BACKUP

A backup is a copy of your website's files and database, kept somewhere other than the live server, that you can restore from if the live site is lost, hacked, broken by a bad deploy or accidentally deleted. Production hosting plans should include automated daily backups with at least 7 to 30 days of retention, and the backups should be stored off the production server (ideally in a different region). Managed hosts and the major cloud platforms include backup as standard; on unmanaged VPS or dedicated plans, configuring backups yourself (BorgBackup, restic, Duplicati or a host-provided snapshot system) is your responsibility and is the single most important thing you can do.

How it works

A complete backup includes the website files (themes, plugins, uploads on WordPress; the deployment artefact on Jamstack) and a current database dump. Snapshot-based backups capture the whole disk state at a point in time; file-and-DB backups are smaller and easier to restore selectively.

Why it matters

Sites are lost to hacks, bad updates, mistyped commands and provider outages every day. A working backup, regularly tested by actually restoring it somewhere, is the difference between a few hours of disruption and losing the site. Untested backups are not backups.

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Frequently Asked Questions