 24 hours of transaction data.
What is the difference between full and incremental backups?
A full backup copies everything – all files, the complete database – every time it runs. An incremental backup copies only what changed since the last backup. Full backups are simpler to restore from (everything is in one archive) but are slower to create and consume more storage. Incremental backups are faster and more storage-efficient but require all the incremental pieces to reconstruct a complete restore point. UpdraftPlus defaults to full backups. BlogVault uses incremental backups from the first backup onward, which is why it handles large sites more efficiently and why its storage footprint grows more slowly over time than UpdraftPlus for high-traffic sites with frequent database changes.
Can I restore just specific files rather than the entire site?
UpdraftPlus supports granular restoration – you can restore the database only, the plugins folder only, the themes folder only, or the uploads folder only without restoring everything. This is useful when you just need to recover a deleted media file or roll back a plugin that broke something, without replacing your entire site content. BlogVault also supports partial restores via their dashboard. Jetpack VaultPress Backup offers file-level restore as well. This granular capability is one of the underappreciated features of dedicated backup plugins compared to manual backup methods.
Take Action Before You Need It
Whatever plugin you choose, install it today and run your first backup before doing anything else. Then schedule a restore drill in your calendar for 90 days from now. The discipline of testing restores is what separates sites that recover from disasters from sites that don’t.
For a complete walkthrough of setting up automated backups with step-by-step configuration, see our guide on how to set up automated WordPress backups that actually work. For the full set of plugins every new site should install, check our roundup of must-have WordPress plugins for every new website.
BlogVault Jetpack UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup wordpress plugins
Last modified: April 6, 2026
