Starting early 2021 we will be offering a new staging alternative - WordPress Toolkit. There are a number of things that are important to know before you proceed. Note that we no longer provide or support WP Stagecoach.
Because no staging site service is perfect, you must contact us in order to have the staging site created. Likewise, you should contact us if/when you are ready to deploy the staging site to live. There are some things which WordPress Toolkit does not do which can cause some lingering issues until resolved.
WordPress Toolkit
The WordPress Toolkit (Deluxe) feature is a service within cPanel which allows for smooth, effortless creation of staging sites.
Benefits:
- Built into cPanel
- Easy to use
- Low risk of encountering errors
- Is an exact clone of live site (meaning images can also be resized)
Disadvantages:
- Post table modifications cannot be merged. This means that you cannot edit posts both in the live site AND in the staging site and then merge all the changes together. You can however selectively deploy specific tables (i.e. exclude posts, comments etc) so if you have worked on posts in the staging site, and received comments in the live site, you can deploy everything except the comments tables in the database
Ideal use case scenario:
- This service is recommended in cases where you make NO changes on the live site while the staging site is being worked on, or at the minimum, receive comments, which can be excluded (and thus not overwritten) from the staging site deployment. It is also recommended in cases where you need to test plugin updates and similar.
Questions?
If you have questions about WordPress Toolkit and how it can best be leveraged for your project it's recommended to reach out to your developer, or get in touch with us and we can advise!