How to link backups to an external storage device

I use Softaculous on all my servers, and with that comes a free licence for Backuply. As long as you're not running an ARM server, this is a very cost effective solution for backing up and works very well. (prices start from $2 a month per server) I actually prefer it over software i've tried in past like JetBackup (for example). For transparency, I use local servers and also offsite datacentre backup storage and Backuply works perfectly.

You can use DA's built in backup features and use FTP/SCP from the Admin panel but i've found that problematic in past (personally). I know @zEitEr wrote a tutorial on how to setup backups with FTP somewhere in the forum/docs so it might pay you to search that out. Here's the options DA give you if you want to use their backup to remote options 😊

Site backups:


Admin Backups:

Thank you.

How do I install it Softaculous?

Please provide the source code to download this program.

No worries, And apologies, it starts from $1.50 a month, or $12 a year for VPS. Price I put above was for Dedicated servers, again, fantastic value.

Here you go, you start here:

Pricing – Softaculous

once you've registered and bought a licence, visit this link:

Installing Softaculous in Directadmin

It has all the required IPs to whitelist in your firewall, and installation instructions. Takes ~2 mins to add the IPs and run install script. When you've installed, it will appear in your DA panel as Softaculous Auto Installer, and Backuply.

Thank you, it will be tested.

When you have a Softaculous license, you can also get Backuply for free if I'm not mistaken.

If it's only for admin, then you don't need Softaculous but you can also use the build in FTP option to an external server.

Quoted from Guest on Wednesday, 04 February 2026

When you have a Softaculous license, you can also get Backuply for free if I'm not mistaken.

If it's only for admin, then you don't need Softaculous but you can also use the build in FTP option to an external server.

You're right. If you have a VPS, you can pick it up for $1.50 a month, or $12 a year and backuply is totally free with it Richard. I have a few servers running Webuzo rather than DA also, and that also comes with free premium softaculous and free backuply.

The added bonuses of Softaculous with DA as well I found was the extra premium plugins were free for Wordpress, like Loginizer (Brute force protection) File Manager, GoSMTP etc, all plugins you would have to pay for without softaculous 😊

Yep, we're already using Softaculous for more than a decade now. It works great on DA, has great support too, now it has the free Backuply also with a year license, and it's a lot cheaper than Installatron, and better too I might add.

Quoted from Guest on Wednesday, 04 February 2026

Yep, we're already using Softaculous for more than a decade now. It works great on DA, has great support too, now it has the free Backuply also with a year license, and it's a lot cheaper than Installatron, and better too I might add.

I totally agree. We tried Installatron, and I really didn't like the UI or the feel of the software. Yes it'll have its customer base somewhere, and i'm not slating it, it does what it's supposed to, but it just didn't fit for my company. Same for JetBackup and a few panels I tried and binned.

Softaculous is great. Additionally, they bought several wordpress plugins in the past, and give them now for free inside the softaculous server license:

CookieAdmin Pro https://cookieadmin.net/
Loginizer Pro https://loginizer.com/
GoSMTP https://gosmtp.net/
FileOrganizer https://fileorganizer.net/
SoftWP https://softwp.net/
SpeedyCache https://speedycache.com/
SiteSEO Pro https://siteseo.io/

(I like specially the CookieAdmin Pro, great Cookie Plugin, GDPR ok, much less work then with other wp cookie plugins)

In my case, for cloud storage like google obj or aws s3 or cloudflare r2, I just mount storage to private directory via "admin" account.

Then backup using FTP option to that directory.