Looking for WordPress staging plugins so that you can easily set up a safe test environment for your WordPress site?
To put it simply, a staging site is a clone of your live website residing in your own desktop, host server, or the WordPress staging plugin’s server. It’s a testing ground where you can safely try out changes, and is commonly used in the development process of any website. Since it’s not accessible to the public nor for indexing by search engines, you can work away from the public eye.
In this post, we share five free and paid plugins that you can use to create a WordPress staging site. Let’s dig in…
📚 Table of contents:
Five best WordPress staging plugins
1. BlogVault
BlogVault is primarily an automatic off-site WordPress backup solution, but it also offers a built-in staging feature. It’s easy to create a development site for WordPress, with one-click clones setup on BlogVault servers.
Price 💰
The staging feature is included with any BlogVault plan. There’s a seven-day free trial, and plans start $7.40 to $ 20.75 per month for a single site, depending on the features that you need. Prices go up from there for additional sites.
Number of websites 🖥️
The number of websites depends on your plan. BlogVault offers pre-set plans for one, five, and 20 websites. If you need staging sites for additional websites, you can opt for the Agency plans.
Ease of use 🧑💻
One-click staging from a central dashboard, sets up staging sites in less than 10 seconds. After testing, merge changes selectively or fully, in just two clicks.
Other key features ⚙️
- Webmail and Google indexing automatically stopped for staging sites
- Flexible access via SFTP and phpMyAdmin
- Possible to check live and staging site simultaneously to compare changes
- Passwords to protect all staging copies and HTTP authentication to prevent unauthorized access
- Works with any host and with any number of sites
BlogVault allows use on multiple sites across multiple hosts, so it’s ideal for smooth management of client sites.
2. WP Staging
WP Staging creates an exact copy of your website in a subfolder of your main WordPress installation. The distinctive orange admin bar on top constantly reminds you that you’re working on the staging site.
Price 💰
There’s a free version that lets you clone your website. That is, you can use your live site to create a staging site for free.
However, to do the reverse and move your staging site to your live site or, to clone to an external database, subdomain, custom subdomain or custom target directory, you need to choose pro packages. There’s a one-time purchase fee ranging from $89 to $499. This fee also covers an optional free transfer of your website to another domain or host.
Number of websites 🖥️
Depending on the license you purchase, from one to a hundred sites. Files can reside in any folder or custom path in your own server.
Ease of use 🧑💻
Create staging sites with just a click, and fast cloning. Select files and database tables you want to push to the live site.
Other features ⚙️
- Great for large websites
- Staging site needs login credentials for access
- Can also define user roles that can access the site
- Compatible with WordPress multisite
- Works with small shared servers
This plugin is ideal for large websites that want to set up clones quickly with just a click.
3. InstaWP Connect
InstaWP Connect is a WordPress staging and migration plugin that helps you with various tasks such as testing plugins or themes, creating product demos, delivering client projects, and enhancing overall WordPress workflows. This plugin was designed with this goal in mind – to accelerate your WordPress staging process, allowing you to complete it in a matter of seconds.
Price 💰
InstaWP Connect is entirely free if you don’t need more than three websites, one template, and 1 GB of disk space. If you want to upgrade for advanced functionality, prices start at $6 per month and go up to $59 per month.
Number of websites 🖥️
The free version of the plugin lets you build three temporary staging websites. In the premium versions, you can create from five to 50 websites.
Ease of use 🧑💻
InstaWP Connect simplifies staging for WordPress sites. After clicking “Create Site” and connecting to your InstaWP account, you can choose from three options: Quick, Custom, or Full Staging with a single click.
The process takes minutes, and your staging site is accessible in the InstaWP dashboard. Here, you can do things like testing, development, editing, cloning, and migration before implementing changes on your live site.
Other features ⚙️
- Create three types of staging sites: quick, custom, and full
- Have an InstaWP dashboard where you can auto-login to your sites
- Two-way sync – from staging to production and vice-versa
- Monitor the status of the actions performed during the synchronization
- Play with Remote Management securely (File Manager, Database Manager, Plugin / Themes Installer)
- Check info about your site’s health
- Connect and disconnect live WordPress websites via your dashboard
InstaWP Connect is good for you if you need to test, develop, and migrate various things in WordPress, such as demos, plugins, themes, client work, and more.
4. Duplicator
Duplicator is not one among WordPress staging plugins in a true sense. However, as it’s great for cloning, backup, and migration, you can just as well create a clone and move it to a staging location.
Price 💰
There’s a free version of Duplicator, but the free version can only handle sites up to 500 MB. There’s no such limit in the Pro plans which start at $59, with one year of support and updates.
Number of websites 🖥️
Three sites on the Basic Plan (Pro), with no limit in the highest plan. The staging sites reside on your servers. For cloud storage and to use FTP, you’ll need to upgrade.
Ease of use 🧑💻
Duplicator is easy to use and migrates websites back and forth smoothly. Small changes to live site involve copy/pasting files or sections, or making simple edits to code. Large scale changes, requires a reverse process of creating a staging site. If you have an intermediate number of changes, you’ll need to selectively copy files and push them to the live site.
Other key features ⚙️
- Can move the sites to an empty location or overwrite live sites
- Scans the site for potential issues before making packages of it
- Installer helps create databases and users easily
- Easy to create pre-configured sites and push them to as many WordPress compatible locations as you want
Interaction with the wizard makes Duplicator easy to work with. It’s a good choice for larger websites as it migrates files smoothly.
5. All-in-One WP Migration
As the name suggests, All-in-One WP Migration is primarily a migration plugin. But what makes it suitable for staging is that you can make duplicates of your website and drag them to your desktop. While making a copy of your website, you have the option to exclude files such as spam comments and database, as well as find and replace anything you want such as username.
Price 💰
There’s a free version of All-in-One WP Migration, but the free version can only handle sites up to 512 MB. Paid extensions are available that support larger file sizes, multisite and more.
Number of websites 🖥️
Can install the free plugin on any number of websites on your own server. Cloud storage is a premium feature.
Ease of use 🧑💻
Though it involves some work on your part, the drag and drop feature makes it easy to move files/websites. You can also move sites in both directions, though it requires some manual effort.
Other features ⚙️
- Breaks up your website into chunks to overcome upload/download file size restrictions
- Works by overwriting everything on the live site
- Use original site credentials to log in to staging site
- Backup is created for every export for later use (Pro)
Final thoughts on WordPress staging plugins 🏁
While there’s no doubting the utility of these plugins, picking one that’s right for you is based directly on your specific requirement:
- BlogVault comes with built-in automatic backups as well.
- WP Staging Pro is free to clone, though not to push changes to live site.
- InstaWP Connect is free for WordPress testing, migrating, developing, cloning, editing, and more.
- Duplicator needs you to monitor the entire process and select files to replace.
- All-in-One WP Migration is a completely free option for smaller websites.
While some of the plugins are truly one-click, others may need you to monitor and select files on your part.
For a more hands-on look, we also have a tutorial on how to create a WordPress staging site using two methods:
- The WP Staging plugin that we discussed above.
- Manually using WP Migrate DB.
Another option for creating a safe test environment would be to use a local development environment. You can create one with tools such as:
Finally, if you don’t want to use a plugin, most managed WordPress hosts include built-in staging features. Moving to a cheap managed WordPress host could be a much simpler way to get access staging.
Do you have any questions about how to choose a WordPress staging plugin for your site? Ask us in the comments!
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