UpdraftPlus Free vs Premium

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Scheduling backups

You can schedule backups with both versions of UpdraftPlus. You can also set a different backup schedule for files and the database. 

With the free version you can schedule every 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours, daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. 

What you can’t do is specify the time of day when the backup is taken. 

If you manage WordPress websites on behalf of clients, you might prefer to back up overnight, when they’re not using the site or when server resources are high.

Conclusion: Upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium if scheduling backups at specific times of the day or night is important to you, such as during off-peak hours when your client isn’t active on the site or when server resources are higher.

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Retaining backups 

With the free version, you can choose how many file and database backups to retain. 

What you can’t do is tell UpdraftPlus to retain less backups as those backups get older. 

With Premium, you could tell UpdraftPlus to back up daily, but for backups older than one week, keep only one copy per week. 

You could go further still. 

Once backups reach one month old, you could tell UpdraftPlus to keep only one backup per month. 

This will result in storing one backup every day for the last week, one backup a week for backups aged between a week and a month and then one backup a month being retained for backups older than a month. 

Setting an automated retention strategy is a great way to save time (vs pruning backups manually) and server resources. It’s set and forget with UpdraftPlus Premium. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Back up to more places

With the free version of UpdraftPlus, you can back up to: 

• Google Drive
• Dropbox
• Amazon S3
• Rackspace Cloud Files
• FTP
• DreamObjects
• OpenStack Swift
• Email

With UpdraftPlus Premium you can back up to: 

• Microsoft OneDrive
• Backblaze
• SFTP
• FTPS
• SCP
• Microsoft Azure
• WebDAV
• Google Cloud
• pCloud

Enhancements to Google Drive, Dropbox, Rackspace or Amazon S3

If you already back up to Google Drive or Dropbox, an upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium will allow you to store backups in subfolders rather than the default ‘app folder’.

If you back up to Rackspace Cloud Files in the free version, consider upgrading to UpdraftPlus Premium to protect your Rackspace Cloud Files by creating an API user for UpdraftPlus with restricted access to a single container in Cloud Files.

Backing up to Amazon S3 in the free version? Upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium and: 

• Back up to the Amazon S3 ‘Infrequent access’ storage tier. It’s up to 40% cheaper than frequent storage classes, saving you money. 
• Add a server-side encryption to the S3 storage settings to improve security.
• Create an IAM user with restricted access to the Amazon S3 backup bucket, directly from UpdraftPlus.

Conclusion: Upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium to back up to premium remote storage locations like Microsoft OneDrive and enhance some of the remote storage locations available in the free version, such as Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud Files and Amazon S3.

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Automatic backups before updates

Ever had an update gone wrong? Us too. 

Turn this premium feature on and UpdraftPlus will back up your WordPress database and the relevant component of your website that’s about to be updated (e.g. WordPress core, plugins, themes etc.) allowing you to roll back if issues occur.  

In the free version, if your site changes after the last backup but before an update goes wrong, you risk losing those changes. 

On the flip side with Premium, you can restore the very latest version of your site as it was immediately before the update that broke things. 

Conclusion: An upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium means you can roll back your WordPress website (or those belonging to your clients) to how it was immediately before the update-gone-wrong.

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Back up incremental changes 

With the free version of UpdraftPlus you have to take full backups each time. That means saving the same unchanged files across multiple backups. 

With the incremental backup feature, UpdraftPlus backs up only the file changes made since the last backup. 

Conclusion: If you want faster backups, to save money on storage or to reduce server resources, consider taking incremental backups with UpdraftPlus Premium. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Select multiple backup locations

The free version of UpdraftPlus allows you to back up to any number of remote storage locations. What you can’t do however, is select more than one backup location. 

It’s good practice to ‘back up your backups’. 

If your backups are compromised in the initial remote storage location (if they’re accidentally deleted, if you lose access or forget your credentials, or if there’s an issue with the cloud provider) it can pay to have a spare. 

Conclusion: Back up to multiple remote storage locations for added peace of mind with UpdraftPlus Premium. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Back up and restore more files

The free version of UpdraftPlus backs up all of the files in your WordPress content directory; plugins, themes, uploads etc. if you don’t have Premium, you won’t be able to back up and protect:

• Your wp-config.php file.
• Customisations made to WordPress core.
• Custom directories outside of the normal WordPress structure

Conclusion: if you don’t want to have to manually backup and restore configurations made to WordPress, you may wish to back them up via UpdraftPlus Premium. Upgrade also to back up other files and folders saved on your web server. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Back up and restore external database tables

The free version of UpdraftPlus backs up database tables starting with the ‘wp_’ WordPress database prefix.

If you upgrade to Premium you can also back up and protect:

• Tables that are stored in the same MySQL database that don’t have the ‘wp_’ prefix. This is useful if you have MySQL applications integrated into the same site and need a backup solution that will work for them all.
• External MySQL databases. If you have other PHP/MySQL applications that aren’t related to any of your WordPress sites, you can back them up too with UpdraftPlus Premium. 

Conclusion: If you want to integrate WordPress with a second product and have one single backup solution for both, or to back up PHP/MYSQL applications outside of WordPress, choose UpdraftPlus Premium.

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Migration 

The free version of UpdraftPlus allows you to migrate your WordPress website by downloading backups from your source website, and then restoring them onto the destination site. 

UpdraftPlus Premium allows for more direct site-to-site migration. 

Connect two sites once, then migrate in a matter of clicks. Handy if you’re frequently migrating back and forth between the same two sites e.g. if frequently updating a sandbox to reflect the live site or vice versa.

Both the free and premium versions include a ‘search-and-replace’ engine which identifies old strings and replaces these with new ones to reduce the risk of broken links or missing files. Both versions also perform ‘behind the scenes’ clean-up tasks e.g. to update the WordPress table prefix and maintain compatibility with other plugins.

Other key migration differences include:

• You aren’t able to pick and choose which themes, plugins and database tables to migrate with the free version of UpdraftPlus.  
• You’ll need UpdraftPlus Premium for migrating a normal WordPress site into a multisite network.

Read our step-by-step WordPress migration guide to learn more about the differences between the two versions.

Conclusion: Migrate your website with the free version by taking a backup, then restoring that backup to the site you’re migrating to. UpdraftPlus Premium allows seamless, one-click migrations between two connected sites. Choose Premium to pick and choose which themes, plugins and database tables to migrate or for migrating a single site into a multisite network.

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: More security 

Both plugins are extremely secure but we’ve added some features into Premium that you may benefit from. For example, lock settings allow you to lock access to UpdraftPlus to other admins on the site (e.g clients). You can also anonymise backup data allowing you to comply with local or national privacy laws. Database encryption  keeps sensitive data (e.g. passwords, lists of users, secret keys, etc.) secure.

Conclusion: With the free version of UpdraftPlus you aren’t able to anonymise sensitive backup data (e.g. user data). An upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium allows you to anonymise data, encrypt the database and  lock off UpdraftPlus backups to other admins (e.g. clients).

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Differences in Support

If you’re using our free plugin and need support, you have to ask for help on the WordPress plugin forms. 

For free users, under WordPress forum guidelines, we can’t:

• Ask for login credentials to your WordPress site.
• Ask you to share any files with us e.g. log files.
• Access your server configuration. 
• Ask you to contact us via private channels. 

In contrast, we can do all of those things via our own support channels. We can (and regularly do) go the extra mile for our customers.  Take a look at some of our reviews on TrustPilot. 

Conclusion: For premium email support, consider upgrading to UpdraftPlus Premium. We can do more to help via our own channels than is permitted in the WordPress forums. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: WordPress Multisite

If you have a WordPress Multisite network you can use UpdraftPlus Premium to network-activate UpdraftPlus. In doing so ‘Settings’ will be moved to the network dashboard. 

Only the super-admin (network admin) will be able to create, read or restore backups.

With UpdraftPlus Premium you can also: 

• Back up must-use (mu-plugins) in separate archives and restore separately from other plugins.
• Back up blogs.dir separately and restore separately from other uploads.
• Restore subsites instead of the entire WordPress install. 
• Migrate a single site into a multisite network. 

Conclusion: Choose UpdraftPlus Premium for better management of WordPress multisite networks. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Better reporting 

The free version of UpdraftPlus confirms whether the backup was successful or not. For more detailed information, you’ll need to check the server logs.

In contrast, Premium reports provide comprehensive details, including:

• Contents of the backup set.
• Backup size.
• Backup destination.
• Warnings or errors, allowing you to take action
• Cryptographic checksums that help you verify the integrity of the backup. 

With UpdraftPlus Premium, you can also specify recipients for these reports. The free version only allows sending reports to the Syslog.

Conclusion: Upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium for detailed reports containing warnings, errors, checksums for data integrity and more. Send reports to multiple admins (e.g. clients) instead of just the syslog. 

Free vs Premium UpdraftPlus: Added extras 

UpdraftPlus Premium comes with a few nice added extras such as:

• Get 1GB of UpdraftVault storage. UpdraftVault gives you storage that’s integrated directly into UpdraftPlus so you won’t need a third party cloud storage provider. Back up in just a couple of clicks. Manage your storage conveniently from My Account.
• Copy and paste your WordPress website with UpdraftClone. Tokens included with every purchase of UpdraftPlus Premium. 

Frequently asked questions