When it comes to backing up your website, the choice is not really between automated and manual — it is about understanding what each approach does well and building a strategy that combines both appropriately. Relying exclusively on one or the other leaves gaps that you may regret.

What Are Automated Backups?

Automated backups run on a schedule without requiring any action from you. Your hosting provider's system, or a plugin like UpdraftPlus, runs at a set time each day (or more frequently) and creates a copy of your website files and database. The backup is saved to a designated location — your hosting server, cloud storage, or both.

The primary advantage of automated backups is consistency. They happen regardless of whether you remember, whether you are busy, or whether it is a bank holiday. For a website that changes daily — a blog, an ecommerce store, a news site — automated daily backups ensure there is always a recent restore point available.

Eazyhosting includes automated Timeline Backups with every hosting plan, retaining 30 days of restore history.

What Are Manual Backups?

Manual backups are created on demand, triggered by you rather than running automatically. You might download a copy of your files via FTP, export your database through phpMyAdmin, or use a plugin's on-demand backup feature.

Manual backups are most valuable as a complement to automated ones — specifically, before making significant changes to your website where you want a clean checkpoint to return to if something goes wrong.

When to Take a Manual Backup

  • Before updating your CMS, theme, or a major plugin
  • Before making changes to your site's code or template files
  • Before installing a new plugin that modifies the database
  • Before migrating to a new hosting provider
  • Before running a batch update or database operation
  • Before switching themes

The automated backup from the previous night is usually not quite right for this purpose — you want a snapshot from immediately before the change, so you can roll back to the exact state the site was in five minutes ago if the update breaks something.

The Risks of Automated Backups Alone

Automated backups are excellent, but they have limitations. If malware infects your site and is not detected immediately, several daily automated backups may be made of a compromised site. By the time you notice the problem, your available restore points may all contain the malware. This is one reason why retaining a longer history (30 days is a sensible minimum) gives you more recovery options.

Automated backups also will not capture manual changes made just before a crash if the backup schedule has not run since those changes were made.

The Risks of Manual Backups Alone

Manual backups require you to remember to do them. In practice, they are not done consistently — particularly when things are busy. Relying on manual backups as your only strategy means there will be periods — sometimes extended ones — with no recent backup at all.

A Sensible Backup Strategy

  • Automated daily backups as the foundation — running regardless of your involvement
  • Off-site storage — ensure at least one copy is stored somewhere other than your hosting server
  • 30-day retention — keeping a month's worth of backups gives useful flexibility
  • Manual backup before major changes — creating a clean checkpoint immediately before any significant update
  • Periodic restore test — confirming the backup actually works at least once per quarter

Common Mistakes

  • Assuming your host's backups are a full solution. Some hosting backups are infrastructure-level, not per-site. Check what is actually available to you for restoring specific files or databases.
  • Storing backups only on the same server. A server failure, hack, or data centre incident can affect both your live site and any backups stored there. Always have at least one off-site copy.
  • Never testing the restore. Knowing you have backups is not the same as knowing your backups are usable. Test a restore on a staging environment or local install to confirm the process works.

Automated and manual backups are complementary, not competing. Use automated backups for consistent daily protection and manual backups as a deliberate checkpoint before making changes.

Need hosting with automated daily backups included? Learn about Eazyhosting's backup feature — 30-day restore history on every plan.