WordPress Tool Kit Clone for Dev / Staging environment (separate cPanel account)?

markus909

• June 04, 2023 02:36

I am trying to better understand the options I have to create development / staging environment with cPanel and WordPress Overall there are a few approaches, e.g.

• completely manually by exporting/importing DB and copying and modifying files
• using a WP plugin to set up a staging environment
• using WP Toolkit as suggested here and use the clone feature

From my point of view a dev or staging environment should be

• in a separate DB, and not just different tables with a different table-prefix
• in a separate folder and not in a subfolder of public_html
• in a separate cPanel account
• easy to pull/push and even work as a last resort recovery solution

I never used the WP Toolkit Clone feature, however I do see a problem here. This will work only within the same cPanel account. It will create a subfolder in public_html which is just not a nice structure. Every website should be completely in it's own folder and not in the sub folder of another website. What's a recommended way of doing this? Or am I missing something with WP Toolkit and the Clone feature. For reference I am on a reseller account, so I don't have full WHM control but rely on the hosting provider Till now I did it with WPVivid a WordPress plugin that comes with a staging feature. However, while it worked on my previous non cPanel Hosting, it does not work anymore with the cPanel hosting.

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • June 05, 2023 14:43

  Hey there! WPT can only perform work inside the cPanel account for the user. There aren't any higher-level tools that would split a clone into a unique cPanel account. You can create a unique subdomain as part of the cloning process, and that separate directory structure will be independent from the live site:

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  markus909

  • June 05, 2023 18:43

  Thanks for confirming this. From what I have learned so far, it is the best way to have DEV and LIVE system separated. My hosting provider also recommend to use a separate cPanel account for LIVE/DEV for security and simplicity. If one site gets hacked, the other one is still very well protected (different cPanel account). Too bad that there is no option to get dev/staging sync (or clone) done in an easy way with cPanel

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • June 05, 2023 18:57

  I've forwarded that feature request over to the WordPress Toolkit team, so they are aware of the desire for this now!

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  markus909

  • June 07, 2023 06:14

  Thanks a lot! I actually never even looked at this with other hosting management platforms - many hosting companies offer a staging feature out of the box (Siteground, Cloudways, Kinsta). All those are completely different kinds of hosting provider. Could be that it actually also just works because it's actually on the same user account. Not sure if LIVE / DEV are completely separated in those cases. However, for security reason it probably is the way to go to have LIVE / DEV separated (but it costs convenience, and even cPanel license or require a higher hosting plan with more cPanel accounts at some point in time)

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  Simone Coppini

  • November 20, 2025 07:43

  I totally agree with Markus's considerations. 
  I am faceing with the same problem. I want to create a staging site on a different cPanel account. 

  cPRex any new about the requestd feature?

  markus909 can you tell me please how did you solved the problem? Did you syncronize the web sites manually? Or did you use a plugin? Which one?

   

  Thank you

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • November 20, 2025 17:16

  Simone Coppini - I don't see that such functionality has been implemented.  Would you like me to submit a request to the team for that?  

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  Simone Coppini

  • November 21, 2025 07:41

  Hi CPrex,

  yes sure. I think at the moment it's a big limit in cPanel don't have it.

   

  Thank you

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  markus909

  • November 21, 2025 08:11

  Simone Coppini I never really got along with it, there are too many limitations and issues in my eyes. In the end I hardly ever keep them in sync now and I am trusting other tools more so if I do update a staging I use WPvivid or other WordPress plugins to do that

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • November 24, 2025 15:14

  I reached out to the WP Toolkit team to get more details on this and they let me know the following:

  Currently it is possible, but you'll need to use the Copy Data feature. Just create a new site in the target account and copy data to it. WP Toolkit interface allow this in the WHM interface.

  Can you try that on your end and see if that helps?

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  Simone Coppini

  • November 25, 2025 13:07
  • Edited

  Thank you, markus909 ... I abandoned the idea to use 2 different accounts too, even though I think it would be the best approach. I'll see this plugin: WPvivid . Thnak you

   

  cPRex, mmm no.. I'm sorry... I've tried but when I try to "Copy data", I see only web sites in the same cPanl account. Thank for your support. But I abandon the idea to use two different accounts. 

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  cPRex Jurassic Moderator

  • November 25, 2025 14:24

  I reached out to the team again and it turns out we were misunderstanding each other - they meant a separate domain within the same cPanel account, and I meant a totally separate cPanel account.  So no, this isn't possible.

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