WordPress Staging Plugins are a popular combination with backup plugins, but what are they and do you need them? Whether you’re looking to update your website, create a new look for your site, or are starting a brand new site and aren’t sure how to proceed, creating a staging site is always a great place to start.
One of the most dangerous things you can do when trying to update your website is to go in blindly and make changes without being sure they will work.
A staging environment is a clone of your live site that allows you to make changes to your site in a separate installation so that your public website and content remain intact. This ensures that if a plugin update goes wrong and there is a critical WordPress error, you can troubleshoot it without your users seeing it.
If you make edits directly to the website, your visitors may experience these changes, leaving your visitors wondering if they can trust your site. But with a staging site, you can set up exactly what you want, test the changes to make sure they work, and then push them to your real website.
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What is a staging site?
Before we begin, let’s talk about website staging in general. A staging website is an exact copy of your website that cannot be viewed by the general public on the Internet. This allows you to be able to make changes to the site while your original website is still live and intact.
You can experiment with new styles, layouts, themes, and plugins without worrying if they’ll break your existing site. Once everything looks the way you like it and works perfectly, you can upgrade your website to the new version.
How to choose a WordPress staging plugin
Many web hosting services offer built-in staging sites that you can access, but that’s not the only option. Using a staging WordPress plugin is another safe choice for your site.
The main thing to look out for in plugins is how recently it was updated by the developer, as you want to make sure it is compatible with your version of WordPress. If you are using a staging plugin to update a site that is not compatible with the latest version of WordPress or PHP, we recommend creating a subdomain staging environment as this will not cause issues with the parent site’s PHP version.
Another important aspect will be user satisfaction and usability. A good plugin will be user-friendly and support problems. Viewing the number of active installs and reviews on WordPress.org can help you narrow down your search.
Finally, one thing to remember is to research to ensure that the plugin has not had more than one security vulnerability reported in the last 12 months of your search. And this vulnerability was quickly removed by the developer of the plugin.
The best plugins for WordPress staging
Total maintenance
Total maintenance is a powerful all-in-one manager for your WordPress site. TotalUpkeep is a BoldGrid plugin that allows you to back up your website. These backups can be used to manually create a staging site. You will need to install the plugin on your staging domain to restore the backup from the dashboard; However, you will have an identical copy of your main site after installation and recovery.
If you already have WordPress installed on the new staging destination and depending on the size of your site, cloning your site only takes a few minutes.
Why choose this module?
- Over 100,000 active WordPress installations
- Tested up to WordPress version 6.0.2
- One-click Staging installation
- 4.7 out of 5 stars rating on WordPress.org
UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is a plugin that also mainly serves as a backup solution. It allows you to create a staging site on their servers, this option requires the purchase of UpdraftTokens. However, these tokens are cheaper than UpdraftPlus Premium, giving you the choice to buy them as a subscription or as a one-time purchase.
The backup features allow you to backup and restore to a new WordPress installation (a manual clone), although you can purchase their UpdraftMigratorwhich gives you the ability to migrate or clone your site to your server rather than UpdraftPlus.
Why choose this module?
- Over 3 million active WordPress installations
- Tested up to WordPress version 6.0.2
- One-click Staging installation
- 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 star rating on WordPress.org
WP staging
WP staging is one of the most popular WordPress staging plugins. It will clone your site in seconds (although this may vary depending on the size of your website and file types) and once it’s done, it will let you access your staging copy. The main difference between staging and parent sites is the bright orange settings bar at the top of your dashboard, rather than the classic gray one.
WP Staging has a Pro licensewhich can be purchased for additional capabilities such as one-click access to staging, backup and recovery services.
Why choose this module?
- Over 60,000 active WordPress installations
- Tested up to WordPress 6.3
- One-click Staging installation (and removal)
- Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars on WordPress.org
- Backup capabilities (pro version)
WPVivid
WPVivid backup plugin Does more than just backups. He has Premium features, but most of the main aspects of the plugin are free. The interface is easy to read and has the necessary options to set up your domain’s test site in a different subfolder with other features such as creating a new database user and prefix to share the same database as your installation or a completely new one. database on your server.
WPvivid also has the option to set your staging under a subdomain (ie staging.yourdomain.com) from your current WordPress dashboard, making the process easier than manually cloning your website.
Why choose this module?
- Over 100,000 active WordPress installations
- Tested up to WordPress version 5.9.3
- One-click Staging installation
- Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars on WordPress.org
All-in-One WP Migration
All-in-One WP Migration It is basically a plugin used to migrate sites between servers; However, it can be used as a staging plugin by downloading the backup created by their plugin and restoring it to a new directory, such as a subdomain or plugin domain, where WordPress is already installed. The plugin allows you to send backups to other servers or download them directly from your WordPress Dashboard.
Certain aspects of the plugin require extensions from ServMask, this includes using services like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. To store backups. However, you can still download the files locally and restore them with the plugin to manually clone the setup to another installation.
Why choose this module?
- Over 5 million active WordPress installations
- Tested up to WordPress 6.0.2
- Migration for manual staging
- 4.6 out of 5 stars rating on WordPress.org
final thoughts
Using a WordPress staging plugin before making changes to your live site is a great way to test out new plugins and themes on your website without risking any bugs. Since backup plugins are a popular combination with staging plugins, we recommend looking for a good backup plugin that fits your website.
