Imagine finding your online store completely inaccessible one fine morning. Orders are piling up, and customers are frustrated, all because of a poorly coded plugin that crashed your website overnight.
Well, it’s not fiction but the reality of WordPress developers who forget or overlook the need to test WordPress plugins online before adding them to the live website. Countless agencies and developers are already spending hundreds of work hours and resources like water to hammer out issues such as slugging website performance, sudden site crashes, disruptions of custom features, compromised site data, and so on.
Don’t let this become your reality. Pre-installation WordPress plugin testing is your ticket to a smooth-sailing website. This is a thumb rule of WordPress development. And, if you want to master it, tag along with us as we walk you through the detailed process of testing and comparing any two WordPress plugins online.
Table of Contents
The Lacuna Existing in Testing WordPress Plugins
Believe it or not, pre-installation WordPress plugin testing takes a backseat in many WordPress development projects or exists in a fault form. Reasons? Here are they.
- Tight Timelines: Agencies and developers have tight timelines for delivering the projects. With deadlines looming, complex plugin testing becomes a major time-suck for them. Hence, they overlook plugin testing.
- Human Error: It’s obvious to overlook the potential issues due to fatigue when developers have to interact with the plugin manually, do extensive coding, and check the plugin’s integration with other components of WordPress.
- Complexity: WordPress is a complex ecosystem with numerous versions, themes, and other plugins. Hence, it’s difficult to test all possible combinations of WordPress versions, themes, and plugins manually.
- Trust in Popular Plugins: Often, developers tend to get blinded by the popularity of a plugin. They overlook the need to test WordPress plugins online just because a plugin has many active installations, comes from a trusted developer, and has positive reviews. Remember, no plugin is perfect, and even the most downloaded plugins can have incompatibility issues with your site or severe vulnerabilities.
How to Test and Compare Any Two WordPress Plugins Online
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to test WordPress plugins online. However, the standard practices involve these three methods.
Method 1: Traditional Way
Before the concept of staging existed, WordPress developers used to install the desired plugin on the live site and test its functionalities manually. However, it is a risky affair, prone to human errors, and has limited functionality.
Method 2: One-click Testing of a Plugin in a Staging Environment
Developers can install plugins to be tested in a fresh instance and compare them online. This method allows for safer testing without affecting the live site.
Method 3: Copy Live to Staging
Those who already have a live site and want to conduct extensive plugin testing must create a copy of the live site and install plugins there. This modern way to test WordPress plugins online allows developers to test new plugins in a fully controlled environment while causing no harm to the live site’s performance.
Let’s do a net-to-net comparison of these three methods and review their advantages and disadvantages.
| Methods | Traditional Method | One-Click Testing | Copy Live to Staging |
| Approach | Install plugins on the live site and test functionalities manually | Create a fresh instance and test the plugin | Duplicate the live site to test the plugin |
| Advantages | Simple set-up | Fast, easy, and fully isolated | Best for complex plugins, protects live sites, and grants full control of the testing process |
| Disadvantages | Time-consuming, might require coding, can break your site | A plugin/theme may behave differently in staging vs live, because it may be incompatible with one of your live site’s plugins/themes | – |
Steps to Test and Compare WordPress Plugins Online
After having a quick overview of methods used for testing and comparing WordPress plugins, it’s time to see all three in action. Navigate to your preferred section via this blog post’s Table of Contents or scroll down.
Method 1: Testing WordPress Plugins Online Through Traditional Way
The traditional WordPress plugin testing approach involves:
- Accessing the WordPress Dashboard
- Going to the ‘Add New Plugin’ section
- Using the search function to find the desired plugin from the WP repository
- Installing the desired plugin on the live site
- Testing and comparing its features & functionalities
Installing an untested plugin on a live site is like between the devil and the deep blue sea situation; nowhere is safe. If your site breaks due to an incompatible WordPress plugin, troubleshooting might continue for eternity, while your site’s repo, functionality, performance, and everything else will go for a toss.
Would you like to deal with unwanted headaches? If not; adopt the next two modern and safe ways to test WordPress plugins online.
Method 2: Testing WordPress Plugins Online Through One-Click Staging Environment
For this WordPress plugin testing method, developers can use tools like InstaWP Launcher, a Chrome extension by InstaWP.
Can’t download InstaWP’s Chrome Extension? Use this download link to get it manually. Read this blog post to know why it’s unavailable.
It enables you to install and compare any plugins directly into your staging environment; no manual set-up is required. As each plugin is installed in a fully isolated and independent environment, there is no way to face the compatibility issues with other plugins or themes, installed on the live site. This works for pre and post-WordPress website development.
Step 1- Login to the InstaWP Dashboard
Log in to your InstaWP account to access the dashboard.
Step 2: Install the InstaWP Launcher Chrome Extension
Install the InstaWP Launcher Chrome extension so that you can install the WordPress plugin you want to test directly on the staging site. Here is how you can do it.
- Open the Google Chrome Web Store
- Search for “InstaWP Launcher”
- Click on the “Add to Chrome” button to add the extension to your browser
- As the extension download is completed, you will see an access request. Approve to make the extension work.
- The extension has been successfully launched.
Method 3: Testing WordPress Plugins Online Through Copy Live to Staging
Modern-day tools such as InstaWP Connect enable developers to create staging sites of live sites with almost zero setups, making it easier to manage multiple projects simultaneously. Its two-way sync capability allows developers to push changes from the staging site back to the live site or vice versa.
Here are the steps to use InstaWP Connect.
Step 1: Download InstaWP Connect
- Go to the WordPress admin panel of your live site.
- Select ‘Plug-in’ from the left-hand side panel.
- Click on ‘Add New’ and enter ‘ InstaWP Connect’ in the search bar.
- Select ‘Install Now’ to complete the installation.
Step 2: Activate InstaWP Connect
Once the plugin is installed, activate it. You will be able to see the plugin in the plugin directory of your live site.
You can see the option of launching the staging site of your live site in your WP dashboard.
Step 3: Connect With Your InstaWP Account
You need to connect with your InstaWP account and InstaWP Connect.
- Approve the connection request.
- Your live site is now connected to your InstaWP account.
Step 4: Create Staging Sites
- Click on the ‘+ Create Staging Site’ option to create a staging site.
- Select the type of staging you want while testing the WordPress plugin.
- Once all the parameters are selected, click on ‘Create Staging.’
- Wait while the live site files are being fetched. Depending upon the staging type selected and the live site size, this process can take a few minutes.
- Once the site is ready, use ‘Magic Login’ to access the staging site.
Comparing WordPress Plugins Online
Once you have the basic WordPress plugin testing setup at your disposal, follow these steps for both method 2 and method 3 to compare the desired WordPress plugins online.
Step 1: Launch the Plugins
- Go to the WordPress plugin repository
- Use its “Search” function to access the plugin you want to test. For this guide, we’re using two SEO plugins, Rank Math and Yoast SEO.
- As you search the respective plugins, you will see the icon of InstaWP Launcher next to the plugin section.
Step 2- Create Staging Sites
- With the InstaWP Launcher installed, you will see a “Launch” button on the plugin page. Click this button to create a new staging site with the selected plugin pre-installed.
- Repeat the process for the second plugin.
Step 3: Configure The Plugins
- Once you have both staging sites ready with different plugins installed, navigate to the InstaWP dashboard to access both sites.
- Log in to each site using the magic login feature of InstaWP.
- You will see a pop-up window with the below message.
- You can see both the plugins pre-installed on your WordPress panels.
- Adjust the settings of each plugin as needed to ensure they are set up for optimal testing. This includes enabling features, configuring options, or adding sample content.
Step 4: Compare the Plugins
As you now have both the plugins ready for testing, check how they both perform under various scenarios.
Here is what we test about Yoast SEO and Rank Math.
Getting Started
Getting started with Yoast SEO was easy as we didn’t have to engage in any further set-up. However, we had to engage in a few initial set-up processes to get started with Rank Math.
Features
You can do a net-to-net comparison of Rank Math and Yoast SEO features to gain a better understanding.
As we can see, Rank Math offers AI content, Local SEO, Analytics, AMP, Index indexing, and many other features. Based on the subscription, you will see the active features on the dashboard.
Yoast SEO’s basic plan offers features such as File Editor, Import & Export, and Bulk Editor.
Settings
Rank Math enables you to change the links, blocks, webmaster, and analytics settings from the dashboard. You can save the desired changes or reset the entire settings.
Compared to Rank Math, Yoast SEO offers more flexibility regarding settings. You have General, Content, and Advanced categories to maximize customization.
Similarly, you can compare the support, integrations, and other features of these two or any other WordPress plugins using InstaWP Launcher and InstaWP Connect.
The ROIs of Pre-installation WordPress Plugin Testing
WordPress plugins, when tried and tested extensively, often exceed expectations and deliver more than their basic functionalities. They can help agencies and WordPress developers to have:
- Ultimate peace of mind: By thoroughly testing WordPress plugins, you can say goodbye to the headaches of incompatibility. With no plugin conflicts and security vulnerabilities, websites will run as smoothly as an oiled machine while your life will be stress-free.
- Enhanced website performance: Well-tested plugins mean optimized site performance, faster load time, more traffic, high SEO ranking, and better user experience. It’s like hitting many birds with one stone; isn’t it?
- Better security: Testing WordPress plugins before installation can help developers fix security vulnerabilities in their infancy stage. It works like a safety net to your website, ensuring only safe and secure plugins are reaching the live site.
- More Functionality of the Site: When you choose to test WordPress plugins online before installing them on the live site, you make a move to experience better functionality with minimal risk of errors, conflicts, and fewer glitches.
The WordPress Plugin Testing Revolution is Here
Testing and comparing WordPress plugins is the standard process to hunt the best WordPress plugin. However, the traditional approach can hold you back and cause endless hassles.
The WordPress plugin testing landscape is dramatically changing; all thanks to InstaWP. With innovative tools like InstaWP Launcher and InstaWP Connect, developers and agencies can streamline the entire plugin testing workflow while eliminating the complexities involved. So, get an InstaWP subscription today and deliver exceptional WordPress experiences to your end-users.
