I quite like the UI/UX – but is it the appropriate solution for YOU?
Short summary: I quite like the UI/UX of the plugin and am impressed by its functionality. But as explained below I have chosen to stop using the plugin due to security risks and the fact that I consider it better to 1) use staging sites from my regular hosting providers, 2) use backup/restore functionality from UpdraftPlus (or another focused backup provider) that I already use and 3) to give easy access to my sites when needed, with the excellent “Tempory Login Without Password” plugin. But for other (more full time) users of WordPress the calculation might be totally different. More details below if you are interested: UPDATE 2: In my opinion InstaWP offers a quite nice UI/UX (except for the thumpnails on the new instruction videos) and some very relevant functionality – but I think the primary consideration with this plugin should be, whether you really need the functionality it offers, and whether it therefore warrants the investment in learning the particulars of another plugin and accept the added security risks it brings. Because the functionality that InstaWP offers is technically quite advanced and with it comes a lot of security concerns. I experienced this myself as mentioned below, when someone from the InstaWP team was able to login to my site, without my prior permission. This should now have been solved by the team, with a switch in the backend, where you should now be able to prohibit such external logins. On 8 February 2024 I received a security alert from Cloudways where most of my hosting is, that there was a serious security vulnerability in my WordPress InstaWP Connect plugin, version 0.1.0.9 – SQL injection vulnerability. You can read more about it here: https://patchstack.com/database/vulnerability/instawp-connect/wordpress-instawp-connect-plugin-0-1-0-9-sql-injection-vulnerability https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/wordpress-plugins/instawp-connect/instawp-connect-0109-authenticated-subscriber-sql-injection Additionally when I had an otherwise very positive and constructive video-call with Vikas from InstaWP and one of his colleagues (they were both calling in from India), they managed to identify the issue (was basically an error in InstaWP, which caused a conflict with another plugin). So when I now had to decide whether to continue using the plugin or not, my primary consideration was this: My hosting (Cloudways) has staging functionality. I already use UpdraftPlus for Backup/Restore and I use the “Temporary Login Without Password” plugin for easily giving developers and others easy access to my sites (could also be used for many other co-operating situations). Additionally, as it is a small development group behind the plugin you seriously run the risk – as just happened with the Cwicly Pagebuilder plugin, that the founder suddenly just decides to quit the development of his plugin. That adds quite some risk to your development workflow. So it is better to keep it simple in my opinion. So personally I have decided that with all the things that can and do go wrong when you have to setup and transfer staging sites etc.,between different hosting setups, I prefer to simply use the staging site functionality provided by my regular hosting companies. There is simply less risk of system conflicts when your live and staging site is on the same technical platform. I also personally don’t have the required time and ressources to invest in really getting to know the plugin to fully utilize its many functionalities. Everytime there are interoperability or errors with a plugin it takes time to solve, and that time extends the time for completion of your homepage. Personally I prefer to use my “learning-time” on more “core” dynamic WordPress plugins. For full time WordPress professionals this may very wll be a different situation. But I wish Vikas and team all the best with their plugin. For me personally I need to focus on mastering some other (for me) more core WordPress plugins. Michael UPDATE 1: I am currently in a good dialogue with Vikas from InstaWP – and a plugin update, which should solve my issue should just have been released. I am currently very busy traveling, but expect to be able to review the latest plugin update on Friday and will then update my review further. For now – just due to the response and dialogue – I have upgraded the review from 2 to 3 stars. I hope to be able to upgrade it further, after I have a chance to test the plugin update. —ooOoo— I really WANT to like this product – it has a very nice UI/UX and if it worked in practice as advertised, it would simply be a great product. I bought a Professional plan on 23. November, and made my first attempt to set up a staging site on 25. November – using the recommended WP plugin. On every attempt – with 3 different sites, on different servers at Cloudways (a company that actually support the use of InstaWP), I tried to set up a simple staging site. On every attempt the backup process would stop after InstaWP had downloaded about 11-14% of the site. I went through every setting it could possibly adjust, but nothing helped. So I wrote to InstaWP support and asked for help on 25. November. The following day I had a reply from the founder Vikas from InstaWP asking “What is your live website URL?”. I wrote it back immediately. He acknowledge receipt of my e-mail informing me “Thanks Michael, I will be in touch very soon.” Then nothing happened – so 5 days later (on a Friday after a whole week has passed) I write back and ask for an update. I receive no response. 5 days later (the following wednesday) I again ask for feedback. The following day I suddenly receive a “Login notification” for my reported homepage from InstaWP support (an automated reply), informing me that someone has logged into my account “using Magic Login from InstaWP.” So without any prior notification to me or asking for permission InstaWP simply just use their own plugin to try to gain unauthorised access to my site. Just because I install their plugin does not mean that I want their developers to have unlimited access to my sites whenever they want to. Luckily I have 2-factor authorization on all my sites (so I don’t think they managed to get access that way), so shortly afterwards I receive an e-mail where they ask for administrator login to my site. I naturally grant them this through the excellent “Temporaty Login Without Password” plugin, for one week. I receive a reply from a member of their team on 8. December, apologizing that they accessed my site without asking for permission first. Unfortunately the response also states that “We generally take approval before logging to users site”. There should be no “generally” in that sentence. He never responds to my question about “How can I be certain that you will never again misuse the InstaWP Magic Login to access my account?” But he informs me that most of the team are not currently available due to WordCamp travel. He writes that “So it might take some time to fix the issue. They will be back next week.” We now have Thursday of that next week (almost 3 weeks after I first raised the issue in a support request) – and I have still not heard back from them. That is simply NOT acceptable for a product to be used in a professional workflow. When I (as a paying Professional level user) cannot receive any help on my very basic setup issues – during 3 weeks – I really don’t understand how 6 out of 7 reviews here on wordpress.org and all the other 39 reviews of InstaWP on Trustpilot can be 5 star reviews. So I wanted to share my experience. I will now cancell my subscription and ask for a refund of my initial 1. month, as they have not managed to make their product work for me on a very basic and standard wordpress setup. So much potential – but my experience of their execution has been very bad.
Perfect tool and plugin for support/testing and development
I have been using InstaWP services for a few months now, and I cannot simply imagine life without it. It saves a ton of energy and effort in building websites for testing purposes or maybe a presentation site that you can create and show to your customers! That’s like having an entire website production facility at a few clicks distance, ready to serve you without effort and struggle.Combining the InstaWP platform with this InstaWP Connect plugin will amp up the benefits and versatility that it already offers, to a whole new level – this way it can be so easy to troubleshoot problems “in-house”, on your own server and database droplet, in just minutes after cloning that site into an instaWP staging.This helps a lot in worrying less about troubleshooting rigidity and risks that working on a production website implies, and it’s a life savior. Templates are for sure one of my favorite, if not the most favorite features of all since I can have a library of already prepared websites waiting for me to create in seconds – like an entire bookshelf ready for you, that does not deplete itself, once you take a book to start reading it. :)Support is also top-notch and very fast, as I am sure lots of you already know.Can honestly say it saved a lot of my hair from falling and from turning white! Thanks, guys; keep it up!
Lucian
November 2, 2023
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1 reply
Really helpful for creating sites fast
Overall, its a great tool abd has much potebtial. I love the template and sybc feature, which is the main reason i tried InstaWP. Im starting to use it more ofteb as i get the hang of it. Great job on the interface as well, the UI is very clean.
Great plugin !
InstaWP Connect is a handy WordPress plugin that simplifies the development process by allowing users to seamlessly connect their WordPress installations to InstaWP environments. This integration proves invaluable for developers looking to quickly spin up temporary sites for testing or demonstration purposes.Overall, InstaWP Connect is a robust solution that enhances workflow and boosts productivity.
Really helpful for creating sites fast
Overall, its a great tool abd has much potebtial. I love the template and sybc feature, which is the main reason i tried InstaWP. Im starting to use it more ofteb as i get the hang of it. Great job on the interface as well, the UI is very clean.
Just What I Needed!
Built a small website for a dentist. Needed a headache-free staging platform and a way to push to live. This was EXACTLY what I needed. It was awesome. 100% recommend. Price is more than reasonable and e-mail support team got back to me within minutes. Good job and thank you!
Great plugin !
InstaWP Connect is a handy WordPress plugin that simplifies the development process by allowing users to seamlessly connect their WordPress installations to InstaWP environments. This integration proves invaluable for developers looking to quickly spin up temporary sites for testing or demonstration purposes.Overall, InstaWP Connect is a robust solution that enhances workflow and boosts productivity.
Really helpful for creating sites fast
Overall, its a great tool abd has much potebtial. I love the template and sybc feature, which is the main reason i tried InstaWP. Im starting to use it more ofteb as i get the hang of it. Great job on the interface as well, the UI is very clean.
Just What I Needed!
Built a small website for a dentist. Needed a headache-free staging platform and a way to push to live. This was EXACTLY what I needed. It was awesome. 100% recommend. Price is more than reasonable and e-mail support team got back to me within minutes. Good job and thank you!
This does not work for me
I have tried this plugin to create staging sites on 2 different websites – neither of them worked. On one website, it throws an error saying that I do not have enough allowance in my account – but I have an empty account and the size of the website is less than the allowance I have. Even when I choose ‘Quick staging’ – it says the website size is exactly the same as if I choose ‘Full Staging’ – that doesn’t make any sense. Their support were unable to help – everything they told me to try didn’t work. With the second website – the error just saying ‘Something went wrong’ – not a helpful error message. This is disappointing. I am cancelling my subscription.
murphaloid
November 7, 2023
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1 reply
I quite like the UI/UX – but is it the appropriate solution for YOU?
Short summary: I quite like the UI/UX of the plugin and am impressed by its functionality. But as explained below I have chosen to stop using the plugin due to security risks and the fact that I consider it better to 1) use staging sites from my regular hosting providers, 2) use backup/restore functionality from UpdraftPlus (or another focused backup provider) that I already use and 3) to give easy access to my sites when needed, with the excellent “Tempory Login Without Password” plugin. But for other (more full time) users of WordPress the calculation might be totally different. More details below if you are interested: UPDATE 2: In my opinion InstaWP offers a quite nice UI/UX (except for the thumpnails on the new instruction videos) and some very relevant functionality – but I think the primary consideration with this plugin should be, whether you really need the functionality it offers, and whether it therefore warrants the investment in learning the particulars of another plugin and accept the added security risks it brings. Because the functionality that InstaWP offers is technically quite advanced and with it comes a lot of security concerns. I experienced this myself as mentioned below, when someone from the InstaWP team was able to login to my site, without my prior permission. This should now have been solved by the team, with a switch in the backend, where you should now be able to prohibit such external logins. On 8 February 2024 I received a security alert from Cloudways where most of my hosting is, that there was a serious security vulnerability in my WordPress InstaWP Connect plugin, version 0.1.0.9 – SQL injection vulnerability. You can read more about it here: https://patchstack.com/database/vulnerability/instawp-connect/wordpress-instawp-connect-plugin-0-1-0-9-sql-injection-vulnerability https://www.wordfence.com/threat-intel/vulnerabilities/wordpress-plugins/instawp-connect/instawp-connect-0109-authenticated-subscriber-sql-injection Additionally when I had an otherwise very positive and constructive video-call with Vikas from InstaWP and one of his colleagues (they were both calling in from India), they managed to identify the issue (was basically an error in InstaWP, which caused a conflict with another plugin). So when I now had to decide whether to continue using the plugin or not, my primary consideration was this: My hosting (Cloudways) has staging functionality. I already use UpdraftPlus for Backup/Restore and I use the “Temporary Login Without Password” plugin for easily giving developers and others easy access to my sites (could also be used for many other co-operating situations). Additionally, as it is a small development group behind the plugin you seriously run the risk – as just happened with the Cwicly Pagebuilder plugin, that the founder suddenly just decides to quit the development of his plugin. That adds quite some risk to your development workflow. So it is better to keep it simple in my opinion. So personally I have decided that with all the things that can and do go wrong when you have to setup and transfer staging sites etc.,between different hosting setups, I prefer to simply use the staging site functionality provided by my regular hosting companies. There is simply less risk of system conflicts when your live and staging site is on the same technical platform. I also personally don’t have the required time and ressources to invest in really getting to know the plugin to fully utilize its many functionalities. Everytime there are interoperability or errors with a plugin it takes time to solve, and that time extends the time for completion of your homepage. Personally I prefer to use my “learning-time” on more “core” dynamic WordPress plugins. For full time WordPress professionals this may very wll be a different situation. But I wish Vikas and team all the best with their plugin. For me personally I need to focus on mastering some other (for me) more core WordPress plugins. Michael UPDATE 1: I am currently in a good dialogue with Vikas from InstaWP – and a plugin update, which should solve my issue should just have been released. I am currently very busy traveling, but expect to be able to review the latest plugin update on Friday and will then update my review further. For now – just due to the response and dialogue – I have upgraded the review from 2 to 3 stars. I hope to be able to upgrade it further, after I have a chance to test the plugin update. —ooOoo— I really WANT to like this product – it has a very nice UI/UX and if it worked in practice as advertised, it would simply be a great product. I bought a Professional plan on 23. November, and made my first attempt to set up a staging site on 25. November – using the recommended WP plugin. On every attempt – with 3 different sites, on different servers at Cloudways (a company that actually support the use of InstaWP), I tried to set up a simple staging site. On every attempt the backup process would stop after InstaWP had downloaded about 11-14% of the site. I went through every setting it could possibly adjust, but nothing helped. So I wrote to InstaWP support and asked for help on 25. November. The following day I had a reply from the founder Vikas from InstaWP asking “What is your live website URL?”. I wrote it back immediately. He acknowledge receipt of my e-mail informing me “Thanks Michael, I will be in touch very soon.” Then nothing happened – so 5 days later (on a Friday after a whole week has passed) I write back and ask for an update. I receive no response. 5 days later (the following wednesday) I again ask for feedback. The following day I suddenly receive a “Login notification” for my reported homepage from InstaWP support (an automated reply), informing me that someone has logged into my account “using Magic Login from InstaWP.” So without any prior notification to me or asking for permission InstaWP simply just use their own plugin to try to gain unauthorised access to my site. Just because I install their plugin does not mean that I want their developers to have unlimited access to my sites whenever they want to. Luckily I have 2-factor authorization on all my sites (so I don’t think they managed to get access that way), so shortly afterwards I receive an e-mail where they ask for administrator login to my site. I naturally grant them this through the excellent “Temporaty Login Without Password” plugin, for one week. I receive a reply from a member of their team on 8. December, apologizing that they accessed my site without asking for permission first. Unfortunately the response also states that “We generally take approval before logging to users site”. There should be no “generally” in that sentence. He never responds to my question about “How can I be certain that you will never again misuse the InstaWP Magic Login to access my account?” But he informs me that most of the team are not currently available due to WordCamp travel. He writes that “So it might take some time to fix the issue. They will be back next week.” We now have Thursday of that next week (almost 3 weeks after I first raised the issue in a support request) – and I have still not heard back from them. That is simply NOT acceptable for a product to be used in a professional workflow. When I (as a paying Professional level user) cannot receive any help on my very basic setup issues – during 3 weeks – I really don’t understand how 6 out of 7 reviews here on wordpress.org and all the other 39 reviews of InstaWP on Trustpilot can be 5 star reviews. So I wanted to share my experience. I will now cancell my subscription and ask for a refund of my initial 1. month, as they have not managed to make their product work for me on a very basic and standard wordpress setup. So much potential – but my experience of their execution has been very bad.
Great plugin !
InstaWP Connect is a handy WordPress plugin that simplifies the development process by allowing users to seamlessly connect their WordPress installations to InstaWP environments. This integration proves invaluable for developers looking to quickly spin up temporary sites for testing or demonstration purposes.Overall, InstaWP Connect is a robust solution that enhances workflow and boosts productivity.
