Automattic, the company behind the best blogging platform in the world, WordPress, is generating some buzz for its new blog back-up service, VaultPress. The announcement about the service came in March this year (2010). Matt Mullenweg also published a blog post about it.
After the initial hubbub died down things went a bit quiet. That changed a couple of day ago when VaultPress started issuing Golden Tickets (invites) to people on the mailing list. If you are not yet on the list you can sign up here.
The system works through the VaultPress plugin which you install and manage the same way as all WordPress plugins. Users can login to the VaultPress Dashboard to verify their backups.
VaultPress is in the very early stages of development at this time and it doesn’t look like the service will be free. The initial costs are $15 per month per blog/site for the Basic service and $40 per month per blog/site for the Premium service.
When you complete the sign up form (to get on the mailing list) you can specify how much you would pay for the service. The default amount is $10. This indicates that VaultPress will eventually be priced based upon the feedback gathered during the beta period.
I am sure people who value their blogs and dread the thought of losing everything to the hands of a hacker or an unrecoverable server crash would be prepared to say a small monthly fee to know their hours of work is in safe hands, but is $15/$40 per month per blog/site too much for you? Are you happy to use one of the free backup plugins instead?
Making us fear for the worst to make money it’s terrible but true.If I was making a few $$$ a month I would consider paying but even $10 a month is too much for what I earn blogging. I download my blog every so often and back it up on my server there is always the WordPress import, export function to save your content and upload it to a new installation.
Hi Roezer,
I can see this service being useful to a lot of people, but I can also see the monthly fee putting off a lot of people. Especially when backups can be done for free using plugins. It may take longer to recover and get everything up and running again if the worst does happen, but the only cost will be time.
Initially I liked the idea of VaultPress, but the monthly fee has put me off. I have a few little blogs that don’t warrant the cost, but if I could bundle them together and pay for space (like you do with hosting) rather than per blog, I might be tempted to give it a go.
I backup everyday and have the database emailed to me. I have found the import/export function to be unreliable (although I have only used it twice).
On my tech blog, i am using free wp-backup plugin and it is working fine for me,so i might not use it.
Thanks for the update – a lot of newer “bloggers” will find even $10/mth to be a little rich when just starting out. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Plugins such as the wp-backup mentioned above make securing data dead simple. I don’t think I would pay upwards of $10 for such a service
Thanks for your comments. I have to agree with you. I received my VP invite a few days ago but I haven’t used it. The price at the moment is $15 (which is discounted from $20 for beta testers). If it was $10 I might consider it, but I think at $15 (per blog) it is just too much, especially when, as you say, there are plugins that do a similar job for free.