CloudScale Backup & Restore is a WordPress Plugin Directory app by andrewjbaker.
AppRanks verdict
Generated from marketplace data as of Sep 11, 2026
CloudScale Backup & Restore is a WordPress app. It has no reviews on WordPress yet.
Pros
No standout positives in the measured data.
Cons
−No reviews yet — fit and reliability are unverified by other merchants
How CloudScale Backup & Restore works
Show full descriptionShow less
Most backup plugins fail exactly when you need them most: on your biggest site, or the site that’s grown since you installed them. All-in-One WP Migration’s free version caps imports at 512MB (its Unlimited extension costs $69/year to remove the cap). Duplicator’s free version starts failing and timing out around 500MB, with no chunking until you upgrade to Pro. UpdraftPlus has no hard site-size limit, but its free version is restricted to a single cloud storage destination, so you’re stuck with whatever free-tier space that one provider gives you.
CloudScale Backup & Restore has no site-size limit, no destination limit, and no plan wall. It reads your database in 500-row chunks and never loads the whole thing into memory, so a 50MB site and a 50GB site back up the same way, reliably, without hitting your host’s memory limit or execution timeout. It backs up to five destinations at once, for free: Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and CloudScale’s own Managed Cloud Backup, and every destination you enable gets a copy of every backup.
Any Size, No Limits
Streams the database in 500-row chunks via $wpdb; never loads the full database into memory, regardless of size
set_time_limit(0) and ignore_user_abort(true) on every backup and restore, so PHP’s execution-time limit never cuts a large operation off mid-run
Restore uses a character-level SQL parser that correctly handles quoted strings, escaped characters and multi-line INSERT statements, on files of any size
System Info panel shows exactly which backup and restore method, and memory limits, your server is using
Back Up to Five Destinations at Once
Amazon S3, Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive, using your own accounts, free, with no destination limit
CloudScale Managed Cloud Backup: $5/month for 750GB of off-site storage on Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, no separate cloud account needed
Configurable retention: keep the last N backups on every destination, deleted automatically after each run. Managed copies are additionally capped at 90 days in storage, enforced even if the site stops running; your own cloud destinations follow whatever lifecycle rules you set on your own bucket
Every destination you enable receives every backup automatically
What It Backs Up
Choose any combination, packaged into one .zip with a descriptive filename (for example backup_db-media-plugins_2026-02-21_09-10-00.zip) that reflects exactly what it contains:
Full WordPress database: all tables, all data
Media uploads folder (/wp-content/uploads/)
Plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins/)
Themes folder (/wp-content/themes/)
Optional Site Root Extras: root-level files like php.ini, robots.txt, favicon, .well-known/, and search-engine verification files
Optional Server Config Snapshot: read-only reference copies of your nginx/Apache config, PHP runtime settings and MySQL variables
Post-restore environment comparison flags PHP version, missing extensions, lower memory/upload limits, or MySQL version differences between the backup’s original server and the one you restored onto
Every zip includes backup-meta.json: plugin version, creation timestamp, WordPress version, site URL, table prefix, and which components were included, so you can verify a backup without restoring it
Automatic backups are off by default. Run your first backup manually to confirm everything works on your server, then configure a schedule if you need one.
Restore Safely
Clicking Restore DB opens a confirmation modal that:
Shows the exact backup file name and creation date you are restoring from
Displays a warning box explaining what will happen step by step
Requires you to tick a checkbox: “I have taken a server snapshot and understand this will overwrite the live database”
Only enables the Restore button after that checkbox is ticked
During restore, WordPress’s native .maintenance file is created so visitors see the standard maintenance page. It is always removed when restore finishes, whether the restore succeeded or failed. The plugin header shows a live badge indicating whether the site is online or in maintenance mode.
Disaster Recovery
Failover Mode: a standby server never creates, schedules, or allows a manually- or WP-CLI-triggered backup while flagged as a failover target, and says so on every admin screen
EC2 AMI Snapshots: create a full machine image of your AWS-hosted server directly from the plugin, with optional reboot for filesystem consistency, plus AMI history and status polling
Security
Backup directory uses a randomised, non-guessable name, not a fixed predictable path
Protection covers Apache (both .htaccess syntaxes), nginx, IIS (web.config), and a silent index.php, plus 0700 permissions, not just an .htaccess that nginx and IIS ignore
A daily self-check fetches its own backup URL to confirm the directory genuinely isn’t publicly readable, and warns you with the exact server rule to add if it is
All passwords passed to CLI tools via environment variable, not shell arguments
Developer & Automation
Trigger a backup from WP-CLI or a system cron job
Configurable scheduling: any interval in days, and the exact hour of day to run
Full backup history: view all stored backups with filename, type label, size, creation date, and age; download any backup directly from the WordPress admin
One-click migration: restore the database from any stored backup or by uploading a .zip or .sql file, on the same host or a new one
External services
This plugin optionally connects to third-party services when those features are configured by the site administrator. No data is sent to any external service unless the administrator has explicitly enabled the relevant integration.
Telegram Bot API (optional notifications)
When Telegram is configured, the plugin sends backup, restore, and plugin
rollback notifications, plus error alerts, to the administrator-configured
Telegram chat via the Telegram Bot API. The message contains the site name,
event status, and (for error alerts) a summary of the PHP error, file name,
and line number. No personal visitor data, post content, or backup data is
transmitted. No data is sent unless a Telegram bot token and chat ID have
been entered in the plugin’s Notifications settings.
API endpoint contacted: https://api.telegram.org/bot{token}/sendMessage
Terms of Service: https://telegram.org/tos
Privacy Policy: https://telegram.org/privacy
Telegram Bot API documentation: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api
Amazon S3 (optional cloud backup)
When S3 settings are configured, the plugin uploads backup zip files directly
to the administrator’s own S3 bucket via the AWS S3 REST API (no external
tools required). Only the backup zip file is transmitted. Credentials (bucket
name, access key ID, secret access key, region) are stored in the WordPress
options table and are never sent anywhere except to the AWS S3 endpoint.
API endpoint contacted: https://s3.{region}.amazonaws.com/
Terms of Service: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
Privacy Policy: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/
Google Drive (optional cloud backup)
When Google Drive settings are configured, the plugin transfers backup zip files
to the administrator’s own Google Drive account using the Google Drive v3 REST
API and OAuth 2.0. No data is sent unless the administrator has completed the
OAuth authorisation flow (entered a Client ID and Client Secret from Google
Cloud Console and clicked “Connect to Google Drive”). Only the backup zip file
is uploaded. OAuth tokens (access token and refresh token) are stored in the
WordPress options table.
API endpoint contacted: https://www.googleapis.com/ and https://oauth2.googleapis.com/
Terms of Service: https://policies.google.com/terms
AWS EC2 / AMI snapshots (optional, AMI snapshot feature only)
When the AMI snapshot feature is used, the plugin reads instance metadata
(instance ID and region) from the local EC2 Instance Metadata Service at
http://169.254.169.254. This address is only reachable from within an EC2
instance and no data leaves the server at this step. AMI creation, status poll,
deregister, and snapshot delete requests are then issued directly to the AWS
EC2 REST API (no external tools required). The same AWS credentials
(access key ID and secret key) used for S3 are used; if none are configured
the plugin attempts to use the EC2 instance role via IMDS.
API endpoint contacted: https://ec2.{region}.amazonaws.com/
Terms of Service: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
Privacy Policy: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/
Automatic Crash Recovery: health check probe (optional)
When Automatic Crash Recovery is enabled, the plugin periodically sends an HTTP
request to the administrator-configured health check URL to verify the site is
responding. The URL defaults to the site’s own home URL. No personal data is
transmitted. The request is a plain GET with no authentication payload. The
same probe is made when the administrator clicks “Test Health Check” in the
plugin settings. If a system-cron watchdog script is installed on the server,
that script also probes this URL independently via curl. The health check URL
is set by the administrator and is never shared with any third party.
No Terms of Service or Privacy Policy apply (the request goes to a URL you own).
Files written outside the plugin folder
The Automatic Crash Recovery feature writes a single file outside the plugin
folder when it is enabled: wp-content/fatal-error-handler.php. This is a
WordPress-recognised drop-in file (documented in the WordPress Developer
Handbook under get_dropins()). WordPress core checks for this file on every
request; if present, it replaces the default fatal-error screen with a custom
handler. The plugin uses this mechanism to show a branded recovery page to
visitors while a crash is being fixed, instead of a blank white screen.
The file is written using the WordPress Filesystem API (WP_Filesystem). It is
only written when the feature is enabled, only overwritten if it was written by
this plugin (identified by an internal marker), and is deleted when the feature
is disabled or the plugin is uninstalled. No personal data is stored in this file.
Privacy Policy
CloudScale Backup & Restore does not collect, transmit, or store any personal data. All backups are stored locally in the cloudscale-backups/ folder inside your WordPress uploads directory. No telemetry or analytics are sent by this plugin. Optional cloud backup features (S3, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, AMI snapshots) transmit data only when explicitly configured by the site administrator. See the External services section above.
Standardized capabilities
AppRanks hasn't mapped this app to standardized capabilities yet. The developer's own feature list is shown above.
Ratings and reviews
No reviews on WordPress yet.
Keyword rankings
CloudScale Backup & Restore ranks for 1 keywords across WordPress Plugin Directory. Here are the top 1:
AppRanks tracks competitor sets per category. For CloudScale Backup & Restore, the independent listing audit includes a competitive context section, and the full WordPress app index shows the broader marketplace landscape this app competes in. Sign up free to surface a side-by-side competitor matrix customized to your tracked apps.
CloudScale Backup & Restore is a WordPress app by andrewjbaker.
About CloudScale Backup & Restore on the WordPress Plugin Directory
CloudScale Backup & Restore is one of the apps AppRanks tracks on the WordPress Plugin Directory. We refresh public marketplace data — pricing, rating, review count, category position, featured-section memberships — within the per-marketplace freshness targets published on our methodology page, and we publish the snapshot here exactly as it appears on the source marketplace. There is no proprietary score on this page; everything you see is mirrored from the live listing at our last crawl. If you are evaluating CloudScale Backup & Restore against alternatives, the independent listing audit scores it against the same rubric we apply to every app on the platform — listing completeness, rating health, review velocity, merchandising, and ranking consistency. The audit also surfaces a prioritized recommendation list, so a developer can see exactly which fixes would move the score most. For market context, browse the full WordPress app index to see how this app's metrics compare against others on the same marketplace.