Staging (test copy)¶

Staging creates a full, isolated copy of your website on its own preview domain. There you can safely test changes, updates or a new design — your live site stays completely untouched. Once you're happy, publish the copy back onto the live site with a single click.

Requirement

This feature must be enabled in your package (Staging). If it's missing, contact your provider.

How it works¶

When you create a staging copy:

All of your website's files are copied into a separate copy under your website user.
Each database is cloned into its own staging database — so the test copy can never write to your real data.
The copy gets an automatic preview domain (e.g. preview-a1b2c3.your-panel.com) that only you use to open it.
For app configurations in .env format, the database credentials are automatically rewritten to the staging database.

Your live site and its database are not touched.

Create a staging copy¶

Under Websites, open your site's action bar (click the row).
Click 🧪 Staging.
Click Create staging.

After a moment the preview domain appears as a link. Open it to work on the copy.

Publish changes (push-to-live)¶

Once your tests are successful, transfer the copy back onto the live site:

Open 🧪 Staging again.
Click Publish to production.
Choose whether the database should be transferred as well:
- Unchecked (default): only the files go live. Your live database stays unchanged. Configuration files such as .env, wp-config.php or configuration.php are deliberately not overwritten, so your live credentials are preserved.
- Checked: your live database is additionally replaced with the staging database.

Before publishing

Push-to-live overwrites your live files with the staging version. For safety a backup of your live site is taken automatically first — including a database dump when the database option is enabled.

Remove staging¶

Via 🧪 Staging → Delete staging you fully remove the copy, its preview domain and the staging databases again. Your live site is not affected.

For administrators¶

Enable staging per package: under Admin → Packages → [Edit package] → Developer tools, turn on the Staging option. Only customers with that package see the staging action.

Administrators and resellers can use the staging action on any website — including customer websites.