Duplicator Pro features

The WordPress plugin Duplicator Pro.

Main features are scheduling, storage, custom templates, dedicated support, a more efficient way to backup larger sites and more.

Here is a short intro to Duplicator Pro.

Go to the Duplicator Pro web site.
You get a 30 day money back guarantee if for whatever reason you are not satisfied.

Cory Lamle the developer of the free version of Duplicator has joined forces with Robert Riley in creating a much asked for Pro version of Duplicator called Duplicator Pro.

More complex features will in the future be added to the Pro version while simpler features will be added to both.

A more detailed overview of Duplicator Pro.

I asked Bob Riley questions about Duplicator Pro.

PJ: Why did you guys create Duplicator Pro?

Bob: Cory started Duplicator back in 2011 and since that point he saw how much value people were getting out of it. Along the way people would periodically ask him for more advanced features but since he only worked Duplicator part time he never had the bandwidth to add them.

When I joined the team we decided that we could finally take the plunge and create a Pro product that would include several of the features people had been asking for.

PJ: What is the difference between the regular version and the Pro version? 

Bob: Duplicator Free is good for when you want to backup smaller sites on an as-needed basis. Pro is useful to those people who want to to be able to back up their site regularly, have larger sites or require backing up to the cloud (Dropbox/FTP now, more in the future).

Duplicator Free traditionally has been best for backing up smaller sites simply because it uses a fairly simple backup mechanism internally. This worked great as long as the sites are small, but can present problems on larger sites and sites using cheaper hosting. We completely overhauled the backup engine when we moved to Pro – this allows for much more robust backup capability and recovery from things like server timeouts which are a common occurrence with shared hosting.

PJ: What added main features are included in the Pro version?

Here’s a rundown of all features included in Pro that are listed on the Go Pro page:

Backup Files & Database. The core functionality of the product. A backup captures an entire WordPress site – both files and the database – and generates two simple files. These two files that can be easily copied or moved and then expanded to restore your site in a new domain, new host, or used to restore your site to the same location.

Directory Filters. You can specify certain directories you don’t want to include in the backup. Helpful when you have non-essential plugins or media that take up a lot of space.

– Database Table Filters. You can specify certain database tables to ignore in the backup. Sometimes you may have large tables that are unneeded and you don’t want to include these in the backup package.. Typically only advanced users need to worry about this.

– Migration Wizard. Duplicator Pro includes a very easy to use wizard you use for performing an immediate backup.

– Schedules. You can specify multiple backup schedules. This is very flexible – they can run daily, weekly, monthly on different days and target different storage locations.

– Custom Templates. Templates allow you to specify what goes in a package. For instance if you want one package to always ignore a certain directory you could specify that in a template. Later on that template could be used in one ore more schedules or on an immediate package build. This allows you to more quickly back things up when you are dealing with complex situations.

– Cloud Storage. We now allow the backing up of packages to the Dropbox and FTP in local storage and will be expanding this to Amazon S3 and more in the future.

– Queued Processing. Because you could have multiple schedules going off at the same time as well as the possibility of a manual package build, we now offer a packages to be queued up and processed one after another.

PJ: Why should I get the Pro version when the regular version works fine?

Bob: If you have a small site and local backups are are all you need, Duplicator may totally meet your needs. As elaborated earlier the new feature set offers people with more serious needs some functionality they may really appreciate.

Also, from a business and development standpoint because we now have two products we have to prioritize where we’re putting out time between the two. Since our Pro customers are people have spent their hard-earned money for it, they expect a certain level of service from us so we’ll be spending most of our resources enhancing and expanding Pro going forward.

We’ll still be maintaining Duplicator Free with critical bug fixes but we don’t anticipate adding a lot of new functionality, so most new features will appear only in Duplicator Pro going forward.

PJ: What features do you plan on adding further down the road?

Bob: Some of the ideas we’ve been discussing are related to cloud support, like the addition of Amazon S3 storage and some other providers. We’re also talking about features like auto-backup before plugin/theme updates.

In general, we’re very flexible with where Duplicator Pro goes. In the near future we’re going to be creating a formal mechanism for the community to tell us what they want to see in upcoming releases. This ensures our priorities are always in-line with needs of the community.

PJ: Are you planning on just updating the Pro version? Or will the free version also be updated?

Bob: Yeah we plan on updating the Pro Version frequently, especially in the early goings. The free version will continue to get updated but it will primarily consist of bug fixes. New features will primarily be added to the Pro product.

PJ: The hardball questions which any user will naturally need to face when seeing a plugin they might need. Why is your plugin better then……fill in the blank of any other backup program…… For instance BackWPup or Backup Buddy or….?

Bob: Aside the cost advantage we have, we know that Duplicator Pro is the simplest, easiest to use backup/move product available on the WordPress market.

Usability is where Cory really excels. If you’ve used Duplicator Free before you’ll know how incredibly simple and polished it is. Cory is a perfectionist when it comes to making things as usable as possible and we feel that it shows.

Many other products out there can do a great job functionally, but we’re confident that for the people that just want to get in to the product, instantly know how to use it and then take comfort knowing that it will do what they want it to do, Duplicator Pro is second to none.

To get a taste for that we recommend you check out Duplicator Free and compare it with other products in the WordPress market. Duplicator Pro gives you that same great experience, but with more powerful features.

Aside from the simplicity and polish aspect, one of our competitive advantages is that we personally have a proven track record as a development team who knows how to put out great products and we take a lot of pride in our creations. Cory and I have worked together for years in the world of corporate software development and have just recently branched out doing Duplicator Pro together.

Knowing the people behind the product should give customers confidence. We can afford to give customers that personal attention rather than just make them feel like like another anonymous person quickly forgotten after the purchase is complete – which often happens when you deal with a larger company.

Thanks to Bob and Cory for creating Duplicator Pro!

I have made video tutorials of Duplicator from just after the first version was released in April of 2012 and have helped thousands of users showing them how to clone and migrate sites using Duplicator.

Check out my Duplicator tutorial videos

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