What is the best / simplest staging/dev environment plugin for WordPress on your mind?
I want to be able to have a simple way of editing a live site without changing the actual site. Maybe on a subdomain or with special links etc. And then push the changes to the live site once ready.
How do you achieve that in your workflow? It would also be great for trying out plugins etc
Local by Flywheel is probably the most all-in-one solution for local WP development, and migrate everything up from there manually or with a plugin
I’ve been using [All in One WP Migration]) since 2015 and it’s the perfect solution for that workflow; if you have access to your server’s File Manager, you can create a backup in the source site, download the backup file, and upload it to the target site; the backup will then appear in the target site’s admin area for you to restore.
I use the Premium extension (Save to Disk) to download the backup to my computer because I like to have an archive of all the sites I create; this way, I can completely rebuild the entire site updated to the most recent backup in less than an hour for a 2GB site.
My workflow is this:
* Create a subdomain such as [dev.example.com]) or [staging.example.com]) or even a subdomain in a different domain/server, i.e.: [example.mydevserver.com])
* Develop in the subdomain site.
* Install AIO Migration Plugin.
* Export the site using the AIO Migration to Disk Extension.
* Download the file.
* Create my production environment for the live site [example.com]). Install fresh WordPress.
* Install AIO Migration Plugin and the Extension.
* Import site from disk.
* Select previously downloaded file.
* When the Importing finish the new site will be ready, they recommend you to go to the site Settings – Permalinks and just click save twice.
The plugin handles renaming all database references to the correct URL.
You can repeat that process as many times as necessary; the ideal scenario would be to keep both sites synchronized, which you can do by exporting from the most recently updated site to the other.
Isn’t this exactly what Git does?
I always use AIO, works great!
The free version is enough for me (you can edit the constants.php file, to increase the size to whatever you like).
Just create a subdomain, get WordPress installed, AIO, and upload your copy. After your done, you can then just revert this process to upload the edited copy to the live website.
Or you can just check with your hosting company if they have a tool for staging website, most of them do.