Generally, you can make use of staging environment or localhost setup for testing plugins and themes. However, this needs lot of effort and proper hosting plan. How about creating a free dummy or demo WordPress site preinstalled with a plugin or theme you want to test?
Creating Demo Sites with TasteWP
TasteWP offers a free platform to create demo or dummy WordPress sites in less than a minute. The beauty is that you can create an empty site (standard installation) or setup with any of your favorite plugin / theme from WordPress repository.
1. Create Demo WordPress Site with a Plugin
Let’s say, you want to create a demo site with Classic Editor plugin to replace the Gutenberg editor.
- Go to WordPress plugin repository to search and open Classic Editor plugin.
- Copy the plugin’s page URL which is https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/.
- Simply replace wordpress.org in the URL with tastewp.com like https://tastewp.com/plugins/classic-editor/.
- Paste this URL in your browser’s address bar and press enter.
- Voila! You will see the WordPress site is created in just few seconds. Click on the “See more” button on the timer.
- Note down your WordPress admin URL, username and password.
- Go to “Plugins > Installed Plugins” section and you will find the “Classic Editor” plugin is already installed and activated on your setup.
You do have other two URL options to create a site with preinstalled plugin:
- https://tastewp.com/new/?pre-installed-plugin-slug=classic-editor
- https://tastewp.com/try/plugin/classic-editor
Slug is the name of plugin from its page URL.
2. Setting Up Multiple Plugins Preinstalled
It’s not just a single plugin you can preinstall, TasteWP allows you to install up to 5 plugins with the WordPress installation. You need to append the plugin’s slug in the URL for this. Let’s say, you want to preinstall Yoast SEO and Jetpack plugins. You can get the slug for these plugins from the WordPress repository pages:
| Plugin | WordPress URL | Plugin Slug |
|---|---|---|
| Yoast | https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/ | wordpress-seo |
| Jetpack | https://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/ | jetpack |
The URL to install WordPress with these two plugins should be like below:
- https://tastewp.com/new/?pre-installed-plugin-slug=wordpress-seo&pre-installed-plugin-slug=jetpack
You can add additional three more plugins in the URL by appending &pre-installed-plugin-slug=plugin-slug. Simply paste the URL in address bar and press enter, your WordPress installation will be ready with preinstalled and activated plugins mentioned in the URL.
3. Create Demo WordPress Site with a Theme
By default, WordPress setup comes with twenty-twenty-three or twenty-twenty-four theme. Instead of default theme, you can also setup dummy WordPress site with any of your favorite theme. Let’s say, you want to use Astra theme which has the following WordPress URL:
- https://wordpress.org/themes/astra/
Now, you can use one of the following formats using the theme’s slug (similar to plugin’s slug).
- https://tastewp.com/new/?pre-installed-theme-slug=astra
- https://tastewp.com/themes/astra
- https://tastewp.com/try/theme/astra
4. Creating Demo Site with Default Installation
If you do not want to have any preinstalled plugin or theme and want to create a standard WordPress installation, use the following URL:
- https://tastewp.com/new
Alternatively, go to TasteWP website, check the “I agree with Terms” box and click on “Set it up!” button. You will see the admin credentials showing as a pop-up, copy the details and click “Access it now!” button to login to your dashboard.
FAQ on TasteWP WordPress Setup
Good thing is that you do not need to create an account or logging into TasteWP site (though creating an account gives more flexibility). Here are some FAQ on free usage without TasteWP account:
1. How many sites are allowed?
You can create 2 dummy sites and create further after they expire.
2. How long the site will be available?
Each site will be available for 8 hours when you create it by replacing wordpress.org URL. Otherwise, it will be there for 2 days. Note down your admin URL, username and password so that you can login later.
3. Do I need to delete the site after using?
No, the sites will be automatically deleted.
4. Why are there additional plugins installed?
There are few plugins like Backup Migration installed automatically from the developer Inisev who is also managing TasteWP. This is the only upselling (like advertisem*nts) for the free use.
5. How much size I can use?
1 GB is the storage limit for free users.
6. Can I reset the password, if I forget?
No, the site uses dummy admin email address from TasteWP. So, you will not be able to reset the password even though you know the email or username.
Final Words
Trying out a new plugin or theme is one of the basic tasks all WordPress site owners do. The problem is that WordPress has more than 59K plugins and 12K themes in the free repository when we write this article. Testing multiple plugins and themes on a live site will create lot of residual files and database entries and clutter your installation. It will be a difficult task for you to clean up the setup to keep the speed of page loading and database queries. The best option is to create a demo WordPress site for testing purposes with TasteWp. All you need is to simply find the plugin’s or theme’s WordPress URL and replace wordpress.org with tastewp.com.
