What Are Staging Environments?
If you’re running a WordPress website, you’ve probably heard the term “staging environment” thrown around.
But what exactly is it, and why is it important for your website hosting? In this article, we’ll explain what a staging environment is and how it can benefit your WordPress website.
Staging Environments vs Production Environments
1. Production Environment
A production environment is the live version of your website that is available to the public. It’s the environment where your website visitors can view and interact with your website.
2. Staging Environment
On the other hand, a staging environment is a duplicated “hidden” environment that is used for testing and development purposes.
The staging environment is where you can make changes, updates, and modifications to your website without affecting the live version.
You can test any changes in the staging environment before swapping them over to the production environment. This is a safer way of testing and avoids any unexpected surprises or issues for your live website visitors.
Why is a Staging Environment Important for Your Website?
1. Testing Theme & Plugin Updates
One of the main reasons to use a staging environment is to test plugins and theme updates before applying them to your live website.
This is especially important for WordPress websites since major theme or plugin updates can often break your website if they are not compatible with other areas of your website.
By testing updates in a staging environment, you can avoid any potential issues on your live website.
2. Hiding Your Website During Development
A staging environment allows you to make design changes and other larger website updates without affecting your live website.
You can experiment with different themes, designs, and optimization plugins without your visitors seeing any of the changes.
3. Collaboration & Approval
If you have a team working on your website, a staging environment allows people to view, work on, and approve the website without it affecting the front end.
Once a decision maker approves the staging environment, then you can replace the production environment with the staging environment effortlessly.
Key Takeaways
- A staging environment is a separate environment from the live website, which is used for testing and development purposes.
- The staging environment allows website owners to test updates, improve website performance, and collaborate with their team without affecting the live website.
- By testing updates in a staging environment, you can avoid potential issues on your live website.
- You can experiment with different caching and optimization plugins to improve website performance in a staging environment.
- A staging environment allows multiple people to work on the website at the same time without interfering with each other’s work.
