While our offering dedicated to web agencies presents the strategic benefits of our solution, this article goes into detail on the technical workings of backup over file transfer protocols.

For an agency administrator, mastering FTP/SFTP backup is the key to ensuring fast restores without depending on the limited tools of shared hosting providers.

1. Understanding the flow: FTP vs SFTP

The principle relies on a remote agent that connects to your hosting storage space (OVH, o2switch, AWS, etc.) to replicate the data to our secure servers.

  • Standard FTP: Effective, but credentials are sent in clear text. Best reserved for very specific environments.

  • SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol): This is the standard we recommend. The connection is encrypted, ensuring that no data or password can be intercepted during the transfer.

2. The database challenge (MySQL / MariaDB)

A standard FTP backup only copies files (.php, .jpg, .css). Yet a dynamic website (WordPress, PrestaShop) cannot work without its database.

The technical "how" at Kiwi Backup: Rather than performing a simple manual "dump", our solution can be configured to automate the SQL export before the transfer. This guarantees perfect consistency between the files (e.g. the uploads folder) and the database at the time of the backup.

3. Optimization: incremental vs differential backup

For agencies managing dozens of websites, bandwidth and execution time are critical.

  • Block mode: Our technology identifies and transfers only the modified parts of files.

  • The result: Even for an e-commerce site with thousands of images, the daily backup cycle remains extremely light and fast, with no impact on the performance of your production web server.

4. Configuring "Exclude Patterns"

In an agency, you don't want to waste storage on unnecessary files. Through our interface, you can technically define exclusion rules:

  • Exclude cache folders (/wp-content/cache/).

  • Ignore large log files (.log).

  • Leave out temporary development files.

5. Granular restore: surgical precision

The advantage of a well-structured FTP backup is its restore capability. If a developer accidentally overwrites a functions.php file or a configuration file, you don't need to restore the site's 10 GB. You browse the backup tree and restore only the file concerned in a matter of seconds.