How do I push Dev updates to existing Production site?

  • Hi,

    I have a live site & a staging site. Exact clones of each other. (on WordPress)

    Basically, I want to be able to work on staging site. Test updates and make design changes also (plugins, CSS etc etc.) and then push those edits and updates to the development site. Everywhere I read just seems to suggest the duplicator plugin, but I already have an existing live site, I don’t need to create a site with no database or files. It’s just for updates I’ve added and tested in the staging site (e.g. installed plugins, images, CSS styling, theme changes).

    I created the clones doing it manually. But this was before any updates – so didn’t matter could just export the lot and import the lot.

    I want
    a) to do updates on staging site and push them to live site – but only the updates.
    b) there’s certain parts on the live site that may add new content (e.g. reviews, customer’s creating an account, customer’s purchasing products via woocommerce) so as that data is also vital, I don’t want to override everything. So how do you do this? How do you update sites where you can edit plugins or CSS or anything .. and test it all on a staging site and then just push it to your live site without overriding other vital content created on the live site, while you were busy developing on the staging site?? What’s the easiest, safest, quickest way to do this on WP?

    I hope this makes sense.

    Thanks for your help

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  • I have used WPEngine to host my site, and they include a staging environment with the hosting plan. You can quickly spin up a staging site, and when you’re ready you can merge changes back with the live site. You don’t have to merge everything if you don’t want to. So in your case where WooCommerce orders are made on the live site, you can exclude certain portions of your database when you merge your changes. If you’re only concerned with importing file changes (CSS, plugins, etc.) you can exclude the entire database from the staging site. If you need to merge new posts/pages but don’t want to risk touching any data that might have change on the live site, you can always use the built in Export/Import feature under the Tools menu.

    Thread Starter sn0wleopard

    (@sn0wleopard)

    I can’t afford WPEngine hosting right now :-/ I’m on Hostgator but that’s good to know for future use. I need to do this for free if possible. Thanks for the tips though appreciate it

    This might also help: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-staging-environment-for-a-wordpress-site/

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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