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Backup, Restore and Migrate your sites with XCloner

By watchful

Site Administration & Utilities / Site Migration & Cloning

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

7.13/10

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

1 / 10 (Very Low 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 offers a free solution for WordPress backup, restore, and migration with some unique features but also faces competition from several established plugins.

Top alternatives

Strengths

Supports backup to some cloud storage providers like Backblaze.
Free to use with no paid version required.
Simple and professional interface appreciated by users.
Offers backup, restore, and migration features in one plugin.

Weaknesses

Reported bugs and syntax errors affecting reliability.
Limited or no support for error handling in some cases.
Less frequent updates compared to some competitors.
Lacks advanced features found in premium plugins.

User Sentiment Analysis

User comments reveal a mix of appreciation for the plugin's capabilities and frustration with bugs and support issues.

Positive highlights

'Makes the job precise and comfortable' - miguelsdp
'Works well on a RPi5 server with WordPress' - john1ham
'Excelente! The only plugin that worked with my server configuration' - arnoldoeloy
'Everything is okay' - maxim23

Common complaints

Plugin is buggy and unreliable for production use.
Syntax errors when backing up to remote WebDAV locations.
Lack of timely support and responses to issues.
Some users find it less stable compared to alternatives.

Weaknesses

Bugs cause backup failures in certain environments.
Support for error resolution is lacking or slow.
Compatibility issues with some server configurations.
Limited updates and maintenance reported.

Who Should Use This?

Best for

Users looking for a free WordPress backup and migration plugin with cloud storage support and a straightforward interface.

Not ideal for

Those needing a highly reliable, fully supported solution for critical production sites or advanced backup features.

Pricing & Value

Free version includes

The free version includes backup, restore, and migration capabilities with support for some cloud storage providers like Backblaze.

Final Verdict

XCloner is a useful free tool for WordPress backup and migration, especially for users who need cloud storage integration without cost.

However, its reliability issues and limited support mean it may not be suitable for mission-critical sites where stability and prompt assistance are essential.

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.