I’ve been using MainWP for years. It works fantastically well. I used so many before it and was never happy with things constantly breaking. Backups not happening. Client reports looking like garbage. MainWP is the only consistently well working site management system I’ve used. Their support is incredibly fast and accurate. It just works. Period.
I was excited by the title of this video as I could possibly be taking over a WordPress multisite set up and I’ll need a website management solution. Unfortunately, the title was misleading as the video is about controlling multiple WordPress websites and not a WordPress multisite environment.
Hi Paul. Great news, Main WP just announced their latest plugins to manage Pressable hosting. Great value to me. Another point for Main WP : it comes with API, so we can automate the business. ;) Thanks for this great video.
I’ve been switching over my clients who pay me for maintenance from managewp to wpumbrella. It’s less expensive (everything included for $2 per site per month), faster, and has fewer issues with updates. The support is fantastic! And I will probably try mainwp for my clients who need more features like keyword-rank tracking, etc. Thanks for a good rundown of options, Paul.
Hi, the UI looks really much better than mainWP but the pricing is pretty expensive tbh. $2 per website means in my case around 100 per month means 1200 per year... so mainWP in that case is much cheaper actually... but I totally agree if you have only 5-10 sites then its maybe worth it.
There is always the argument of using distributed best-in-class, or centralised management of Wordpress. Because my hosting provider (SiteGround) deals with all my updates, backups and traffic and performance analytics, and with Wordfence Central dealing with my security, I've never found _enough_ value from these centralised management systems to warrant their use. I also worry about security; these centralised management tools have effectively admin access to everything, a nice target for hackers, and then add the extensions on top of that, and that's a huge security surface to protect.
@@davidadams421 if you lost access to your SG account, you would lose everything. You hear nightmare stories about billing or policy issues closing accounts. If they had an outage that affected some of their servers and your control panel access, you wouldn't be able to move a site. There was a company called Heart Internet years back that has something like this, and there were some companies still offline (no website, no email, no access to backups) a week later. Now, if you can be sure that your backups are in a different physical location to your websites then maybe you'll have some extra confidence. Otherwise it's like keeping a backup on a different machine in the same building and then wondering why they both burnt down. You need at least two physical locations for a real backup, and should have two different paths of access. So in our case, we have multiple Hetzner servers that we control via RunCloud. RunCloud performs application-level backups to our Google Drive, but ManageWP also takes daily backups at the WordPress level. Oh, and we keep our domain names and DNS in different places again. I'm not paranoid 😁
I'm with @JonathanGwyer here. If you have all your eggs in your hosts basket, you're opening yourself up to a world of pain if something happens to your account or the service they provide. Even if you don't like the thought of using a centralised tool for managing thing, you still need to have some form of back-up service/tool in place that does not rely solely on your hosting provider. As Jonathan has mentioned in his reply, if something goes wrong you have no way of recovering that data easily. Now, multiply that by the number of sites you may have on Siteground and you can see why this could be a headache waiting to happen.
@@JonathanGwyer A fair point and, whilst SiteGround backups are in fact physically located in a different data centre (both in the UK, though), as you point out, there is a 'Site Tools' (their cPanel) single point of access to them and, therefore, a single point of failure. I may need to reconsider this, but even if I do, this contributes nothing to the using 'best in class' versus 'centralised' management debate. I would still rather use something like WPVivid or Updraft Plus rather than rely on a centralised management system. I see these as a 'central point of failure' when it comes to cyber security.
I have 7 ecom websites but don't useMulti-Site Management because I feel like these are putting all my separate websites into one basket. I rather treat them as completely different entities. I like to minimize risks from hacking/attacks.
You can run MainWP offline on a local server setup and only enable it when you want to run management tasks. That will help minimise the potential for security threats but still give you a range of tools to help manage your sites in a centralised location.
Hello, I have a question on this topic. I have been looking for a plugin for a long time that can install or update plugins on several sites at once using files, manually. that is, we go to the administration panel, select the sites that we want to update, upload our plugin file, for example, and it, in turn, is loaded onto all selected sites. Perhaps someone has encountered this problem and has already found a solution, I would be very grateful! Thank you!
Thank you, Paul. This was a video I had been waiting for. It would be cool to see something more current on multi-site, as in some ways, it also was designed for better management of multiple wp sites.
As usual, great video, just one question. Sometimes when a website is updated things go wrong and often we'll need to regenerate the CSS to correct the issue, do any of these make you aware of this? - If not then still every site would have to be checked manually, we currently have 366 wordpress sites hosted so this can be very time consuming, what's your thoughts on this ?
@@studentu05 has anyone suggested you just close your eyes and hope for the best? That's a pretty silly statement and NOT the intention of this topic or video. That's why there are tools built into these platforms to handle updates, staging sites, etc. Just because you have a centralised location to manage things does not mean you suddenly throw common sense and best practices out the window in favour of hitting as single 'update all' button. It saves you logging into multiple sites to handle not only updates, but backups, content updates, plugin installation and a whole load more. You still have to be sensible about how you handle things, but it makes repetitive tsatks quicker and more straightforward.
@tamera00 - most if not all will have the ability to run uptime monitoring and most of those services allow you to create different types of checks and alerts to test for all manner of issues. Whether they can monitor for CSS issues I'm not certain, but it still makes sense to do a visual check if you have concerns about updates.
Great video Paul. I've tried almost every one of these systems however, the one I personally would recommend is Malcare a more backup focus solution but in fact is a fantastic platform.
Hi can you show me how to create a multitude which work like this : I want that when somebody subscribe on the website, a website automatically created with the name of the subscriber and redirect him to the dashboard
If the service Can a customer install A plug-in with a 30-day usage condition and automatically cancel it if the customer does not extend it again after 30 days? I wonder if there is a function that can do this
ManageWP has always been solid for me. The fact that it is owned by godaddy I view as a negative, but if you like the godaddy ecosystem it would be good as it is free for any site hosted with them. I evaluated MainWP and Umbrella as alternative options. I manage hundreds of sites and Umbrella proved to be too costly. MainWP had an issue that was a negative for me. I can’t recall it at the moment but maybe it was that it would install too many plugins. I may have to take another look. The WPMU is also one I should check out but I have always viewed their other software unfavorably.
Wow... How can you just press update, update, update Alllll especially on a client website. Shouldn't you test everything on staging first? Is it something I'm missing?
Yes, you should absolutely test BEFORE updating and updating all isn't recommended. However, there may be instances where you do need to update everything (ideally AFTER testing) and then you can use this option.
And you still could if all your client's sites are on shared hosting and your details are leaked or hacked. If you want extra security, you can easily run MainWP on a local server setup (think Local by Flywheel) and only connect to the Internet to manage accounts when needed. There are many ways to preserve security, whether you're running a service like those covered or websites in general.
I’ve been using MainWP for years. It works fantastically well. I used so many before it and was never happy with things constantly breaking. Backups not happening. Client reports looking like garbage. MainWP is the only consistently well working site management system I’ve used. Their support is incredibly fast and accurate. It just works. Period.
I was excited by the title of this video as I could possibly be taking over a WordPress multisite set up and I’ll need a website management solution. Unfortunately, the title was misleading as the video is about controlling multiple WordPress websites and not a WordPress multisite environment.
Exactly ❤
Hi Paul. Great news, Main WP just announced their latest plugins to manage Pressable hosting. Great value to me. Another point for Main WP : it comes with API, so we can automate the business. ;) Thanks for this great video.
I’ve been switching over my clients who pay me for maintenance from managewp to wpumbrella. It’s less expensive (everything included for $2 per site per month), faster, and has fewer issues with updates. The support is fantastic! And I will probably try mainwp for my clients who need more features like keyword-rank tracking, etc. Thanks for a good rundown of options, Paul.
Hi, the UI looks really much better than mainWP but the pricing is pretty expensive tbh. $2 per website means in my case around 100 per month means 1200 per year... so mainWP in that case is much cheaper actually... but I totally agree if you have only 5-10 sites then its maybe worth it.
Him, is this compatible with Wp ultimo?
Thanks for visiting this topic again. Very, very helpful!
I use wpmudev from 5 years is the best solution and they have the best support
This are of WP has a lot of room for improvement. I wish there were more competition.
Thank you so much. You know that GHL thing? How can I make WP + Elementor or WP + Breakdance whitelabel... or branded? Like SAAS by my brand ?
Cool Update...
I already use ManageWp.
Its wonderful Thank you for what you've done with the channel.🥰
There is always the argument of using distributed best-in-class, or centralised management of Wordpress. Because my hosting provider (SiteGround) deals with all my updates, backups and traffic and performance analytics, and with Wordfence Central dealing with my security, I've never found _enough_ value from these centralised management systems to warrant their use. I also worry about security; these centralised management tools have effectively admin access to everything, a nice target for hackers, and then add the extensions on top of that, and that's a huge security surface to protect.
I'd suggest that if you're relying on your host to perform your backups, you don't really have a backup at all.
@@JonathanGwyer An interesting point. Curious, why do you say that?
@@davidadams421 if you lost access to your SG account, you would lose everything. You hear nightmare stories about billing or policy issues closing accounts.
If they had an outage that affected some of their servers and your control panel access, you wouldn't be able to move a site. There was a company called Heart Internet years back that has something like this, and there were some companies still offline (no website, no email, no access to backups) a week later.
Now, if you can be sure that your backups are in a different physical location to your websites then maybe you'll have some extra confidence. Otherwise it's like keeping a backup on a different machine in the same building and then wondering why they both burnt down.
You need at least two physical locations for a real backup, and should have two different paths of access. So in our case, we have multiple Hetzner servers that we control via RunCloud. RunCloud performs application-level backups to our Google Drive, but ManageWP also takes daily backups at the WordPress level.
Oh, and we keep our domain names and DNS in different places again.
I'm not paranoid 😁
I'm with @JonathanGwyer here. If you have all your eggs in your hosts basket, you're opening yourself up to a world of pain if something happens to your account or the service they provide. Even if you don't like the thought of using a centralised tool for managing thing, you still need to have some form of back-up service/tool in place that does not rely solely on your hosting provider.
As Jonathan has mentioned in his reply, if something goes wrong you have no way of recovering that data easily. Now, multiply that by the number of sites you may have on Siteground and you can see why this could be a headache waiting to happen.
@@JonathanGwyer A fair point and, whilst SiteGround backups are in fact physically located in a different data centre (both in the UK, though), as you point out, there is a 'Site Tools' (their cPanel) single point of access to them and, therefore, a single point of failure. I may need to reconsider this, but even if I do, this contributes nothing to the using 'best in class' versus 'centralised' management debate. I would still rather use something like WPVivid or Updraft Plus rather than rely on a centralised management system. I see these as a 'central point of failure' when it comes to cyber security.
I have 7 ecom websites but don't useMulti-Site Management because I feel like these are putting all my separate websites into one basket. I rather treat them as completely different entities. I like to minimize risks from hacking/attacks.
That's another issue tonkeep in mind besides the updates which may break sites.
You can run MainWP offline on a local server setup and only enable it when you want to run management tasks. That will help minimise the potential for security threats but still give you a range of tools to help manage your sites in a centralised location.
Brilliant info. This stuff is too good to miss. Just subscribed.
Hello, I have a question on this topic. I have been looking for a plugin for a long time that can install or update plugins on several sites at once using files, manually. that is, we go to the administration panel, select the sites that we want to update, upload our plugin file, for example, and it, in turn, is loaded onto all selected sites. Perhaps someone has encountered this problem and has already found a solution, I would be very grateful! Thank you!
Does woocommerce stock sync across multisites?
Thank you, Paul. This was a video I had been waiting for. It would be cool to see something more current on multi-site, as in some ways, it also was designed for better management of multiple wp sites.
Always relevant and interesting, Paul. Thank you.
Great video Paul! Would love to be featured in the next one :)
Nice tools Paul! Thanks for all your research. Is multisite still such a pariah? There are also multitenancy options. Maybe it's too niche.
As usual, great video, just one question. Sometimes when a website is updated things go wrong and often we'll need to regenerate the CSS to correct the issue, do any of these make you aware of this? - If not then still every site would have to be checked manually, we currently have 366 wordpress sites hosted so this can be very time consuming, what's your thoughts on this ?
Exactly my thoughts.... You can't just close your eyes and update, update, update.. Everything and hope for the best no?
@@studentu05 has anyone suggested you just close your eyes and hope for the best? That's a pretty silly statement and NOT the intention of this topic or video.
That's why there are tools built into these platforms to handle updates, staging sites, etc. Just because you have a centralised location to manage things does not mean you suddenly throw common sense and best practices out the window in favour of hitting as single 'update all' button.
It saves you logging into multiple sites to handle not only updates, but backups, content updates, plugin installation and a whole load more. You still have to be sensible about how you handle things, but it makes repetitive tsatks quicker and more straightforward.
@tamera00 - most if not all will have the ability to run uptime monitoring and most of those services allow you to create different types of checks and alerts to test for all manner of issues. Whether they can monitor for CSS issues I'm not certain, but it still makes sense to do a visual check if you have concerns about updates.
@@WPTuts sorry... Didn't mean to say it that way. 🍻
These plugins wont let me sync products for my Woocommerce webshop?? Not easy finding answer on this question.....
Does any of them allow you to update a theme or plugin by uploading a zip file?
ManageWP does
How can i create something like news/world in multisite. I can only create news but not news/world
Great video Paul. I've tried almost every one of these systems however, the one I personally would recommend is Malcare a more backup focus solution but in fact is a fantastic platform.
Good to know :)
@@WPTuts, I'm loving your recent videos; Paul you doing a great job!
Hi can you show me how to create a multitude which work like this : I want that when somebody subscribe on the website, a website automatically created with the name of the subscriber and redirect him to the dashboard
Excellent content!
can you make a video on:
How to set up a VPS with WordPress Multisite (sub-domain) on OpenLiteSpeed with Ubuntu 20.04 ?
If the service Can a customer install A plug-in with a 30-day usage condition and automatically cancel it if the customer does not extend it again after 30 days? I wonder if there is a function that can do this
No, I don't believe that's possible as the service would have no idea about usage limits.
ManageWP has always been solid for me. The fact that it is owned by godaddy I view as a negative, but if you like the godaddy ecosystem it would be good as it is free for any site hosted with them. I evaluated MainWP and Umbrella as alternative options. I manage hundreds of sites and Umbrella proved to be too costly. MainWP had an issue that was a negative for me. I can’t recall it at the moment but maybe it was that it would install too many plugins. I may have to take another look. The WPMU is also one I should check out but I have always viewed their other software unfavorably.
Wow... How can you just press update, update, update Alllll especially on a client website. Shouldn't you test everything on staging first? Is it something I'm missing?
Yes, you should absolutely test BEFORE updating and updating all isn't recommended. However, there may be instances where you do need to update everything (ideally AFTER testing) and then you can use this option.
This will save me so much time have you got a referral code as I will be getting the paid version mainwp
Why not just use your hosting accounts free dashboard management solution?
And you can be hacked, not only one website but all your websites, including your clients websites 😂
And you still could if all your client's sites are on shared hosting and your details are leaked or hacked.
If you want extra security, you can easily run MainWP on a local server setup (think Local by Flywheel) and only connect to the Internet to manage accounts when needed.
There are many ways to preserve security, whether you're running a service like those covered or websites in general.
Have been using wpmu for years now it works well.