What are website backups?

What it means

A backup is a spare copy of your website. If an update breaks the site, a hacker gets in, or someone deletes the wrong page, you roll back to the copy.

A backup you can download also doubles as a moving kit. If you ever leave your platform, what you can back up is roughly what you can take with you.

How it works

A complete backup of a typical site has three parts:

• Files: the theme or design, plugins, images, videos and documents.
• Database: pages, blog posts, products, orders, form entries and user accounts.
• Settings: configuration, redirects and connections to other services.

Backups can be full (everything, every time) or incremental (only what changed since the last one). How long old copies are kept is called retention. A week of daily copies lets you go back to before a problem you only noticed on Friday.

A common rule of thumb is 3-2-1: keep three copies, on two different kinds of storage, with one copy off site. At minimum, do not keep your only backup on the same server as the site.

Why it matters when you build a site

Most site owners only think about backups after something goes wrong. By then it is too late. Backups protect you from:

• A plugin, theme or code update that breaks the layout.
• Hacks and malware.
• Accidental deletion by you, a staff member or a contractor.
• A billing lapse or account problem with the platform.
• A website migration that goes sideways.

How the big builders handle it

• WordPress (self-hosted). Backups are your job, or your host’s. Our view from building on WordPress every week: an automatic backup stored off the server is a must on every site. Hostinger’s Premium plan includes weekly backups, Unlimited includes daily, and Cloud Startup adds on-demand backups. Premium is $2.99 a month on a 48-month prepaid term, renewing at $10.99 a month.
• WordPress.com. Its export guide says Business and Commerce plans can download a full backup or restore one at any time. Lower plans get a content-only XML file that leaves out media files, the theme and plugins.
• Squarespace. The platform runs the servers, but your own copies are limited. Images download one at a time and uploaded videos cannot be exported, so keep your originals.
• Wix. Blog posts cannot be exported, and product CSVs cap at 5,000 rows per file and leave out digital products. Keep your own copies of text and images.
• Shopify. Product image links stop working if the store closes, so save the image files separately.
• AI builders. Bolt and v0 sync your code to GitHub, which keeps its full history. Lovable notes that once you move off its platform, backups and security become yours to run.

Common mistakes

• Keeping backups only on the same server. If the server fails or is hacked, the backups go with it.
• Never testing a restore. A backup you cannot restore is not a backup. Try it once on a staging site.
• Backing up files but not the database. On WordPress, your posts and orders live in the database.
• Trusting the platform alone. If your account closes, the platform’s copies may go with it.
• Throwing away original photos and videos. On some builders, you cannot get them back out in bulk.

Related terms

• Web hosting: many hosts include automatic backups.
• Uptime: backups are how you recover from the worst outages.

See how each platform scores on leaving in our exit scores.