WP Staging

Plugin updates and theme customizations should be tested on a staging / backup platform before applying them on the production website.
Usually, it’s recommended having the staging / backup platform on an identical server like the production server. You can only catch all possible errors during testing with the same hardware and software environment for your test & backup website.

So, before you update a plugin or install a new one, it is highly recommended to check out the modifications on a clone / backup of your production website.
That ensures that any modifications work on your production website without throwing unexpected errors or preventing your site from loading, better known as the “WordPress blank page error.”

Testing a plugin update before installing it in a production environment isn’t done very often by most users because existing staging solutions are too complex and need a lot of time to create a
an up-to-date copy of your website.

You could be afraid of installing plugins updates because you follow “never touch a running system.” You know that untested updates increase the risk of breaking your site.

That’s is one of the main reasons WordPress installations are often outdated, not updated at all, and insecure because of this non-update behavior.

It’s time to change this, so there is no easier way than using “WP STAGING” for cloning, backup, and migration of your WordPress website.

Install WP STAGING backup via the admin dashboard. Go to ‘Plugins’, click ‘Add New’ and search the plugins for ‘WP STAGING’. Install the plugin with ‘Install Now’.
After installation, go to WP STAGING > Staging Sites and create your first staging / backup site

Even though you can use WP STAGING for backup purposes, the free version is not a usual backup plugin per the general definition. WP STAGING creates a clone of your entire website, which you can immediately use for developing and testing.
You can even use it as some kind of backup in case something happens to your production site, but only the WP STAGING | PRO pro version allows you to download the backup to your local computer. There are many other popular backup plugins out there. Still, our goal is to bring the reliability and performance of a backup plugin to a new level.

So instead of offering our backup feature free of charge, we think it’s time to provide a full-fledged premium backup solution with enterprise code quality affordable for everyone.

Video: How we run automated tests on WP STAGING

Note: WP STAGING | PRO provides more advanced backup functionality compared with the below-mentioned backup plugins. The speed and Performance of WP STAGING’s backup feature often exceed even the most prominent and most well-established backup plugins.

We are now adding more advanced backup features to deliver what other existing backup plugins are still missing.

You may have heard about other popular backup plugins like All in one Migration, BackWPUp, BackupWordPress, Simple Backup, WordPress Backup to Dropbox, or similar WordPress backup plugins and now wonder about the difference between WP STAGING and those backup tools.

Other backup plugins usually create a backup of your WordPress filesystem and a database backup that you can use to restore your website if it becomes corrupted or you want to go back in time to a previous state.

The backup files are compressed and can not be executed directly. WP STAGING, on the other hand, creates a full backup of the whole file system and the database in a working state that you can open like your original production website.

Even though WP STAGING’s basic version comes with some backup capabilities, its main purpose is to create a clone of your website, which you can work on. It harmonies very well with all the mentioned backup plugins above. If you go with the WP STAGING | PRO version, you will get the backup functionality of the mentioned above backup plugins.

Note, that some free backup plugins are not able to support custom tables. (For instance, the free version of Updraft plus backup plugin). In that case, your backup plugin is not able to create a backup of your staging site when it is executed on the production site.
The reason is that the tables created by WP STAGING are custom tables beginning with another table prefix.
To bypass this limitation and to be able to create a backup of your staging site, you can set up your backup plugin on the staging site and create the backup from that location. That works well with every available WordPress backup plugin.

If you want to migrate your local website to an already existing production site, you can use our pro version WP STAGING | PRO or a tool like WP Migrate DB that copies only the database.
WP STAGING is intended to create a staging site with the latest data from your production site or create a backup of it.

We like the Duplicator plugin. Even though Duplicator is not as fast as WP STAGING for creating a backup, it’s still is a great tool for migrating from a development site to production one or from production site to development one. Overall it’s a good tool to create a backup of your WordPress website.
The downside is that before you can even create an export or backup file with Duplicator, a lot of adjustments, manual interventions, and requirements are needed before you can start the backup process.
The backup plugin Duplicator also needs some skills to be able to create a backup and development/staging site. In contrast, WP STAGING does not need more than a click from you to create a backup or staging site.
Duplicator is best placed to be a tool for the first-time creation of your production site. That is something where it is convenient and powerful.

If you have created a local or web-hosted development site and you need to migrate that site the first time to your production domain, you do nothing wrong by using
the Duplicator plugin! If you need all your latest production data like posts, updated plugins, theme data, and styles in a testing environment or want to create a quick backup before testing out something, then we recommend using WP STAGING instead!

If speed, performance, and code quality are a matter for you as well, give WP STAGING a try.

If you are using a security plugin like Wordfence, iThemes Security, All In One WP Security & Firewall, or a plugin that hides the WordPress default login URL, make sure that you have installed the latest version of WP STAGING to access your cloned backup site.
Suppose you can still not log in to your staging / backup site. In that case, you can go to WP STAGING > settings and disable there the WP STAGING extra authentication. Your admin dashboard will still be protected and not accessible to public users.

Permalinks are disabled on the staging / backup site after first time cloning / backup creation
Read here how to activate permalinks on the staging site.

The pro version of WP STAGING can backup your whole WordPress website. (In the future, we are implementing a basic free version of our sophisticated backup feature into this free version as well)
With this backup function, you can backup and copy your entire WordPress website to another domain, new host, or new server very easily, and often faster and more reliable than with any other existing backup plugins.
Have a look at [https://wp-staging.com/docs/how-to-migrate-your-wordpress-site-to-a-new-host/](this article), that introduces the backup feature.

We have translated WP STAGING into five languages nearly completely:

English: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress Plugin. Backup & Migrate WordPress websites.
French: Plugin WordPress de sauvegarde et de duplication WP STAGING. Sauvegarder et migrer les sites Web WordPress.
German: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress Plugin. Migrate WordPress Webseiten.
Spanish: WP STAGING Complemento de copia de seguridad y duplicador de WordPress. Copia de seguridad y migración de sitios web de WordPress.

The following languages have been partially translated. You can help us with the translation:

Croatian: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress dodatak. Izradite sigurnosnu kopiju i migrirajte WordPress web stranice.
Dutch: WP STAGING Back-up & Duplicator WordPress-plug-in. Back-up en migratie van WordPress-websites.
Finnish: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress-laajennus. Varmuuskopioi ja siirrä WordPress-verkkosivustoja.
Greek: WP STAGING Πρόσθετο WordPress Backup & Duplicator. Δημιουργία αντιγράφων ασφαλείας και μετεγκατάσταση ιστοσελίδων WordPress.
Hungarian: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress beépülő modul. WordPress-webhelyek biztonsági mentése és migrálása.
Indonesian: WP Staging Backup & Duplikator Plugin WordPress. Cadangkan & Migrasi situs web WordPress.
Italian: WP STAGING Plugin WordPress per backup e duplicatori. Backup e migrazione di siti Web WordPress.
Persian: WP STAGING پشتیبان گیری و افزونه وردپرس Duplicator. پشتیبان گیری و مهاجرت از وب سایت های وردپرسی.
Polish: WP STAGING Wtyczka WordPress do tworzenia kopii zapasowych i powielania. Twórz kopie zapasowe i migruj witryny WordPress.
Portuguese (Brazil): WP STAGING Backup & Duplicador Plugin WordPress. Backup e migração de sites WordPress.
Russian: Плагин WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator для WordPress. Резервное копирование и перенос сайтов WordPress.
Turkish: WP STAGING Yedekleme ve Çoğaltıcı WordPress Eklentisi. WordPress web sitelerini yedekleyin ve taşıyın.
Vietnamese: WP STAGING Backup & Duplicator WordPress Plugin. Sao lưu và di chuyển các trang web WordPress.

This plugin has been created in thousands of hours and works even with the smallest shared web hosting package.
We also use an enterprise-level approved testing coding environment to ensure that the cloning and backup process runs rock-solid on your system.
If you are a developer, you will probably like to hear that we use Codeception and PHPUnit for our backup software.

As there are infinite variations of possible server constellations, it still can happen that something does not work for you 100%. In that case,
please open a support request and describe your issue.

Screenshots:

1. 

   Create new WordPress staging / backup site

2. 

   Select name for staging / backup site

3. 

   Select folders to include in staging / backup site

4. 

   Cloning / backup processing

5. 

   Listed staging / backup sites

6. 

   Listed staging / backup sites

7. 

   Open, edit & delete staging / backup sites

8. 

   Login to staging / backup site

Other notes:

Latest Change log entry:

• New: Major change of the User Interface #2197 #2208
• New: Add an option to send an email error report. You can enable this option in the settings and use a separate email to receive error reports #2205
• New: Button to edit backup schedules #2042 #2135
• New: Show Google Drive backup account information on the plugin’s Google Drive backup settings page #2091
• New: Add a cancel button to stop the pushing process #2101
• Enh: Show a notice if site contains backup(s) with invalid files-index #2205
• Enh: Add a retry mechanism to backup restore if a backup restore fails due to 404, 429 or 503 errors #2094
• Enh: Clean up log files and don’t show necessary information #2124
• Enh: Show notice how to enable permalinks depending on whether the server is Apache or another. #2143
• Enh: Explain what to enter in the ‘version’ field of Generic S3 provider #2172
• Enh: Show notice how to fix cron issue when using Litespeed server #2170 #2226
• Enh: Better notification message when there are no files to backup #2175
• Enh: Take sub folder into account when testing location for Google Drive Storage #2197
• Enh: Include the current date and time in the database filename when the backup is a “Multipart Backup” #2126
• Enh: Database restore enhancement to increase the execution time for executing an ajax triggered SQL query when query execution fails for a certain number of retries on weak servers #2117
• Enh: Hide license key for privacy reasons, for instance when plugin is used by agencies on client websites #2118
• Enh: Add filter wpstg_login_form_logo to allow custom change of the logo image on login page to staging site #2076
• Enh: Clarification that the maximum retention period for backup in the “Create backup” modal only applies to locally hosted backup files #2085
• Enh: If issue is reported via using the REPORT ISSUE button, send the license key with the submitted message #2087
• Enh: Change some words in UI to be more consistent #2099
• Enh: Show link to docs article in warning if license key can not be activated #2100
• Enh: Cleanup and remove backend/views/notices/poll.php and all related code #2107
• Enh: Clean up backend/views/notices/poll.php and all related unused code #2107
• Fix: Staging site database tables can not be pushed if staging site settings contain different table prefixes #2151
• Fix: Support adding “+” sign in the name of the backup folder by FTP, the name of backup and in the name of clone #2160
• Fix: Check if WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE is already defined before adding it to wp-config.php. (Solve conflict with local flywheel). #2165
• Fix: Oldest multipart backups were not deleted during remote upload #2129
• Fix: Prevent fatal error on push when there is no theme installed on production site #2185
• Fix: Continue database backup restore by using shorter name for identifiers name exceeding maximum allowed characters #2114
• Fix: Add a check to prevent warning undefined variable: jobId #2196
• Fix: Better error handling if folder or file is not writeable #2190
• Fix: Handle errors for PHP 8.x during Database backup restore Task when max_packet_size is bigger than the actual sql result #2125
• Fix: Convert utf8mb4 to utf8 when restoring database in MySQL < 5.7 to prevent MySQL Error 1071 because MySQL < 5.7 has max key length of 767 bytes. By converting utfmb4 to utf8 it reduces the size by 1/4 and allows restoring a backup. #2203
• Fix: Restore of backup blocked due to incorrect permission check #2228
• Fix: WP Staging log backup files could not be deleted #2222
• Fix: Prevents a rare edge case where scheduled backup are continuous started over by implementing a better clean up routing #2231
• Fix: Prevent fatal error on setting page due to using double semicolon(‘::’) to call static method from variable. Affects old php versions only. #2166
• Fix: Old automated local backup were not deleted and thus no new automated backup were created #2141
• Fix: Improve detection if WordPress is installed in subdirectory. If home URL and site URL are different the cloned staging site URLs are sometimes incorrect. #2068
• Fix: Ensure that functions in wp-staging-optimizer.php are declared only one time #2079
• Fix: Remove some php’s deprecation warnings for php 8.x #2078
• Fix: Remove error in search & replace of serialized data due to strict types during staging PUSH on PHP 8.1 and higher version. #2065
• Fix: Remove warning “Undefined index: networkClone in single-overview.php line: 54” #2097
• Fix: Attach log files to report mail #2156
• Fix: Unable to upload backup files to more than one remote storage in single backup job #2245
• Fix: Fetch google drive backup files in ascending order by time to fix a backup retention issue for google drive #2245
• Dev: Revert all usage of isWritable and isExecutable #2232
• Dev: Broken test _04PushCest after implementing #2199 #2216
• Dev: Write the version of the plugin into the header of wpstg.js when creating the dist package with make dev_dist #2095
• Dev: Downgrade phpcs library to fix xss tests #2105
• Dev: Show upload_path in system info #2024 #2147

2.12.0
* New: Optional feature to split backup files by type (plugins, media, themes) and maximum file size. Use filter wpstg.backup.isMultipartBackup to activate this option. Use wpstg.backup.maxMultipartBackupSize filter to adjust maximum file size for split backup, default is 2GB #1804
* New: Add filter wpstg.remoteStorages.chunkSize (in bytes) to change chunk size of backups upload to remote storages #2047
* New: Add filter wpstg.remoteStorages.delayBetweenRequests (in milliseconds) to add delay between requests to upload chunks to remote storages #1997
* New: Add filter wpstg.backup.tables.non-prefixed to allow backup and restore of non WordPress prefixed tables #2018
* New: Add option to download backup log files via ACTIONS > Log File #2025
* New: Send mail report if unable to upload backup to remote storage(s) during automated backup #2025
* Enh: Dont show recommendation message on using the same MySQL/MariaDB version while restoring if already the same MySQL/MariaDB version #1997
* Enh: Preserve remote storages options during clone update. #2004
* Fix: Store taskQueue in jobDataDto instead of a separate file #1997
* Fix: Added upload_path in system info #2024
* Fix: BINARY and NULL were not correctly search replaced if restoring the backup on the same site #2043
* Fix: Correct database server type and MySQL/MariaDB version in System Info Tab #2043
* Fix: Exclude filters in the UI for the staging site now allow adding dot . for extension, file and folder exclusion rules #2053
* Fix: Issue during cleaning of other files in wp-content directory when actual uploads directory is not direct child of wp-content directory #2041
* Fix: UPLOAD path was not correctly search replaced if source and destination site had a different relative upload path #2041
* Fix: Importing a multisite backup with domains as network sites created wrong URLs for network sites if backup is restored into a multisite where network sites are subdirectories #2038
* Fix: Allow database creation during push if multisite and mainsite #2032
* Fix: Preserve scheduled backup plans during push #2032
* Fix: Stop uploading backup to remote storage(s) after failure on certain amount of retries #2025
* Fix: Dont copy google drive option during new or reset clone. This will make sure both sites will have different Refresh token. So revoking refresh token on one site doesn’t break uploading process for the other #2004
* Fix: Fix php warning when null is passed as argument to trim function #2059
* Fix: Improve admin notice when JETPACK_STAGING_MODE is active on staging site #2014
* Dev: Bump minimatch from 3.0.4 to 3.0.8 in /src/assets #2007
* Dev: Make extra_hosts section in docker DRY #2070
* Dev: Split webdriver tests to speed up running and allow parallel execution of them #2057
* Dev: Improve login page authentication message #2058

2.11.0
* New: Compatible up to WordPress 6.1.1
* New: Add support for uploading backups to DigitalOcean Spaces, Wasabi and other S3 compatible storages #1966
* Enh: Allow backup upload to Amazon S3 when bucket has Lock Object and retention enabled #1973
* Enh: Show warning if test connection to backup storage provider fails during save settings #1965
* Enh: Show warning if there are more than 4 overdue backup cron jobs #1986
* Enh: Show message if unable to pre-scan directories before cloning #1993
* Fix: Could not delete oldest backup from (S)FTP cloud storage provider if FTP location was set in FTP settings #1953
* Fix: Under rare circumstances a fatal error is thrown during backup if scheduled time is NULL
* Fix: SSL and Passive checkboxes were not considered during FTP backup storage test connection #1965
* Fix: Fatal error when set_time_limit() has been disabled by the hosting provider #1977
* Fix: Preserve backup cloud storage provider settings when pushing and improve Google Drive backup authentication #1999
* Dev: Deprecated heredoc syntax for variables. Fix unit tests for php 8.2RC #1975

2.10.0
* New: Compatible up to WordPress 6.0.3
* New: Show loader icon while saving settings or testing backup remote storages connections #1925
* New: Show settings last saved time for backup remote storages SFTP, Amazon S3 and Google Drive #1925
* New: Show last update and install date for WP STAGING | PRO plugin in System Info #1928
* New: Show selected themes and plugins for UPDATE and RESET clone jobs #1926
* New: Fix issues when restoring multisites backup if network subsites have different domains. It now support restore or conversion of domain based subsite to subdirectory based subsite #1872
* New: Option to disable local storage space and upload backup(s) only to remote storage spaces #1935
* Enh: Huge improve of backup restoring performance by factor 2-3. #1951
* Enh: Huge improve of backup creating performance on slow database servers. #1951
* Enh: Add extra search & replace rule for elementor generated data #1902
* Enh: Add dropdown to select bucket region for S3 backups instead of typing it in manually. Improve Amazon S3 settings page #1943
* Enh: Skip search & replace if restoring a backup on the same site #1949
* Enh: Add extra search & replace rule for elementor generated data #1949
* Enh: Add search replace filter for database backup restore #1872
* Enh: Allow access of staging site by using user email addresses beside usernames #1928
* Enh: Add option to not ask for license key activation on local development sites #1913
* Enh: Add better log messages for non working cron jobs #1907
* Fix: Prevent a rare situation where the database is copied slowly with only one row per request #1951
* Fix: Table selection ignored when creating a new staging site #1946
* Fix: Could not properly restore network sites when a multisite backup was restored on a new WordPress that had a different table prefix than the source website #1948
* Fix: Adjusted multiple SplFileObject methods (due to unconsistent behaviour of these methods across multiple PHP versions) to support PHP 8.0 > 8.0.19, PHP 8.1 > 8.1.6 and upcoming PHP 8.2 #1903
* Fix: Deleting the oldest remote backup from SFTP, Amazon S3 and Google Drive fails sometimes #1890
* Fix: No update notification visible in wp staging user interface when there is a new pro version available #1894
* Fix: Clean up code #1871
* Fix: Unable to create backup if there are files in WP STAGING cache folder that can not be deleted like .nfs* files. #1859
* Fix: Analytics reporting does not contain the list of installed plugins #1896
* Fix: If an Amazon S3 api key contained + character, it turned into space character when saving in database #1912
* Fix: Always store the names of installed plugins, mu-plugins and themes in backup metadata #1906
* Fix: When restoring database with large amount of tables on PHP > 8.0.1 some tables doesn’t get created due unconsistent behaviour of FileObject library across PHP versions. #1872
* Fix: Undefined var message in the log files if SSL connection could not be established due to outdated TLS on client server #1913
* Fix: While creating a single staging site out of a network site, the folders (uploads/sites/ID) from other network sites weren’t excluded and contained in the staging site #1922
* Fix: Selecting parent folder does not automatically select its subfolders for UPDATE and RESET clone jobs. #1926
* Fix: Amazon S3 only supports a maximum of 10,000 chunks for uploading a single backup file. With previous 5MB chunk size, backup uploads to S3 failed if they are bigger than 50 GB. Now backup chunk size is adjusted according to the size of the backup file by making sure total chunks are less than 10,000 #1924
* Fix: Error when pushing a staging site and all folders are selected #1883
* Dev: Add testing suite to run unit tests against multiple PHP versions #1903
* Dev: Add sass/scss support for compiling css #1925
* Dev: Add Xdebug support for PHP 8.1, use custom php.ini in PHP 8.0 and PHP 8.1 #1928
* Dev: Update DI52 version to 3.0 for performance gain #1934

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