AI Plugin Leaderboard · Backup · September 2026
Which WordPress backup plugins do ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode recommend?
UpdraftPlus was named first in all 9 answers, on all three engines. It is the most consistent result anywhere on this leaderboard. The largest plugin in the category on wordpress.org was named twice.
The leaderboard
Sorted by how many of the nine answers named the plugin, then by its average position when it was named. Position is the order of first mention in the answer; the C · P · G column shows how many of the three ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode answers named it.
| # | Plugin | Named in | C · P · G | Avg. pos. | First |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UpdraftPlus | 9 of 9 | 3 · 3 · 3 | 1.0 | 9 |
| 2 | WPvivid | 8 of 9 | 2 · 3 · 3 | 3.2 | 0 |
| 3 | Duplicator | 7 of 9 | 2 · 3 · 2 | 2.9 | 0 |
| 4 | BlogVault | 6 of 9 | 2 · 2 · 2 | 3.3 | 0 |
| 5 | BackWPup | 3 of 9 | 1 · 1 · 1 | 3.3 | 0 |
| 6 | Jetpack Backup / VaultPress | 2 of 9 | 1 · 1 · 0 | 3.5 | 0 |
| 7 | All-in-One WP Migration | 2 of 9 | 0 · 0 · 2 | 3.5 | 0 |
| 8 | Migrate Guru | 2 of 9 | 1 · 0 · 1 | 5.0 | 0 |
| 9 | Solid Backups (BackupBuddy) | 1 of 9 | 0 · 1 · 0 | 3.0 | 0 |
What stands out
- UpdraftPlus: 9 of 9, first in 9 of 9. No other category has a leader that settled.
- All-in-One WP Migration has 5,000,000+ active installs and was named in 2 of 9 answers, both on Google AI Mode. ChatGPT and Perplexity did not name it at all.
- WPvivid outranks its install count. Named in 8 of 9 answers with about 900,000 installs, ahead of Duplicator (7 of 9) and BlogVault (6 of 9).
- Backuply has 600,000+ installs and was named in none.
Which sites the engines read for this category
Domains that appeared as a source, counted once per answer. For Perplexity and Google AI Mode this is the full source list the answer shows; for ChatGPT it is the retrieval set stored with the conversation, which is larger than the handful of citations it displays (Run 05 explains the gap).
| Domain | Answers | Engines |
|---|---|---|
| wordpress.org | 8 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity |
| duplicator.com | 5 of 9 | ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity |
| teamupdraft.com | 4 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| webcarestudios.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| safeguard.verdelic.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT |
| fs-poster.com | 3 of 9 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| seoquirk.com | 3 of 9 | Perplexity |
| searchwp.com | 3 of 9 | Google AI Mode |
| deliciousbrains.com | 3 of 9 | Google AI Mode |
| youtube.com | 3 of 9 | Google AI Mode |
Big on wordpress.org, quiet in AI answers
Active installs are the ranges wordpress.org publishes, pulled from its public API on 17 September 2026. Installs are not quality, but a plugin this widely used being absent tells you the engines are not reading the directory to decide.
| Plugin | Active installs | Named in |
|---|---|---|
| All-in-One WP Migration | 5,000,000+ | 2 of 9 |
| UpdraftPlus | 3,000,000+ | 9 of 9 |
| Duplicator | 1,000,000+ | 7 of 9 |
| WPvivid | 900,000+ | 8 of 9 |
| Backuply | 600,000+ | 0 of 9 |
| BackWPup | 400,000+ | 3 of 9 |
How this was measured
Three prompts, each put to ChatGPT (temporary chat, unpersonalized, web search on), Perplexity and Google AI Mode on 17 September 2026. The wording is taken from Google autocomplete, so these are phrasings people actually type:
best wordpress backup and migration pluginbest backup and restore plugin for wordpressbest wordpress backup plugin free
Plugin names were matched against a fixed candidate list, so the counting is mechanical rather than a judgement call. Treat a difference of one answer, or of one position, as noise: when the same prompt goes to the same engine twice, only about three quarters of the named products repeat (Run 01). The next update uses different real phrasings from the same autocomplete set, because repeating an identical prompt returns a cached source list (Run 04).
Is your backup plugin in these answers?
Send me your wordpress.org slug, or your product URL if you are not in the directory. I will run your category on all three engines and tell you which ones name you, which sites they read instead, and what that points to. Free, no call.
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