Posted by: Mike Isaacs
04 August 2025
A backup is only helpful if it's recent enough to protect critical data. For Umbraco hosting, setting the right backup frequency is essential for safeguarding content, media and business continuity. This guide explains how often you should back up an Umbraco site, the difference between database and media backups, and compares Azure Umbraco hosting with Umbraco Cloud backup strategies.
At a glance
- Why backup frequency matters for Umbraco hosting
- Best practices for database and media backups
- Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud backup automation
- Real-world backup scenarios and ROI impact
- How Growcreate delivers backup strategies for enterprise Umbraco platforms
Table of contents
- Why does backup frequency matter for Umbraco hosting?
- How often should you back up an Umbraco site?
- Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud backups
- Real-world scenarios
- ROI and operational impact
- How Growcreate manages Umbraco backup strategies
Why does backup frequency matter for Umbraco hosting?
The backup frequency defines your Recovery Point Objective (RPO) – the amount of data you can afford to lose. For content-heavy Umbraco sites or transactional platforms, a daily backup may still result in losing hours of updates or customer data.
A smart backup strategy balances:
- Risk tolerance: How much data loss your business can absorb.
- Cost and storage: More frequent backups require more resources.
- Restore speed: Smaller, incremental backups restore faster than full snapshots.
How often should you back up an Umbraco site?
Best practices vary by site type, but general guidance is:
- Enterprise Umbraco platforms:
- Database: Hourly or every few hours
- Media: Daily, with incremental options for large libraries
- Corporate marketing sites:
- Database: Daily
- Media: Weekly or daily, depending on content changes
- E-commerce or campaign sites:
- Database: Hourly during peak trading or campaign periods
- Media: Daily with rapid restore capability
Testing matters as much as frequency – a backup is only valuable if you can restore it quickly and without data corruption.
Azure Umbraco hosting vs Umbraco Cloud backups
Growcreate configures backup strategies for both Azure Umbraco hosting and Umbraco Cloud.
Feature comparison
| Attribute | Azure Umbraco Hosting | Umbraco Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Backup frequency | Fully configurable (hourly, daily, weekly, custom) | Automated daily backups included in all plans |
| Database backups | Point-in-time restore with Azure SQL | Full database snapshots managed by Umbraco Cloud |
| Media backups | Blob storage snapshots with incremental options | Media library backed up with site snapshots |
| Retention policies | Custom retention periods based on compliance requirements | Managed retention according to Umbraco Cloud policies |
| Restore testing | Staging environment restores for validation | Managed restore testing via Umbraco Deploy |
Real-world scenarios
1. Hourly backups protect financial data
A financial services Umbraco platform scheduled hourly database backups in Azure. During a failed content import, the database was rolled back 45 minutes with zero data loss.
2. Large media library incremental backups
A global corporate site with a 200GB media library used Azure blob incremental backups, reducing backup times by 80% and allowing fast partial restores.
3. Umbraco Cloud automated restore
A charity site using Umbraco Cloud restored to the previous day’s backup in under 30 minutes after a content error, avoiding downtime and lost work.
ROI and operational impact
| Business Factor | Azure Umbraco Hosting | Umbraco Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Data loss prevention | Hourly backups minimise RPO to <1 hour | Daily backups minimise RPO to 24 hours |
| Cost control | Configurable schedules balance cost vs risk | Fixed daily backups included in subscription |
| Compliance | Custom retention meets regulatory requirements | Managed retention within Umbraco Cloud framework |
| Team workload | Requires monitoring or managed service | Fully managed backup automation reduces internal overhead |
How Growcreate manages Umbraco backup strategies
- Custom backup schedules: Tailored to match business risk and content update patterns.
- Geo-redundant storage: Azure cross-region backups to protect against regional outages.
- Staging restore testing: Regularly validate backups for integrity and speed.
- Hybrid options: Combine Umbraco Cloud daily backups with Azure incremental snapshots for added resilience.
- 24/7 SLA-backed recovery: Engineering support for urgent restores at any time.
Book a quick call to see how a tailored Umbraco hosting backup frequency strategy can protect your data and keep your platform resilient.
FAQs
Enterprise sites should back up databases hourly and media daily. Marketing sites can use daily database backups and weekly media snapshots.
Yes, Umbraco Cloud includes automated daily backups and a managed restore process.
Not natively. For more granular schedules, Azure hosting provides configurable backup frequency.
For regulated industries, retention can range from 30 days to several years. Azure allows custom policies; Umbraco Cloud manages retention internally.