Let me be upfront about something most UpdraftPlus reviews skip entirely: the free version is so good that you genuinely might not need to pay for it. I have used UpdraftPlus Review on over 20 WordPress sites ranging from simple blogs to WooCommerce stores processing real orders, and my honest take is more nuanced than most comparisons you will find.
So let’s get into it: what it actually does, what it does not do, where it earns its reputation, and where I think the Premium upgrade is worth it versus where it is not.
What Is UpdraftPlus and Who Makes It?
UpdraftPlus is a WordPress backup, restore, and migration plugin built by TeamUpdraft. It launched in 2011 and has grown to over 3 million active installations, making it the most installed backup plugin in the entire WordPress repository by a significant margin.
The core job is simple: create complete backups of your WordPress site on a schedule, store them somewhere off-site, and let you restore from any backup with a few clicks. No FTP required, no cPanel access needed, no command line. The restore button is right there in your WordPress dashboard.
According to WordPress.org plugin statistics, UpdraftPlus holds a 4.8 out of 5 rating from over 8,000 reviews. That is not a coincidence. For a plugin that does something this critical, a 4.8 rating maintained across years of usage and WordPress updates is a genuine signal of reliability.
Five Minutes With UpdraftPlus, First Impressions
The first time I installed UpdraftPlus on a client site, I had backups running to Google Drive in under ten minutes. That includes the time spent connecting the Google account, which requires clicking through an OAuth flow that used to confuse people but has been simplified significantly in recent versions.
The settings page is straightforward. You pick your backup schedule, separately for files and database, choose your remote storage destination, and set how many backups to keep before old ones are deleted. That’s essentially it for basic setup.
What surprised me the first time was how readable the backup log is. After a backup runs, you can see exactly what was included, how large each component was, and whether it completed cleanly. Most backup plugins either show you nothing or show you incomprehensible technical output. UpdraftPlus shows you something genuinely useful.
UpdraftPlus Free vs Premium: The Real Differences
Here is where I want to be more honest than most UpdraftPlus reviews are.
| Feature | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Full site backups — files and database | Yes | Yes |
| Scheduled automatic backups | Yes | Yes |
| One-click restore from WordPress dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Remote storage — Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, FTP | Yes | Yes, plus more |
| Incremental backups | No | Yes |
| Site migration and cloning | No | Yes, via Migrator add-on |
| Database encryption | No | Yes |
| Multiple remote storage simultaneously | No | Yes |
| Multisite network support | Limited | Full |
| Priority support | No | Yes |
The honest summary: if you run a personal blog or a simple business site that does not generate significant revenue, the free version is genuinely all you need. I run several of my own sites on UpdraftPlus Free and have never felt the need to upgrade them.
Where Premium earns its keep is on sites that matter commercially: a WooCommerce store, a membership site with paying subscribers, or a client site where downtime has a real financial cost.
Features That Actually Matter in Real Usage
Scheduled Backups, The One You Cannot Skip Configuring
The most common mistake I see with UpdraftPlus Review is people installing it and leaving the schedule at the default or never setting one at all. The plugin does not back up your site automatically until you configure a schedule. Go to Settings, then UpdraftPlus, and set both the files schedule and the database schedule. Database changes more frequently than files; for an active site I typically run database backups daily and file backups weekly.
One important caveat nobody mentions: UpdraftPlus uses WordPress cron jobs to trigger scheduled backups. On good hosting this works perfectly. On some cheap shared hosts where cron jobs fire unreliably, scheduled backups occasionally miss. After setting up a new site, I always check the backup log 48 hours later to confirm the schedule is running. Takes 30 seconds and has saved me from a false sense of security more than once.
Remote Storage, Off-Site Is Non-Negotiable
Storing backups only on your hosting server is one of the most common and most dangerous mistakes WordPress site owners make. If your server gets compromised, both your site and your backups are gone. If your host has a data center incident, same result.
UpdraftPlus free supports Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Rackspace, FTP, and email, enough options to cover virtually everyone. I typically use Google Drive for client sites because most business owners already have a Google account and the authorization flow is simple enough to hand off.
The Premium version adds OneDrive, Backblaze B2, Azure, SFTP, and WebDAV for environments where those are preferred.
Incremental Backups, Premium Only and Actually Important
This is the Premium feature I recommend most often, specifically for larger sites.
A full backup of a site with a large media library, say 8GB of images and videos, takes time, uses server resources, and consumes 8GB of cloud storage every time it runs. If you are backing up daily, that is 56GB per week of storage for the media alone.
Incremental backups solve this. After the first full backup, subsequent backups only capture what changed since the last run. If you added 100MB of new images today, your backup is 100MB, not 8GB. For sites above 2GB in total size, this feature alone justifies the Premium upgrade.
One-Click Restore — The Feature That Matters Most
I have used the UpdraftPlus restore process in real emergencies more times than I would like to admit, and it has never let me down. You navigate to the UpdraftPlus backups tab, choose your backup from the list, select which components to restore, and click Restore. The whole thing takes a few minutes depending on your site size.
The alternative to this, downloading your backup files, accessing your database via phpMyAdmin, manually replacing files via FTP. takes hours and requires technical knowledge most site owners do not have. The one-click restore is not a convenience feature. It is the feature that determines whether you can actually recover when something goes wrong.
UpdraftPlus Pricing 2026
| Plan | First Year | Renewal | Sites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $70 | $42 per year | 1 to 2 sites |
| Business | $95 | $57 per year | Up to 10 sites |
| Agency | $145 | $87 per year | Up to 35 sites |
A few things worth knowing about this pricing that most reviews gloss over.
First, the renewal discount is genuine, 40% less than the first-year price, which is unusual and appreciated. Second, the plugin keeps working after your license expires. Your scheduled backups continue to run. You lose access to updates and support, but your existing configuration stays functional. This is notably more user-friendly than plugins that shut down functionality the day your subscription expires.
For agencies on the $145 per year plan across 35 sites, the math works out to roughly $4 per site per year for professional backup coverage. That is not a meaningful expense relative to what a lost client site would cost.
👉 Get UpdraftPlus Premium — All Plans and Pricing 👉 Visit TeamUpdraft Official Site
The One Thing That Can Go Wrong
I want to be straight with you about the scenario where UpdraftPlus has frustrated me.
When the Google Drive or Dropbox authentication token expires, which happens periodically, scheduled backups silently fail. The plugin sends an email notification about the failure, but only if you configured email notifications, which many people skip during setup. If you are not checking your backup log regularly and your authentication token expires, you can go weeks thinking you have backups when you actually have nothing recent.
The fix is simple: enable email notifications during setup, and check your backup log at least once a month. But I have seen clients who assumed their backups were running automatically without ever verifying this. That assumption has caused real problems.
This is not a reason to avoid UpdraftPlus; every backup solution has failure modes. It is a reason to spend five minutes setting up email notifications and checking the log after your first scheduled backup runs.
UpdraftPlus Review vs Alternatives
UpdraftPlus vs Duplicator
Duplicator is primarily a migration tool that can also handle backups. For one-off site migrations, Duplicator is excellent. For ongoing automated backup schedules, UpdraftPlus is more purpose-built and more reliable. I use both: UpdraftPlus for ongoing scheduled protection, Duplicator when I need to move a site between hosts.
UpdraftPlus vs Your Hosting Backup
If you host on Cloudways, which I recommend and use for my own projects- you already have automated daily backups with one-click restore built into the dashboard. For Cloudways users, UpdraftPlus Free still makes sense as a second independent backup layer stored on your own Google Drive or Dropbox, separate from Cloudways’ infrastructure. Two independent backup systems are always better than one.
For hosts that do not include reliable managed backups, UpdraftPlus is not optional; it is essential.
UpdraftPlus vs BlogVault
BlogVault stores backups on its own servers and handles everything through a SaaS dashboard. The main advantage is zero server load impact during backup runs. The main disadvantage is higher cost and an external dependency — your backup data lives on BlogVault’s servers, not yours. For very high-transaction WooCommerce stores where real-time backup matters, BlogVault is the stronger specialist choice. For most sites, UpdraftPlus gives you more control at lower cost.
Who Should Upgrade to Premium?
Honestly, not everyone. Here is my straightforward take.
Stay on the free version if you run a personal blog, a portfolio site, or a small business site where losing a week of content would be inconvenient but not catastrophic. The free version backs up your full site to Google Drive or Dropbox on a schedule and restores it with one click. That covers everything most individual site owners need.
Upgrade to Premium if you run a WooCommerce store where every lost order has a dollar value. Or if your site has a large media library where incremental backups would save meaningful storage space and backup time. Or if you need to migrate sites regularly and want the Migrator add-on. Or if you are an agency and the $145 Agency plan’s per-site cost makes the math obvious.
Final Verdict
UpdraftPlus has earned its 4.8 rating and its position as the most installed WordPress backup plugin. In three years of using it across client and personal projects, I have never experienced a backup failure that was not caused by an expired authentication token, a user configuration issue, not a plugin failure.
The free version is genuinely excellent and the right starting point for most sites. Premium upgrades are worth it for specific scenarios, larger sites, commercial stores, agencies, rather than universally necessary.
If you have a WordPress site that you care about and no reliable backup system in place, UpdraftPlus Free takes 10 minutes to set up and costs nothing. There is no reason to delay.
👉 Download UpdraftPlus Free — WordPress.org 👉 Get UpdraftPlus Premium — See All Plans
Frequently Asked Questions
Is UpdraftPlus really free? Yes, and meaningfully so. The free version includes full site backups, scheduled automation, remote cloud storage to Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, and FTP, plus one-click restore from inside WordPress. The core backup and restore workflow is not paywalled; only advanced features like incremental backups, migration, and database encryption require Premium.
What happens when my UpdraftPlus Premium subscription expires? Your existing backup schedules continue running, and all your stored backups remain accessible. You lose access to plugin updates and priority support until you renew. Your site does not lose backup protection the day your subscription expires, which is more user-friendly than most subscription plugins.
Does UpdraftPlus work with WooCommerce? Yes. It backs up your WooCommerce database including orders, customer data, and product information as part of the standard WordPress database backup. For high-volume stores processing many orders per day, Premium’s incremental backups and more frequent scheduling options reduce the window of potential data loss between backup runs.
Can I restore my site if my hosting server completely fails? Yes, if you have configured off-site storage. With backups on Google Drive or Dropbox, you install a fresh WordPress site on a new host, install UpdraftPlus, connect the same cloud storage account, and import your backup. This is exactly why off-site storage is not optional; it is the whole point of using a backup plugin.
What is the difference between UpdraftPlus and Duplicator? UpdraftPlus is primarily an ongoing automated backup and restore solution. Duplicator is primarily a site migration and cloning tool. Both can technically do both jobs, but UpdraftPlus is better for scheduled automated protection, and Duplicator is better for one-off site moves. Many professionals use both for different purposes.
Running WordPress sites without a reliable backup system is the most common and most avoidable mistake I see. If your site has any value to your business, get UpdraftPlus running today — free version takes 10 minutes to set up. And if you need professional help with WordPress maintenance, backups, and ongoing site management, I offer complete WordPress website maintenance services. Contact me here.
Written by the WordPress Expert at wpexpertlab.com
Also read: Cloudways Review 2026 | Best WordPress Hosting 2026 | WordPress Website Maintenance Service | WordPress Speed Optimization Service
