Staging websites

A staging site is a free copy of your production site (what others call the "live site") where you can test and verify changes without risking the real site. When you're happy with the result, you push the changes live to production.

Create a staging site

Go to the website's details page, click Staging in the left menu, then click Create.

Templ Panel website details with the Staging link and Create button

Optionally, include or exclude specific files and the database, for example to skip a large uploads folder.

Staging site creation options for including or excluding files and database

Setup takes up to a few minutes while your files and database are copied. The staging site gets its own auto-assigned *.templweb.com domain with SSL included.

Templ Panel staging site overview

Staging sites are set to "noindex" so search engines don't index them. We also recommend password protecting the staging site as an extra safeguard.

A staging site shares its production site's disk allocation, so creating one can roughly double the site's disk usage and may trigger an automatic disk upgrade. Make sure the production site has enough space, and add more if needed.

One staging site per website

Each production site can have one staging site.

If you need a second environment alongside staging, for example a long-lived one for building new features while staging stays available for quick tests, use a separate website instead:

Clone the production site from the Import/migration tab and pick a Development (Micro) or Development (Small) plan for the copy.
Build and test on that site.
When you want the changes on production, clone back the other way using Clone to existing website, copying only the files you changed.

A development plan is free with no time limit, and every paying customer gets one development site (partners get an unlimited number).

Custom domain on a staging site

By default, a staging site uses its auto-assigned *.templweb.com domain with SSL included. To use a custom domain like staging.yourdomain.com instead, contact support.

Work on the staging site

Log in to the staging site's WordPress admin with the same credentials as your production site (as of when the staging site was created).

For file access, set up file access and use the webroot folder listed on the Website Details page. Production and staging are isolated and use different SFTP ports.

Push staging changes to production

Once you're happy with your changes, make them live from the Staging page: select Copy from staging to production, then click Continue to next step.

Staging page with the option to copy from staging to production

On the next step you choose what to copy:

Files - themes, plugins and other WordPress files.
Database - posts, pages, settings and everything else stored in the database.

As with creating a staging site, you can selectively include or exclude specific files. URLs in the database are search-replaced automatically, so links point at the production domain.

You can optionally create a backup of production first. Either way, production is covered by automatic daily backups, so you can always restore an earlier version.

For WooCommerce and other sites that write data on production - orders, customers, comments, form submissions - do not copy the database to production. It overwrites the production database with the staging copy, wiping out everything created since the staging site was made. Push only the files, and re-apply database changes (settings, content) manually on production.

Refresh the staging site

If production changed after you created the staging site, bring staging up to date in one of two ways:

On the Staging page, select Copy from production to staging - only copies changed files, so it's fast.
Delete the staging site and create a new one for a completely fresh copy.

Delete staging site

Click the Delete button next to Edit Website Details on the staging site. This is safe and does not affect your production site. It frees the disk space the staging site used, which is a quick way to get back under your disk limit.

Deleting a staging site also deletes any local backups you created on it, since those are stored inside the staging environment. Download them first if you want to keep them.

Delete button for a staging site in the Templ Panel

Deleting the production site also deletes its staging site automatically. Staging sites are not included in automatic backups, so back up anything you need first.