Some time back, I promised a review of CPSiteSaver. I purchased the program and have used it for a couple of weeks every day now, and I have to say it is a "must have" for anyone running their own web site if the site uses the very popular Cpanel control panel.

What exactly is CPSiteSaver? CPSiteSaver is fundamentally a windows based program that automates creation and download of the backups that can be created using the backup utility built into Cpanel.

The backup utility in Cpanel:

If you’ve logged into the Cpanel that came with your web hosting account, you have probably seen the link to "Backup" available there, even if you haven’t used it. That link allows a site owner to do a full backup of their site including any databases that are associated with the site. Database backup is important because many sites have one or more databases installed.

Some sites (like this one) use a database to store much of the important information that you’ve created. Wordpress sites, for example, store almost all the user created information (including the posts and pages you create) in a MySQL database. If you only are logging into your site using FTP and downloading what is available there, you aren’t saving most of the work you’ve done on a Wordpress site!

When you login to the Cpanel backup utility, you have the ability to create two types of backups (not counting the database and "filter" backups-more later on that). The first type is the "Full Backup". Sounds good, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t want a "Full" backup? The second type is the "Home Directory’ backup. CPSiteSaver doesn’t do a "Full" backup, only a "Home Directory" backup (along with database backups previously mentioned. Not good?

Actually, quite good. The aforementioned "Full" backups have one serious crippling flaw-they can only be restored by someone having full access rights the the "Web Host Manager" or "WHM" portion of the server. This is usually your web host - if you need to restore a "Full" backup, you need to get your web hosting company to do it.

My problem with "Full" backups is that when I want to restore my site for whatever reason, I don’t want to wait for tech support to do the job for me. Also, if I need to move my site to a new host, I want to be able to do it myself.The Cpanel home directory backup is quite sufficient to do that backup job, and I retain control over the restoration process.

The problem with the Cpanel backup function, though, is that it creating one and downloading it is a manual task - I need to login to Cpanel and then accomplish the task each time I want to backup the site. What a pain, especially if you, like me, have many sites spread across several hosts. This job screams for automation that until now was pretty much impossible.

CPSiteSaver to the Rescue

This is where CPSiteSaver comes in. CPSiteSaver easily automates the task of creating and downloading Cpanel backup files. It comes with a built-in scheduler that lets you set it and forget it. It includes a rotation control that allows you to choose how many copies of your site (or database) you wish to keep.

CPSiteSaver’s interface is quite nifty, although not perfect (more on that later). Once you set the preference for where to save your backup files, when you add another site’s details, it automatically creates a new folder within your backup archive where the new site’s files are kept.

After you setup your site’s details in CPSiteSaver, all you have to do is set a schedule to create and download the backup. I have setup a dozen or so sites and databases to backup all at the same time at night - you can schedule multiple backups at the same time because CPSiteSaver runs the backups sequentially. No need for you to figure out how long any particular site’s backup might take.

In my case, I’ve set the program to backup every night and to keep ten copies of each backup. That way, I can always restore any site to where it was anytime within the past ten days.

Am I excited about CPSiteSaver? Yes! Is it perfect? No, it does have a few, minor flaws. The interface is pretty simple, but it has some rough edges. For example, the main program window is fairly small and can’t be resized. Also, there is no way to select all the backup jobs and set one schedule for them. You have to select them one at a time and set the schedule. This only has to be done once unless you decide to change when you want the backups to run.

Another limitation is that the program does not (yet) allow backup of the filters and forwarders in the Cpanel account. Any email forwarders you have setup have to be recreated, for instance, if you use the backup files to move your site to a new account.

Despite the limitations, the big question is does it work? Yes. A week or so after I setup the backups, the (cheap) web host I was using for my wife’s site (Cozy-Mystery.Com) stopped responding for several hours and the tech support site was also down. Since I have several other hosts with plenty of space for sites, I decided it would be a good test to take the CPSiteSaver backup and restore it to another host to get the site back up and running. This was a good test because the site is a mixture of a regular html web site (created using XsitePro) and a Wordpress blog - which is MySQL database driven.

I created the site on the new host. I used the Cpanel restore backup function for the latest nightly backup of both the home directory backup and the Wordpress database. Then I went to where I maintain all my sites’ domain names and DNS entries (Namecheap.Com) and changed over the DNS entry to the new host. Half an hour later, the site was up and running again. Perfect. No glitches at all. The whole process took only about 15 minutes of work - the half hour was just waiting for the DNS to propagate (Namecheap is FAST).
Nothing could have been easier.

Even if you only have one Cpanel site, CPSiteSaver, at only $37 (for a limited time) is well worth the peace of mind that you will get knowing your site is always backed up and ready to restore. If you have multiple sites, CPSiteSaver is essential.

Highly recommended.

To access CPSiteSaver through my affiliate link, click here. If you want to get there without using my affiliate link, click here.