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Hoster: Self-Host WordPress Plugin Updates Without WordPress.org

hoster

Publishing a plugin on WordPress.org means following its rules and then waiting in a review queue that can take around a month. Some plugins are also never meant to be public. In this short intro we show Hoster, our tool for self-hosting WordPress plugins and pushing updates to your own sites or your clients' sites. You skip the queue and stop copying files from one site to the next.

The limitations of WordPress.org

WordPress.org works well for public plugins, but it comes with rules that don't fit every project. Here are the ones we go through in the video, with the Detailed Plugin Guidelines page open:

  • No CDN. You can't load assets from a CDN, so your plugin ends up heavier.
  • Shipped libraries only. You have to use the libraries that ship with WordPress, so you never get the latest versions.
  • Removal rights. Guideline 18. We reserve the right to maintain the Plugin Directory to the best of our ability lets WordPress.org disable or remove any plugin, "even for reasons not explicitly covered by the guidelines", even if you followed every rule.
  • Long review queue. Right now the wait is around a month, even for a simple block or plugin.

What Hoster gives you

Hoster lets you distribute your plugins yourself. The product page covers three main features:

  • Generated Templates: upload a zip, and Hoster generates plugin template files with unique prefixes for that download.
  • GitHub Actions: fetch releases from GitHub. Hoster creates a YAML action for your plugin that downloads the npm dependencies, builds the plugin and cleans up, so you end up with a production-ready zip. We cover the GitHub setup in a separate video.
  • Lightweight Solution: update checks don't query the database. Sites read a generated static JSON file instead, which keeps the load on your WordPress server low.

Not every plugin belongs on WordPress.org. If you build something for your clients or for a few of your own sites, you don't want to copy and paste it onto each one. With Hoster, your sites see the new version on the normal Plugins screen, the same way they do for WordPress.org plugins. In the demo, our DP HotSpot plugin shows "There is a new version" in the list, and the details popup shows its Description, Installation and Changelog tabs. You click update and every site gets the new version.

Get Hoster → dplugins.com

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