VaultPress is an extensive backup, security, & support service to help websites safe from harm's way.
Sign Up For The VaultPress Service Here
Introduction
With an estimated 58 million websites (16% of all existing websites) running off of the WordPress framework, it is essential that services to come forward to specifically cater to keeping these websites safe from potential threats or corruption. The most popular of these services is VaultPress and just it happens to be run by Automattic (in which the founder is Matt Mullenweg whom also is the founder of WordPress) and whom also run well-known services such as WordPress.com, Akismet, Jetpack, IntenseDebate, BuddyPress, bbPress, and many others.
Automattic launched VaultPress back in March of 2010 and since then have gained a positive reputation among their users and the WordPress community. It initially launched as an invitation only service, but since has been opened to the public offering three tiers of paid subscriptions. We here at TheTechReviewer.com have been running VaultPress for just over 2 months now starting with their Basic plan and upgrading to their Premium plan earlier this month.
Features & Pricing
The VaultPress service offers three competitively priced tiers that are suited from the casual webmaster all the way up to a highly established website owner. As you navigate your way up the tiers you gain more frequent backups, better support response times, disaster recovery, security scanning, and site migration assistance. Each VaultPress subscription is purchased on a per site basis meaning you will need to buy an additional subscription for every site you want to backup via VaultPress. Subscriptions are managed through a WordPress.com account so you will need to create one if you haven't already.
The VaultPress Lite plan is the most affordable plan offered by the service and will likely fit most reader's budgets. For $5/month Lite subscribers receive a daily backup of their site (30 days worth of backups remain stored at all times) and the ability to access automated site restoration in the event their website is compromised or experiences a loss of critical data. On top of these core features, Lite subscribers receive access to archives, stats, and activity logs.
Moving up a tier is the VaultPress Basic plan offered at a rate of $15/month. This is the plan we started out using and in my opinion provides the most value on the dollar. The Basic plan provides realtime backups instead of the once daily backups the Lite plan offers. In addition to this change, Basic subscribers also receive disaster recovery and concierge support.
The highest tier is the VaultPress Premium plan, which runs at a rate of $40/month. Premium subscribers receive all the benefits as the Lite and Basic plans, but are given priority in terms of disaster recovery and concierge support. Advanced features available only to Premium subscribers include daily malware and security scans, security notifications, one-click fixes for potential threats, and site migration assistance.
Function & Performance
VaultPress is remarkably easy to use and gives me piece of mind that my website is safe from harm on autopilot as it has a “set it and forget it” approach. Since the VaultPress service is continually running in the background and I never have to manually initiate a backup, it allows me to focus on more important things such as writing new content and negotiating more company partnerships.
The nicest thing about the VaultPress service is how easy it is to restore your backed up content. As of right now, I have 24 backups stored for each day I have used the VaultPress service. If I want to restore a given backup, it takes only a few clicks on my end and the process is initiated. For each backup you can choose to restore only the database, themes, plugins, uploads, or you can choose to restore all four. Depending on how large your website is it can take a few minutes or a few hours for the process to complete. In my case, it has taken less than 10 minutes each time I have run a restoration.
I have had to rely on the VaultPress service on a few occasions within my 2 months of use. I had deleted a field in the backend which caused all of my software reviews to lose their formatting and ratings which threw me into panic mode. Luckily, I simply initiated a backup through VaultPress and within minutes, my site was back to normal and hours of my time were saved.
Another instance, I had upgraded a plugin to the newest version which was incompatible with my theme and caused TheTechReviewer to go offline. By choosing only the ‘plugin' backup, I was able to revert the plugin back to the old version (before the conflicting update) and wait it out til the plugin's author fixed the issue. This type of situation would not have been possible without the use of VaultPress.
We recently made a switch from a KnownHost VPS to a more adequate WordPress hosting solution called WPEngine. Since I wanted to be hands off on the migration process, WPEngine referred me to WPValet which quoted me at a whopping $250 to migrate the site and told me it would take up to 10 days! Seeing how ridiculous that the WPValet route was, I simply upgraded my VaultPress plan from Basic to Premium for an extra $35 and left the migration to them. My site was properly migrated and ready for use within 5 hours of initiating the site transfer through VaultPress. Best of all it was a fraction of the price that I was quoted from WPValet and took less than a day to complete.
VaultPress vs. BackupBuddy
Many people have the tough choice of subscribing to a monthly subscription like VaultPress or investing in a flat fee backup solution such as BackupBuddy. I actually purchased BackupBuddy initially, but found it to be a more “hand on” solution that depended on too many variables which could potentially go wrong. BackupBuddy is an excellent plugin, but in the grand scheme of things I was looking for a fully automated, hands off approach that would keep my website backed up in realtime and store these backups in the cloud. VaultPress excelled in these areas which BackupBuddy couldn't. In terms of my specific needs, VaultPress was the clear choice.
Another huge factor to consider when deciding between VaultPress and BackupBuddy is your hosting environment. Many managed WordPress hosting providers such as WPEngine do not allow you to use the BackupBuddy plugin. This is because BackupBuddy functions via system commands that these services do not allow on their servers (read more here). Since VaultPress stores everything on the cloud and does not rely on the same system commands to function, it is one of the few backup solutions that is supported by managed WordPress hosting providers.
Final Verdict
From the last 2 months of utilizing VaultPress, I highly recommend the service to any prospective WordPress site owners. By utilizing VaultPress I receive the piece of mind that my website is secure from data loss, malware, or any other potential threats. Best of all, the service is remarkably easy to use (even for the those who are not tech savvy). VaultPress provides my website with a comprehensive backup and security solution that is worth every penny. I am certain it is the best investment I have made in my website and most importantly my business. If you're still unsure, I recommend signing up for VaultPress for a month and see if you like it. You can always cancel your subscription if it does not meet your needs!
Sign Up For The VaultPress Service Here
