Just about a week ago, FireEye which is one of America’s biggest cybersecurity firm got hacked then Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 document was hacked from the European Medicines Agencies and there have been numerous attempts to hack different big organization’s databases overtime which isn’t somethign new.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there is no business that resides online that can’t be hacked. In fact, all internet-based businesses are susceptible to being hacked out which isn’t funny especially for an online business which probably can’t afford the luxury of hiring a giant cybersecurity firm like FireEye or Kaspersky.

Which leads me to the point that WordPress is a really popular content management software and nearly 60% of the entire websites you’ve ever visited online your whole life is made with this software that is how popular it is and because of that, it can become an easy target for hackers which can put your business at risk if you depend on it.

Being a simple CMS hat is easy to use and manipulate, different kinds of web applications can be made right out of the software ranging from Hotel management system, Real estate management solution, e-Commerce, Podcast, music hosting, corporate business landing pages and so on and so forth.

With that said, one of the sure way to secure your business from being hacked out is to always be in control of your website backup at all times. You don’t want to lose access to your website just to find yourself starting from scratch again especially when you’re well established.

Having your data well backed-up is the surest way of getting hold of everything in other word, even if the cybersecurity firm you hire get hacked out or your hosting company get hacked out as well, you can always fall back on your back-ups to restore your business back online because the worst thing that can ever happen to a business in this world of serious business competition is losing access to your online customers because you lost your web presence.

Without any further ado, below are some of the best WordPress backup plugins you can use for free to always stay in control of your data at all times.

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup/Restore Plugin

I stumbled across this plugin back in 2016 and I never turned ,y back on it ever since because it offer you an absolute value you probably won’t get anywhere else. The UpdraftPlus Back/restore plugin does exactly what it’s being called but there is more to it.

You can backup your entire website content and data as well your image files and other valuables all into the cloud servers such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift, and even send it to yourself as an email easily.

While the free version of the software basically get you all you need to ensure that your website is well backed-up in the cloud at all times, there is also the paid version that allows backs up to Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Storage, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, and WebDAV and you can backup at once to multiple servers at once.

But as a backup plugin, you should expect all of these cloud services right? Well yes, as for the UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore WordPress plugin, you also get more aside just being able to directly access your favorite cloud service.

You can clone your entire website or just migrate it from the current server it is to another which is yet another fantastic thing about the service. What you get with this is that with the click of a button, you can move your entire WordPress website from one place to the other. If for example, you’ve been building it offline and its time to go love, you just back up your files and then upload them back online and that’s basically it.

This is one of the very few Backup/Restore plugin I’d recommend anytime because of the amount of value it offers and did I mention that you can schedule the timeframe of every backups which then automatically get your data sent to the cloud upon the request. With this, you just have to relax and focus more on important things rather than worrying about backing up your website as at when due.

You set it up to auto-back up your data including your files every hour, day, week, month or even year all depending on you and how you want it.

Get Updraftplus

BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin

The next on my list is this amazing plugin called the “BackWPup – WordPress Backup Plugin” with over 700K downloads on the WordPress plugin repository, this is surely one of the top-end plugin right after the aforementioned UpdraftPlus plugin above.

This one includes some pretty cool features that makes it top-notch and one of the best on the market and the good thing is its free (although there is option to upgrade for more options). And speaking of the cool features it comes bundled with, below are some of those:

• Ability to back up your WordPress database with ease
• WordPress XML file export
• Generate a file with installed plugins
• You’re ale to optimize your WordPress database to make it faster
• Check and repair Database
• File backup
• Backups in zip, tar, tar.gz format (needs gz, ZipArchive)
• Store backup to directory or just outright move them to cloud server like Dropbox, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Sugar Sync etc

While there a boatload of interesting features that makes this plugin worthwhile, its portability and intuitive user interface is just another fantastic thing about the plugin that makes it really useful and important for businesses to have it as their ultimate backup/restore plugin.

Get BackWPup

JetPack

If you want to enjoy WordPress to the max, then you certainly need the JetPack plugin which is basically a bunch of features built all-into-one single plugin. With this plugin, you can do more things such as boosting your website speed, security and most of all, fight spammers and fraudsters who might want to attack your website with spam bots.

But that’s not all, there is also the ability to backup/restore your website data using this plugin. Since your database is one of the most important part of your WordPress website, being able to have a copy of it every now and then makes a lot of sense in security standpoint. The WordPress JetPack plugin has the following features:

• Back up your site automatically in real time and restore to any point with one click. Unlimited storage for your backup. Great for eCommerce stores especially Woo.
• Easily duplicate, clone, or migrate your site whether you want to create a staging site or move to a new host.
• See every site change and who made it with the activity log, great for coordination, debug, maintenance, or troubleshooting.
• Automatic scan for malware and other code threats. One click fix to restore your site for malware.
• Block spam comments and form responses with anti spam features powered by Akismet.
• Brute force attack protection to protect your WordPress login page from attacks.
• Monitor your site uptime / downtime and get an instant alert of any change by email.
• Secure WordPress.com powered login used by millions of sites with optional 2FA (two factor authentication) for extra protection.
• Auto update individual plugins for easy site maintenance and management.

One of the biggest advantage of using the WordPress JetPack plugin is due to fact that its free but not only that, you also have to use lesser number of plugins to get things done. Having too many plugins isn’t advisable as it can bloat up your website’s performances especially alter the speed which is very essential for SEO that is why a great tool like JetPack which is basically an AIO software comes into play.

And speaking of its trustworthiness, its been downloaded more than 5 million times and its developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress and Akismet which makes it integrate 100% with the WordPress core and can work with other plugins and most WordPress themes out there.

Get JetPack

iTheme Security Pro

While some people might just prefer the Wordfence security plugin as one of the best in ensuring the absolute security of their WordPress website, iTheme Security Pro (formerly Better WP Security) is definitely one of the best in the industry not only for its great security module but also the ability to let you backup your website at any time you so want with ease.

While its free, you can get much more value when you purchase the premium version of the plugin which is worthwhile. One thing I admire alot abut this plugin includes the fact that it reports every activities to you via email in real time as though you have a spy on your website constantly monitoring every changes in the behaviour of all plugins, files and even the database.

Below are some of the coolest features you get with the iTheme Security Pro plugin.

• Two-Factor Authentication – Use a mobile app such as Google Authenticator or Authy to generate a code or have a generated code emailed to you.
• WordPress Salts & Security Keys – The iThemes Security plugin makes updating your WordPress keys and salts easy.
• Malware Scan Scheduling – Have your site scanned for malware automatically each day. If an issue is found, an email is sent with the details.
• Password Security – Generate strong passwords right from your profile screen.
• Password Expiration – Set a maximum password age and force users to choose a new password. You can also force all users to choose a new password immediately (if needed).
• Google reCAPTCHA – Protect your site against spammers.
• User Action Logging – Track when users edit content, login or logout.
• Import/Export Settings – Saves time setting up multiple WordPress sites.
• Dashboard Widget – Manage important tasks such as user banning and system scans right from the WordPress dashboard.
• Online File Comparison – When a file change is detected it will scan the origin of the files to determine if the change was malicious or not. Currently works only in WordPress core but plugins and themes are coming.
• Temporary Privilege Escalation – give a contractor or someone else temporary admin or editor access to your site that will automatically reset itself.
• wp-cli Integration – Manage your site’s security from the command line.

It has so much to offer and that is why I’d always recommend it to anyone that want an All-in-one tool to back-up their WordPress website as well as secure every part of their website to keep it free from spammers and scammers.

Get iTheme Security Pro

There are hundreds if not thousands of plugins in the WordPress repository most of which could damage your website in other ways but these top four plugins are amazing and I would recommend them anytime for keeping your website constantly backed-up and secured.

The fact that they’re free is a great thing which mean you have to spend your money elsewhere on more important things such as marketing. Also do note that WordPress is a really popular software as mentioned above which means the fact that you’re using either of these popular plugins other websites are likely using them as well and that is why upgrading to get better layer of security and features is usually encouraged.