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A staging environment is a private copy of your live site where you can make changes, test new plugins, or experiment with themes without any risk to your production site or visitors. WP Stratos gives every site a one-click staging environment, making it easy to work safely and ship changes with confidence.
Each instance gets one staging environment, never more. If you need to start fresh, delete the existing staging site and create a new one. Your staging environment also doesn’t have to live on the same server or in the same region as your live site, WP Stratos provisions it wherever makes sense for the platform, so don’t be surprised if it shows up on different infrastructure than production.

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Creating a Staging Site

1

Navigate to Staging

In the Cloud Panel, click your site, then select the Staging tab.
2

Click Create Staging Site

Click the Create Staging Site button. Before cloning starts, WP Stratos runs a quick pre-check showing your current disk usage, your uploads folder size, and how much space you have available, so you’re not surprised mid-clone.
3

Skip the uploads folder if you don't need it

If your media library is large and you’re only testing code or content changes, check Skip uploads directory to speed up cloning and cut disk usage. WP Stratos enforces this automatically if available space is too tight to clone everything.
4

Wait for the clone to complete

WP Stratos copies your site files and full database to an isolated staging environment. This typically takes one to three minutes. A status indicator shows progress, and staging is created asynchronously so you can keep working elsewhere in the meantime.
5

Access your staging site

Once ready, your staging environment is accessible at the URL shown in the Staging tab. Click Open Staging WP Admin for direct one-click access to the staging WordPress dashboard.
If staging creation fails for any reason, you can retry it from the same failed entry, or cancel it, which cleans up any partial files and database left behind. No need to open a support ticket for a failed attempt.

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Making Changes on Staging

Your staging environment is fully isolated from your live site, so anything you do there stays contained until you decide to push it. Use staging to:
  • Install and evaluate new plugins before adding them to production.
  • Preview theme changes or a full redesign without affecting visitors.
  • Test WordPress core or plugin updates to catch compatibility issues early.
  • Prototype new content, page layouts, or checkout flows.
Changes you make on staging, including database updates, new posts, or configuration changes, have no effect on your live site until you explicitly push them.
Always test plugin updates on staging before applying them to your live site. This single habit prevents the vast majority of unexpected outages.

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Push Staging to Live

When you’re satisfied with your changes on staging, push them to your production site.
Pushing staging to live overwrites your production site with the staging content and database. A pre-push backup of your live site is created automatically, but review your changes carefully before confirming.
1

Navigate to Staging

In the Cloud Panel, click your site, then open the Staging tab.
2

Click Push to Live

Click the Push to Live button to begin the push workflow.
3

Choose what to push

Select the scope of the push. WP Stratos compares your staging and live databases first, then gives you control over exactly what moves:
  • Overwrite files. Copies themes, plugins, uploads, and core files to live.
  • Push full database. Replaces the entire live database with staging’s.
  • Push structure changes. Moves table structure changes (new tables, new columns) without touching existing data.
  • Push changed data only. Moves just the tables where data actually changed, leaving everything else on live untouched.
This granularity matters if, say, you tested a plugin update on staging but a client also added new orders on the live site in the meantime. You can push the code changes without clobbering their new data.
4

Confirm the push

WP Stratos automatically takes a backup of your current live site, then applies the selected staging content. You’ll receive a notification when the push is complete.

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Pull Live to Staging

Refresh your staging environment with the latest content and settings from your live site.
1

Navigate to Staging

In the Cloud Panel, click your site, then open the Staging tab.
2

Click Pull from Live

Click the Pull from Live button. WP Stratos copies the current live site files and database into your staging environment, replacing whatever was there before.
3

Wait for the pull to complete

A progress indicator shows when the pull is finished. Your staging environment now reflects the current state of your live site, ready for the next round of testing.

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Deleting a Staging Environment

Delete your existing staging site when you want to start fresh or free up resources. Remember, each instance can only have one staging environment, so you’ll need to remove the current one before creating another.
Deleting a staging environment permanently removes all staging files and the staging database. Your live site is unaffected, but any changes made exclusively in staging will be lost. Push anything you want to keep to live before deleting.
1

Navigate to Staging

In the Cloud Panel, click your site, then open the Staging tab.
2

Click Delete Staging Site

Scroll to the bottom of the Staging tab and click Delete Staging Site.
3

Confirm deletion

Type the confirmation text in the dialog and click Confirm Delete. The staging environment is permanently removed. You can create a new staging site at any time.
Last modified on August 23, 2026