If you’re looking for a way to monitor multiple WordPress installs and even run some backups, WP Remote is the tool you’re looking for.
Best of all, WP Remote is free!
I’ve tested it on several sites I manage to put WP Remote through the paces and see how well it performs. Considering how diverse WordPress can be, I wanted to run as much variety through it as possible.
WP Remote
Like I said, WP Remote is free, but honestly, the quality they provide is really good. It seems like there only a few simple features away from making this a premium app.
After you’ve signed up, installed the WP Remote plugin on the sites you want to connect, link them together, and you’re up and running.
If you have a bunch of sites, you can put them in groups to keep everything organized.
The green lights mean everything is awesome and working great, the yellow lights are asking for attention. What WP Remote is looking for is if your WordPress install needs any updates — core, themes or plugins.
As you can see below, I need to update the WP Remote Plugin on this website:
Whereas those with the green light, show that everything is up-to-date and running great!
My favorite feature you can see in the screenshot above — Site Backups!
You can backup your site whenever you like, and the WP Remote peeps are teasing about automatic backups coming soon. That feature alone could push WP Remote into the premium category. WP Remote stores your backup files on an Amazon server for you, but you can also chose to download the file to your own machine, too. Yeah, you heard right, they’re storing your WordPress backup files at no charge!
Cool, right?
But …
When it comes to keeping a pulse on multiple sites, all at once, there’s hardly a better tool. It has a great dashboard and when you click to update a plugin, it takes you straight to your site to make the plugin update.
Slick.
The hiccup with WP Remote comes with the backup. If your site is too big, this isn’t going to work. My smaller sites worked quick and easy. The biggest site I successfully backed-up was about 330MB, while those in the gig range would not. So, I emailed WP Remote about what limits they had set in place, this was their response:
We don’t have a definitive limit, however the if the sites size exceeds a couple of gigabits the backup process with then begin to time out.
Perhaps they’ll change this in the future, as for now, it’s still a superb tool in my book. I’ll be using it to backup smaller sites and I’ll be adding the more of my own as it’s a great way to quickly check-in to see what needs updating.
Learn more and sign up for free on the WP Remote website.
Mickey says
Very cool. Aside from cost, where this is the clear winner, any other thoughts on how it compares to ManageWP?
Eric Dye says
ManageWP seems to “dig-in deeper” into your WordPress admins, whereas, WP Remote does not. As for the backup size, I’m not sure if ManageWP has those limitations. Then again, WP Remote is free. I would give WP Remote a spin, first, since it’s free. If it doesn’t serve you well, give ManageWP a try.
Mickey says
That seems like a smart plan. I’ll check it out.
Eric Dye says
😉
(Let us know how it goes! — maybe even guest post it :-))