BackupSheep review – Backup your website

Backup is something we tell ourselves that we will always do later on, but we never get to do it. This right here is BackupSheep which can back up your website files, images and so much more. Let’s check it out.

So this is the BackupSheep platform, by itself. It doesn’t have a lot to it. It is definitely integrations we need to work at because up here we have our home, we have the nodes that we’re using, and you can see it is just the statistics here which are changing. Then we have the live chat which is the support, we have the documentation and the change log. So let’s dive into integrations here.

1. Features of BackupSheep
2. BackupSheep Pricing
3. Alternatives to BackupSheep
4. Future of BackupSheep
5. Pros & Cons using BackupSheep
6. Last thoughts about BackupSheep

Features of BackupSheep

Under integrations, we have cloud providers where you can see we have AWS, Digital Ocean and some other ones. Then we have databases where you can see we have MySQL, PostgreSQL and MariaDB. Furthermore, then we have web servers which are just SFTP/FTP sign in. You can also use SSH, and then we have storage platforms. Under storage platforms we have something like Digital Ocean again, Dropbox, FileBase, Google Drive and so on.

So you can also use this to back up your private files. It is not only the website, et cetera. So you can also use this for your private files. It is not only databases and websites but let’s dive in and try and set up a MySQL back up right here as a database. When we set up a new integration, we need to give it a name, we need to set the endpoint and this is where it should basically pull the data from.

And you can see that we get an IP here. So, what can happen sometimes is that your server thinks that this is some suspicious activity on the server, and therefore they want to ban this IP. But if you whitelist it, you will never have this happening. So let’s just call this integration YouTube video. Just for the sake of this review.

We have the database name, database type and the rest of the information down here. So I’m choosing MySQL. So let me just fill out the rest of the information. So I have now added the integration here and what I can then do is to create a database node, because for this node it needs to be combined with the integration in order for the node to actually work and run these backups. So here you can see that we have all different tables.

I’ll just back up all the tables, I’ll just call this one a name, and I’ll add some nodes here, and then we’ll create the actual node. So now you can see that we have a backup of this MySQL database. We can set up some notifications which will be sent by email over here, we can create backups, we can add a schedule. Of course, we can modify the settings. But I will start by creating a new schedule.

Lets’s just called this one backup and here we need to say that it needs to take a backup every single day and the amount of backups lets say that we need to always keep ten backups and the time zone I will set to Europe. So what I really like here is that you can set up multiple locations. This makes it even more secure for you, because then if something happens physically to the place where the server is holding your backup, then at least there is another place where the backup is available. So let’s create this schedule here. So it will now automatically make a backup every single day in those places that we just set.

We can also manually create a backup right now. Let’s set it to just Europe for this one and then create backup. So now it started the backup, and it will finish in a few seconds. And when it then finishes, whether it fails or succeeds, then we will get an email with a notification that tells us how it went. That is the MySQL setup.

Let’s try and go back to integrations and set up a very simple Dropbox integration. So scrolling down here we have the storage platforms and right here we have Dropbox. So Dropbox is a lot simpler to set up, because if I click on Dropbox here, I am sent to Dropbox to simply just sign in. So now it is connected successfully. So let’s try and go down and click on Dropbox again.

So you see here it has connected to my account and I can then modify it, pause it and delete it. So here, if I say modify integration, it will basically just say the name and the node. I can’t really work with it. I can’t say that it needs to take this often a backup. When should it take a backup?

Where should we save it? Just as we saw with MySQL, this one is simple to set up, but the settings afterwards are very simplified. I will just delete it again as a storage. So now let’s go back to integrations and the last one I want to show you is a very simple FTP web server set up.

So when I click here, then we see a window very much like the one we saw before, and we need to fill out some information about where we should basically pull the data from, the name, the host name and so on. So let me just fill this out. So now I have added integration for my own website with an SFTP sign in. I will then again create the website node here and then on the left side we can then see all the folders that we have on my website. At the moment, the website is in the public folder.

So I’ll just only include the public folder and up here again let’s just call it very simple backup. You can also exclude here you can say backup everything except for these specific paths. But I will keep this as is, and then I’ll create the node again. We see the same view we saw with MySQL, where I can create a simple backup. I can add a schedule to tell us to take it back up every single day.

And again, I can set the number of backups, the time zone and where it should save these backups. Again, I can actually save it on Dropbox as well, which takes me back to the integrations because this is basically just a way where you can store your own platforms, so you can’t really take a backup of your Dropbox. You can just use Dropbox to store your files, which really limits this. I would really like to be able to back up my Dropbox or my Google Drive into this platform. But another thing is that more and more platforms, especially website platforms, have backup built in to the system.

So whether you’re using a WordPress managed server hosting, then they often have backup built in. It is mainly for if you have some custom FTP set up or a very limited domain provider or hosting, then this could be interesting for you. Of course, if you have something specific like your own build system, then again, this would also be interesting for you. But as a private person, I would like to be able to basically back up my Dropbox and Google Drive and so on. So I have another place to back up my documents, my files, my pictures even.

But at this moment it is not possible. It is only possible to basically back up your cloud providers, your databases and web servers. And then you can choose whether you want to back it up on BackupSheep or you want to use one of your other cloud providers, as we saw down here, which is basically your storage platform.

BackupSheep Pricing

Now the pricing of BackupSheep is very simple. You have a free plan and a paid plan. And on the free plan, you get 25 GB of storage and three nodes. That is a lot of storage. And that basically means that you can set up three integrations where they cannot together surpass 25 GB.

The unlimited plan. You have unlimited nodes, so you can set up as many integrations as you want to, but you are still limited to two terabytes of storage.

Alternatives to BackupSheep

The alternative to BackupSheep is Snapshooter and these two, compared to each other, are very similar. They have more or less the same integrations. The pricing are very much alike, but I still feel that Backup Sheets are taking it a step further.

I would, however, like it if BackupSheep could make it a little easier to do all of these integrations. I know with Dropbox and etcetera, it’s really easy, but for instance with the VPS, the FTP and so on, I feel it could be made easier. As I mentioned in the walkthrough.

Future of BackupSheep

Now, the future of BackupSheep seems quite interesting. First off they’re working on a restore function so let’s say that you finally want to restore a backup that you have made instead of what you have to do now where you have to download it manually upload it to wherever the backup needs to go. Then with the restore function you can basically with one click restore this backup, so it’s live again.

It will save you a tonne of time. Furthermore, then they are adding more integrations to Pcloud and Plesk which is a lot like Cpanel and last but not least, then they are adding automatic cleaning. This means that you can say that every time there is a backup that is older than 30 days, then you have to delete it. In this way, you will never surpass the amount of gigabytes that you have on your account, and you will have a clean interface of only the backups that you need to keep.

Pros & Cons using BackupSheep

Using BackupSheep I really like that they have a lot of integrations and even more is coming soon, and then their automatic scheduled backup really makes it easy for me, but the fact that I have to manually download and upload to use the restoring function is a bit of a tedious process, and then it is not always easy to set up these different integrations.

Last thoughts about BackupSheep

Backup is super important and once you’ve set it up it just runs automatically in the background. You never have to think about it again until you need to restore a backup.

I want to give BackupSheep four stars. It’s a great and solid backup platform but the restoring process really needs to be improved. That’s my review.