KenW3

@sgauder, We sent out questions asking about WordPress manager tools to everybody we knew or had done business with that had WordPress knowledge, including posting the query here and on various forums.

I found three utilities that act as managers for WordPress sites, and two that perform (semi)automatic upgrade functions. Of the three that act as managers, one is a program and two are online subscription services.

The program is at wpdesktop.com. Although it has management features, it is lacking in capabilities. After reading the available manual, it seems the strength is more in installing rather than managing.

The two online WP manager services are:

wpmanagerdx.com – They have a trial install available online, and this is a monthly subscription that is used online only.

managewp.com – This is a new service that looks as though it is being set up to be an online service and will be subscription based also.

I did not go with any of these three solutions. The program lacks needed features, and the online solutions did not seem secure. ManageWP actually bypasses the password and login by installing a back door as a plug-in. To me, that is a future problem over which I would have no control, and cannot risk that with client sites.

The two update programs were both WSO offers, and these are both designed to upgrade WP versions and plug-in versions.

wpupdaterobot.com is an upgrade tool that is run as a local client when you decide to do updates, and it follows a script. This was a WF WSO, but the offer has ended.

The other updater looks like it performs similar functions, and the WSO provider is Dave Toomey.

I bought the WSO Update Robot from Shannon Herrod, so that solved two update automation needs (version and plugin upgrades). For db backups, we went with WP-DB-Backup instead of Backup Buddy. Passwords are still automated with Roboform. The rest is still in Excel. Someday there may be an all-in-one solution, bnut for now this process is the most efficient.

I am most active on experienced-people.net and always enjoy sharing business ideas, Ken

@sgauder I received a query from you on a thread that was closed by a mod due my OP being off-topic.

Please contact me at abcl7496 at cfl.rr.com as I had written your answer, went to post it, and found the thread closed. KenW3

P.S. Alternatively, you could post a new thread and tell me where it is from this thread, as I set it to notify me of follow-ups.

Thank you very much for your replies. I will continue to search for a solution to user login management and offsite maintenance database software.

@dallasm I had looked at Backup Buddy as a potential solution for backups, but not for installs. For the install process, wpdesktop.com had a more elegant solution. It was even more simple, though, to just drag completely configured sites (based on structure) from temporary holding folders, and just overwrite the files specific to the new site.

@andrea_r Thank you very much for your activity on this forum. You have taught me far more than you know with your responses to various posts across this BBS :~) I did not pursue MU due to the additional complexities it seemed to introduce to the process.

I had looked at creativeimplementations.com/manage-multiple-wordpress-sites-you-need-this/ software as one potential solution to monitoring sites. This is a plugin for a status dashboard, but did not address an offsite database with a password and login method to provide means by which to address the processes it monitors.

I considered joejacobs.org/software/yet-another-multi-site-manager/ for use with an MU site, but this did not address the feature set preferred, including the preference for a paid commercial package and still no login abilities for management.

CP-Lab.com and RoboForm provide useful software for password and site login management, but these are not specific to WP. They’d be useful with a changelog database specific to WP webmaster changes, active site monitoring, and some way to maintain an offline user database by site that shows user level permissions.

The reason for the search is the hope that, due to the popularity of this CMS, some software publisher somewhere would have addressed this need. Even someone with just a few sites would benefit. An excel spreadsheet for all of these functions is just not a suitable solution, but does provide temporary function when a fully relational, CMS specific database is not published anywhere (that I have found so far :~)

Thank you very much, Ken

Andrea, Thank you for your reply. Perhaps you can please suggest where this query should be posted? It may be appropriate for Advanced, but I cannot post there.

Someone has to have had this difficulty and determined a resolution. Yes, there are a lot of sites. There are 30 on my personal hosting service, with a couple hundred others across four hosting companies, some of which are on their own private servers.

If anyone knows of a Windows application designed to manage multiple WordPress installations… If anyone has any ideas on how to proceed, this has gotten a bit out of hand, and the recent 3.1 update exposed the difficulty that is ever increasnig as sites are added.

As you state this is the exclusive domain of MU queries, and not for help with multiple-site difficulties, is there a more appropriate venue for help that is desperately needed?