/ Plugin Category

/ Site Administration & Utilities

/ Site Migration & Cloning

/ Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner

Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner

By watchful

Site Administration & Utilities / Site Migration & Cloning

Reviewed by Omar Dabbas

Trusted WordPress expert with 20+ years of experience evaluating plugins for the WP ecosystem.

Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner Review - In-Depth Analysis

XCloner is a backup plugin that allows you to safely back up and restore your WordPress sites. It supports various remote storage options and automated backups.

Performance Overview

WPS Score

6.68/10

User Rating

4.2/5 (based on 129+ reviews)

Active Installations

10,000+

Update Frequency

Very Good It is calculated using the weighted average of same category plugins.

Security Score

6.29 / 10 (Medium Risk) It is calculated using the weighted average of all versions.

What It Does

XCloner is a backup plugin that allows you to safely back up and restore your WordPress sites. You can send your site backups to SFTP, Dropbox, Amazon, Google Drive, Backblaze, and other locations. You can create backups manually or automatically with XCloner’s built-in scheduler.

XCloner enables you to automatically generate backups with the built-in cron script. These cron jobs can run daily, weekly, monthly, or even hourly.

XCloner allows you to generate custom backups of any WordPress site, and then restore the backup on any other location with the help of the automatic restore script provided.

XCloner has many useful safety features. For example, it generates a core, plugins, themes, or languages files backup before the automatic update of WordPress core, plugins, themes, or languages files.

XCloner allows you to send your backups to remote storage locations supporting FTP, SFTP, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, WebDAV, Backblaze, Azure, and many more.

You can generate “Differential Backups” so your backup will include only files modified after a certain date, decreasing the space needed to store your backups.

XCloner also has safety features to ensure your backups are successful. You can split backups into multiple smaller parts if a certain size limit is reached, and store a local copy of the backup that will be deleted when sent to the remote location.

XCloner uses open source standards like TAR, MySQL, and CSV formats for flexibility and control over your backups. It has a built-in security layer to protect your backups, allowing you to create encrypted backup archives with AES-128-CBC algorithm to ensure GDPR compliance.

You can restore backups on any compatible location using the XCloner restore feature. It can restore your site clone on a different server, updating your WordPress configuration details automatically.

XCloner has a variety of restoration options including: All Files, Only Plugin Files, Only Theme Files, Only Uploads Files, and Only Database Backup.

XCloner integrates smoothly with the Watchful dashboard, a web developers toolbox for remotely managing and monitoring multiple WordPress websites.

Comparing to Alternatives

XCloner is a backup and migration plugin with several alternatives available that offer similar functionalities for WordPress site management.

Top alternatives

Strengths

Supports backup, restore, and migration with a professional and simple interface
Connects to some cloud storage providers including Backblaze
Free to use with no paid version promoted
Responsive developers addressing issues in support threads
Works well on various server setups including Raspberry Pi

Weaknesses

Has a history of multiple security vulnerabilities, some critical, though fixed in recent versions
Reported bugs and syntax errors affecting remote WebDAV backups
Limited support responsiveness for some error reports
Some users find it too buggy for production use currently

User Sentiment Analysis

With a strong majority of 5-star ratings and an overall rating of 4.2, users generally appreciate XCloner's functionality and ease of use, though nearly 18% of ratings are 1-2 stars indicating some dissatisfaction.

Positive highlights

"Excelente!, probé con otros plugins y se colgaban con la configuración que tiene mi servidor. Este fue el único que hizo el trabajo." — arnoldoeloy
"Makes the job precise and comfortable." — miguelsdp
"Works well on a RPi5 server with Wordpress." — john1ham
"Thanks for making the plugin available." — john1ham
"Interfaz sencilla y profesional a la vez." — arnoldoeloy

Common complaints

Lack of support for errors causing backup failures, especially with remote WebDAV storage

Weaknesses

Multiple past security vulnerabilities with medium to critical severity
Buggy behavior reported by some users making it unreliable for production
Delayed or no response to some user support requests

Who Should Use This?

Best for

Users looking for a free, straightforward backup and migration plugin that supports cloud storage and who are comfortable applying updates to address security issues.

Not ideal for

Users requiring guaranteed timely support and those who prioritize security above all, given the plugin's history of vulnerabilities and some unresolved bugs.

Pricing & Value

Free version includes

The free version offers backup, restore, and migration features with cloud storage support and no paid upgrade is promoted.

Final Verdict

XCloner offers a capable and free solution for WordPress backup and migration with a user-friendly interface and cloud storage integration. Its strong positive user feedback highlights its effectiveness in diverse server environments. However, the plugin's history of multiple security vulnerabilities and some unresolved bugs may concern users who need robust security and consistent support.

While it stands as a viable option among many alternatives, users should weigh the plugin's benefits against its security track record and support limitations. Those comfortable with managing updates and potential issues may find it valuable, but others might prefer more actively maintained and secure alternatives.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner plugin.

Backup

WordPress Backup

WordPress Migration

Screenshots

FAQ

XCloner stores them in separate mysql dump files, inside a folder called xcloner-XXXXX inside the backup archive root path, where XXXXX is a hash number that is identical with the last 5 characters of the backup name,
so if the backup name is backup_localhost-2017-02-16_15-36-sql-1c6c6.tgz , the mysql backup file will be stored in xcloner-1c6c6/ folder.