This article is intended for website owners who need a reliable backup solution for their WordPress site or other web applications.
When it comes to backing up your WordPress site or other web applications, many website owners rely on backup plugins or modules. However, these solutions often encounter serious issues in shared hosting environments, making them unreliable. Instead, we recommend using Softaculous or WordPress Management (WP Toolkit) for backups. These tools provide more efficient, reliable, and resource-friendly backup solutions. Both are provided free of charge with all our hosting plans and can be found in your cPanel control panel.
Problems with Backup Plugins and Modules
Backup plugins and modules may seem convenient, but they often cause the following issues on shared hosting:
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High Resource Usage – Backup plugins consume a significant amount of CPU, RAM, and disk I/O. This can slow down your site and even trigger resource limits imposed by shared hosting providers.
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PHP Runtime Limits – Many backup plugins require long execution times to complete backups. On shared hosting, PHP scripts are often restricted by max execution time settings, leading to incomplete or failed backups.
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Memory Limits – Backup plugins need a large amount of PHP memory to process site data. If your hosting plan has limited PHP memory, backups may fail.
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Storage Problems – Some backup plugins store backups on the same hosting account, consuming disk space quickly and leading to account switching into read-only mode due to storage overuse.
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Incompatibility with Server Configurations – Certain backup plugins require server permissions or configurations that may not be supported in shared hosting environments.
For these reasons, Softaculous and WordPress Management are much better alternatives.
Advantages of Softaculous for Backups
Softaculous is a powerful auto-installer available in cPanel that provides an efficient and automated backup solution. It offers the following benefits:
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Automated Backups – Softaculous allows you generate manual backups and set up automated backups on a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule.
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Local and Remote Storage – You can store backups locally on your hosting account or remotely on various storage services, including:
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FTP / FTP over SSL (FTPS)
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SFTP
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Dropbox
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Google Drive
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WebDAV
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Microsoft OneDrive
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Amazon S3
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One-Click Restore – Easily restore your website from a backup with just one click, preventing long waiting times requesting a restore by our team.
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Supports Multiple Web Applications – Softaculous can back up hundreds of supported applications, including Joomla, PrestaShop, Drupal, Laravel, and many others.
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Efficient Resource Usage – Since Softaculous backups are performed at the server level, they use fewer system resources than backup plugins.
For more details on Softaculous backups, refer to these guides:
Advantages of WordPress Management (WP Toolkit)
For WordPress users, the WordPress Management tool (WP Toolkit) in cPanel provides a reliable and easy way to back up and restore sites. Here’s why it’s better than backup plugins:
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Server-Level Backup Process – WP Toolkit operates within cPanel, making it more reliable than plugins that rely on PHP execution limits.
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Efficient Backups – It does not consume excessive resources, unlike backup plugins that require significant CPU and memory.
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One-Click Backup and Restore – You can create and restore backups with a single click, avoiding long waiting times with manual backup requests.
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No Plugin Conflicts – Some backup plugins may conflict with caching or security plugins, but WP Toolkit avoids such issues.
For more details on using WP Toolkit for backups, see this guide:
Conclusion
Backup plugins may seem convenient, but they are often unreliable and resource-heavy on shared hosting. Instead, we recommend using Softaculous for automated, multi-application backups or WordPress Management for WordPress-specific manual backups. Both solutions offer better performance, greater reliability, and easy restore options compared to traditional backup plugins.
If you need help setting up backups using Softaculous or WP Toolkit, feel free to contact our support team.
Updated by SP on 13/03/2025
