Any good Backup Plugin for MultiSite WP?

I purchased the Developer version of BackupBuddy not even 6 months ago – pretty disappointed that I wasted $150 since I needed it primarily for Multisite. I can’t imagine that Multisite installations aren’t growing, especially considering they are so much easier to maintain than standalone installations… so it’s frustrating not to be able to find a viable solution. I’ve been following all of these multisite backup threads, and looked into the other solutions but haven’t found anything that seems to fit my needs, budget, and absolute NO FAIL requirement for Multisite backup.

I am now performing manual FTP backups of my entire VPS (off hours), and daily cpanel database backups. I only host about 15 smallish sites on my VPS, so it’s not crazy yet on the server. I am hoping these manual backups would work in the event I needed to restore my Multisite.

I imagine there would be a lot of interest for someone out there willing to develop a reliable, cost effective backup solution for Multisite with proven restores. I will be watching BackWPuP for the Pro paid version.

Gary – what are you currently doing for your backups?

Arizonax3,

I am currently discussing this further with the developer of BackupBuddy for Multisites (at iThemes). I have a couple other solutions that would work, but .. I’m hoping and counting on BackupBuddy to step up to the plate and decide to continue their support and development of BackupBuddy “for MULTISITES” and not just stand alone sites.

I will reply back after I get further confirmation from them on this matter.

I hope you can wait … it shouldn’t be long. At least I hope it won’t be. This situation is driving me nuts!!! (as I am sure it is you)

Thanks for your reply,
Gary Gordon

First round of Testing BackWPuP:

Running BackWPup Nightly with all files (database & application) backed up to a single job have proven to cause issues. (Server is timing out)

I’m going to break up the files into several jobs and see if that helps.

I’m a little concerned that this is timing out as my network contains 43 sites, but they’re only 3-4 pages each.

Gary, thanks for the follow up! I was pretty surprised that they would stop development on BackupBuddy for Multisite. There are developers like us who will pay for it if it works reliably.

For now, I am hoping that my manual root server backups & MySQL database backup will work should I need disaster recovery and need to restore. I look forward to hearing the response from BackupBuddy.

Thanks again Gary!

Just a quick follow up. I received a reply today, that wasn’t promising. I got the feeling as though I needed to be talking to someone higher up at iThemes. So, being that this is something very important to me, as well as many of you, I simply requested to talk to someone that would “be in charge” of making decisions as to BackupBuddy’s future (with support for Multisites), not just single sites. As soon as I hear back, I will let you know. But I’m not getting a good feeling.

All I’m asking iThemes for at this time is:

1. To take BackupBuddy out of beta (for Multisites) .. and provide details for users of BackupBuddy as to what funtionality is considered solid (meaning something we can count on, such as backing up and restoring a full Multisite to the same and previous website and server location that it was previously on; let us know under what situations it is likely that we would see BackupBuddy not work 100% (and what type of issues we might run into and how to fix them), etc.

2. Keep developing and working to improve BackupBuddy for Multisites, especially so it continues to work in WordPress as new versions are released;

3. Continue supporting BackupBuddy, for those of us using it on Multisites, so we can continue to count on iThemes for help and support, and not told something like “we don’t support it for Multisites any longer.”

But I’ll let you know something as soon as I hear.

Gary

BackWPuP has been working successfully for the last 4 days with my 50 site WPMS install.

I fixed the issues it was having by running multiple backup jobs:

1.) The database and XML together

2.) The application separately.

werm42

Good news.

I guess, one of my biggest concerns with backing up and restoring a WP multisite, is the ability to backup and restore an entire multisite, but also have the ability to backup and restore individual sites (on their own) so just one individual site (meaning the root site or any of the other individual sub sites) could be restored if necessary, and not require the entire multisite to be overwritten. And, I’m just hoping that the backup process of the individual sites can be automated so I can set it and forget it. ??

As a big bonus, I’d like to be able to not only restore the original site back to its original domain and server, but I’d really like to be able to migrate either the entire multisite and/or individual sub sites (including the root site) to a different domain and server location.

I’m hoping BackWPup will possibly be adding this ability in their new pro version. Of course I’m not sure if they will be doing this at all, but just hoping.

Gary

I am in the same boat as you guys. I recall iThemes saying full multisite compatibility is a very complex issue with more factors then just putting more people on it. So it makes me wonder how other plugins are doing it and how well they’re doing it (I haven’t yet tried others).

Seems odd to me that the free BackWPuP should be able to handle this but BackupBuddy can’t.

Like others i would just like a quality system that can guarantee this works and will continue to work as WordPress develops.

snowliondev,

You are so right. That’s really all we’re looking for is a backup utility that can guarantee it works (of course, within certain limits) and will continue to work as WP continues development.

I’m looking into this as we speak. I’ll let you know (of course) if I find something, or make a decision. At the moment, I’m leaning towards not using Multisites. What a shame to have to “fold” on this issue, but it appears that multisites simply makes the backup of a site more difficult and … something I can’t find a guarantee for.

Keep me posted as well. Thanks for the reply.
Gary

Good thread, just wanted to subscribe. Currently on the hunt as well, tryin these various bakup options and falling back on db dumps and tar.gz’s atm.

First of all thanks for your comments Gary and for your efforts with BackupBuddy

After several discussions with the pre sales departments, I was pointed to a section of their codex that outlined what the product would and would not do. I was ok with it, so I purchased it.

When I installed the new version, I get this message that I need to modify my wp_config file and add this line:

define( ‘PB_BACKUPBUDDY_MULTISITE_EXPERIMENT’, true );

I went thru the forums and codex and found no mention. I did see where they were considering this, but no where did it say that it was now required. I posted in their support forums and the thread is radioactive…no one will respond.

Sounds like I hit a nerve.

I think I am going to request a refund from backup buddy and continue to do cpanel and wp backups, with backwpup of the entire network as a fail safe and await the backwpup pro version or just go to vaultpress, which is expensive. Has anyone had any experience with VaultPress and Multisite?

Dave

I don’t have any experience with VaultPress (using Multisite), but I’m still looking at options that are out there. Someone, on another forum, had mentioned the use of NS Cloner plugin, but in speaking with the company, they said this plugin is not intended to be used for backing up and restoring sites. They mentioned issues that would be likely. So that plugin isn’t going to work. Still looking. Geez. I did find this info on VaultPress, https://vaultpress.com/help/multisite/, but you’ll need to actually contact Vaultpress and find out what it can and cannot do. (They really don’t seem to post much in the way of details.) Good luck. Gary

Great thread here. I too purchased Backup Buddy a couple months ago specifically for a multisite environment and am frustrated to see them stepping out of the game – if nothing else I’d love to know what the major obstacles are as that would help assess the other tools out there.
VaultPress looks like a good, or at least well-supported, alternative until you consider that each site in the multisite requires it’s own account at key at $15 (at least) a pop.
Any comments out there on how BackWPuP is doing in the long-term?
Anyone know is WP core has any tips on how to backup WordPress multisite?
And is it a pipe dream to find a backup tool that will restore on a site-by-site basis?

ncsumarit,

I have been performing many, many tests. From a “cost” efficient solution as well as what I am hoping will prove to be “the best long term” solution, at the moment, I am recommending the use and implementation of InfiniteWP (which is more than just a backup tool). Their tool “does not” do everything (at the moment) that I had hoped BackupBuddy would do, such as allow us to not only backup and restore single as well as multisites (which InfiniteWP states their product will do), but in the near future (they say within a few months), .. it will allow us to “mirgrate” multisites to new domains (as well as single sites within a multisite) to new domains.

They offer a 100% free version of their app that you can test with. And if you want (which I am sure you will) to “automatically schedule” backups to happen for your sites), they have a premium addon available for that.

But after looking at numerous WP plugins, of which some can do this, or that, .. etc., InfiniteWP seems to be looking as the best (from what I’ve been able to test so far).

As I get further down the road of my continued testing, I’ll certainly post an update here. Backups, restoring and migrations are one of my top priorities and concerns when building and maintaining websites, so this is a “really” important issue that is effecting me.

I was so sorry to hear that BackupBuddy decided to pull out of supporting their backup plugin for “Multisites” and I hope they reconsider. Their product is absolutley fabulous. Every day, I wake up hoping to get an email saying .. “Backup Buddy now officially supports Multisites” but .. if it happens I just doubt it will be anytime soon.

In my conversations (via email) with InfiniteWP, they seem on the ball and will be adding the functionality needed for backing up, restoring, migrating single WP sites as well as multisite.

Stay tuned .. and .. thanks for sharing your comment.

ncsumarit … thanks!!

Gary
https://www.whatshouldibe.me/

I started a thread on the BackWPup presales forum for backing up subsites on multisite. https://marketpress.com/support/topic/multisite-features/