UpdraftPlus vs Duplicator: which WordPress backup plugin is better? (2026)

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The quick verdict

Pick UpdraftPlus if you want automatic backups for free. Its free version runs on a schedule and sends copies to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 and other storage you already own, and it restores from inside WordPress.

Pick Duplicator if your main job is moving or copying sites. Its free Lite version has a migration wizard and makes backups of any size, but only when you run them by hand. Scheduled backups need Duplicator Pro.

We build on WordPress every week, and we use UpdraftPlus for backups on our own WordPress sites. We have no affiliate deal with either company, and that doesn’t change this comparison. Prices come from each vendor’s pricing page, in US dollars.

Side by side

Neither page states a clear renewal price. UpdraftPlus says only that “Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled.” Duplicator prints its plans as “Normally” $79, $199, $399 and $599, shows a “60% OFF” promotion without printing the sale price in its text, and says “all renewals are at full price.”

Cost over 3 years

Both free versions cost $0. If you pay, here’s the most you’d spend at list prices. Our standard WordPress baseline (Bluehost Starter for 36 months, a domain and one Google Workspace inbox) is $432.60 over 3 years.

One site

If you’d rather use the vendor’s own storage than a cloud account you already have, add UpdraftVault 5GB at $35 a year ($105 over 3 years) or Duplicator Cloud 2GB at $29 a year ($87). That brings Premium to $315 and Pro Basic to $324.

Ten sites

This is where the two split. UpdraftPlus Business covers 10 sites for $95 a year: $95 x 3 = $285, or $28.50 per site. Duplicator Plus covers only 5 sites, so 10 sites need the Pro plan (20 sites) at $399 a year list: $399 x 3 = $1,197, or $119.70 per site. Duplicator’s first year may cost less during a promotion.

The UpdraftPlus total assumes it renews at $70 or $95, since no renewal price is stated. Duplicator’s total uses the full price it says renewals are charged at.

Backups: schedules and storage

This is the main difference for a typical site owner.

UpdraftPlus lets you set backups to run every 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours, daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly in the free version. You connect a storage account once, and copies land there on their own. That gives you a real off-site website backup without paying anything.

Premium adds incremental backups (only what changed), automatic backups before updates, more destinations such as OneDrive, Backblaze B2, SFTP and pCloud, and backups to several places at once.

Duplicator Lite makes a backup when you click the button. It stores copies locally and on Duplicator Cloud. Scheduled backups and other cloud providers, including any Amazon S3 compatible storage, are Pro features. Basic allows one cloud destination; Plus and up allow unlimited, and Plus adds hourly backups.

If you’ll forget to click the button, the free UpdraftPlus schedule is the safer choice.

Restore and migration

Both can restore a site and both can move one, but they start from different places.

Duplicator was built for website migration. The free version’s migration wizard copies a site to a new host or domain, and its backups have no size cap (“Backups Without Size Limits”). Pro adds server-to-server import and, on the Pro plan and up, staging sites and multisite.

UpdraftPlus restores in a few clicks from the WordPress dashboard. Its free version can migrate a site too: you download the backup and upload it on the new site. Premium migrates directly “from the source site” and can restore backups made by some other backup plugins.

Whichever you use, test a restore on a copy of your site, not the live one. Our backup plugin guide has the steps.

Ease of use

UpdraftPlus works from one settings screen: pick a schedule, connect storage, save. Restoring is a list of backups with a Restore button.

Duplicator is built around making a backup and an installer that rebuilds it somewhere else. That’s very handy for moving sites, and a little more to learn if all you want is a nightly copy.

Online stores and busy sites

A store or a site with daily comments changes all the time, so a nightly backup can still lose a day of orders. Neither plugin lists real-time backups, but both can run often.

• UpdraftPlus free can run as often as every 2 hours. Premium’s incremental backups save only what changed, which keeps frequent backups smaller.
• Duplicator Plus ($199 a year list, 5 sites) adds hourly backups. Lite has no schedule at all, so it’s a poor fit on its own for a store.

If losing even an hour of orders would hurt, a real-time service such as Jetpack VaultPress Backup is the closer match. Its support page says WooCommerce orders and products are backed up in real time.

Licenses, site counts and refunds

Both companies sell yearly licenses by number of sites, and the tiers don’t line up neatly.

Duplicator offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. UpdraftPlus’s pricing page mentions both a 14-day and a 10-day money-back period, so check its refund terms before you buy.

Agencies with many client sites will find UpdraftPlus much cheaper per site. Duplicator’s higher tiers add tools an agency may value, such as staging, multisite support and, on Elite, an activity log.

Leaving later

Both tools help you leave a host, which is part of why self-hosted WordPress scores 10/10 on our exit scores: your files and database are yours to take anywhere.

The question is what happens when you stop paying the plugin company:

• Duplicator Pro is an annual subscription that auto-renews. Its help center says that after the license expires “you can still use the plugin,” but you lose updates and support “and the Pro features will be locked.” Lite keeps working for manual backups.
• UpdraftPlus Premium renews automatically too. If you use UpdraftVault storage, cancelling ends your quota, and backups “remain accessible for two weeks before being purged.” Backups in your own Dropbox or Google Drive stay where they are.

Before you cancel either one, download your latest backup and check that it opens.

Mistakes to avoid with either plugin

• Keeping backups only on the server. If the hosting account is hacked, suspended or deleted, backups stored inside it go too. Send at least one copy to outside storage.
• Never testing a restore. Restore to a copy of the site once when you set things up, then every few months.
• Running both on a schedule at once. Two backup jobs at the same time can slow a small shared plan. Let one plugin handle the schedule.
• Cancelling before downloading. Grab your latest backup before a license or storage plan ends.

Pick UpdraftPlus if…

• You want automatic backups and don’t want to pay.
• You already have Google Drive, Dropbox or Amazon S3 and want copies there.
• You run up to 10 sites and want one cheap license ($95 a year).

Pick Duplicator if…

• You move, clone or stage sites often.
• Your site is large and you want a migration tool with no stated size cap.
• You’ll pay for Pro anyway to get schedules, cloud storage and server-to-server import.

Neither? Look at…

• All-in-One WP Migration: simple one-file moves; the Unlimited Extension is $69 a year for up to 50 sites.
• Jetpack VaultPress Backup: real-time off-site backups for $4.95 a month the first year, billed yearly, then $9.95.
• Your host’s backups: a free first copy; see what Bluehost, SiteGround and Hostinger include in our backup plugin guide, and where to find them in our cPanel guide.