Using a WordPress site management tool to manage multiple sites is convenient and a wise business decision for WordPress developers and agencies. These tools help you streamline your workflow, save time, maintain consistency, improve turnover, and build stronger client relationships.
MainWP is one of the ecosystem’s most highly recommended WordPress site management plugins. It allows you to manage multiple WordPress sites from one place.
MainWP is a good site management plugin, but other noteworthy alternatives are worth exploring. This article will explore some of the best MainWP alternatives designed to assist developers and WordPress agencies manage WordPress sites successfully.
Table of Contents
What is MainWP?
MainWP is a powerful and flexible open-source solution allowing WordPress users to manage multiple WordPress sites from a single centralized dashboard, including sites on different hosting or servers.
With MainWP, you can update plugins and themes, monitor your sites for video, monitor uptime, create new users across various sites, and schedule site backups.
Key Features of MainWP
- Self-hosted central dashboard
- Instant theme and plugin updates
- Vulnerability check
- Uptime monitoring
- Scheduled automated backups
- User role management
- Support external backup storage
- Speed testing
- SEO Monitoring
Pricing Of MainWP
MainWP is a free WordPress management tool. The free version allows you to manage unlimited WordPress sites, but it comes with limited features. For advanced features and premium extensions, you must opt for the $29/month, $199/year, or $599 lifetime subscription.
MainWP Alternatives for WordPress Site Management
Now, let’s explore five (5) best MainWP alternatives for those considering a different tool other than MainWP.
1. InstaWP
InstaWP is an outstanding management platform for WordPress sites. It is cloud-based and away from your server, ensuring no load on your site. InstaWP allows you to connect unlimited WordPress sites and use your user-intuitive dashboard to manage them.
In addition to connecting and managing multiple WordPress sites from your dashboard, InstaWP offers a range of other features, including vulnerability scanning, WordPress staging, one-click Admin login, automated backups, etc.
Key Features
- Remote Management
- 1-click WP-Admin Access
- Bulk theme, plugin, and core updates
- Uptime monitoring
- Purge cache
- User Role Management
- One-click staging environment
- Content Management
- Website Migration and cloning
- Backup and Restore
- Performance & vulnerability monitoring
- Team Collaboration
Pricing:
- Starter: $90 / year
- Professional: $180 / year (free hosting for one site included)
- Agency: $490 / year (free hosting for three sites included)
2. WP Umbrella
WP Umbrella is another popular site management plugin for WordPress. This plugin provides a dashboard to connect and manage multiple WordPress sites. WP Umbrella allows you to monitor uptime, automate backups, check performance, implement updates, and monitor PHP errors. It also allows you to generate customizable maintenance reports for your clients, making it a top choice for WordPress agencies and developers.
Key Features
- User-friendly interface
- Uptime monitoring
- Update manager for themes and plugins
- Automatic backups
- Error monitoring
- Performance insights
- Automated maintenance reports
- White labelling
Pricing:
WP Umbrella pricing starts at $1.99 per month per site.
3. ManageWP
ManageWP is a cloud-based alternative management platform that allows you to connect and manage multiple WordPress sites, performing actions like plugin and theme updates, site backups, performance analysis, security checks, etc., in one central place.
Key Features
- One-click Admin Login
- Plugin and Theme management
- Maintenance mode
- One-click updates
- Unlimited sites
- Team collaboration
- Security and performance check
- Vulnerability check
- Site migration and cloning
- Incremental backups
- White labelling
Pricing:
ManageWP is a free management tool that offers premium extensions for special features starting at $1 per feature per site.
4. WP Remote
WP Remote is another popular WP Umbrella alternative on our list. This tool allows you to simultaneously manage multiple WordPress sites and keep them safe while saving time. It reduces the risk of manual errors by automatically updating your WordPress plugins and themes. It also backs up your sites and comes with a restore feature to revert your site to a working state in case of data corruption. It focuses on secure and efficient site management.
Key Features
- Performance monitoring
- Uptime monitoring
- Malware scanning and removal
- Bot protection
- Failed logins limiting
- Offsite backups
- Bulk updates
- Client reporting
- White labelling
Pricing:
There is no free version. Plans start at $29/month for managing up to 5 sites.
5. InfiniteWP
InfiniteWP is another WordPress site management plugin. It is a more advanced and flexible site management tool for WordPress developers and agencies requiring a self-hosted dashboard with robust management capabilities. The plugin will convert your hosted site into a centralized dashboard where you can connect and manage other WordPress sites.
Key Features
- 1-click admin access
- Self-hosted dashboard
- Centralized management
- One-click site updates
- Automated backups
- Performance monitoring
- Security management
- Backups and restores
- Malware scanning
- Uptime monitoring
- Custom reports
- Broken link checking
- User role management
Pricing:
InfiniteWP offers several pricing plans, from the Starter plan, which supports the management of 10 sites at $147/year, to the Enterprise plan, which allows you to manage unlimited sites for $647/year.
MainWP vs. InstaWP: Head-to-Head Comparison
Before we proceed, here’s a comparison table showing the features available in InstaWP and MainWP:
| Features | InstaWP | MainWP |
| 1-Click connection |  |  |
| 2-way Sync | | |
| Setup Management Options | | |
| Bulk Themes and Plugins Management | | |
| Purge Cache | | |
| Uptime Monitoring | | |
| User Role Management | | |
| 1-Click WP-Admin Login | | |
| Vulnerability and Performance Monitoring | | |
| Backup and restore WordPress sites | | |
Now, let’s compare MainWP and InstaWP across various features.
1. One-Click Connection
InstaWP: InstaWP provides a streamlined one-click connection. Using its InstaWP Connect Plugin, you can connect your WordPress site to your InstaWP account with a few clicks. No hassle and no complicated setups are required. You only have to install the plugin on your live site, and it’s done.
MainWP: MainWP also offers easy connections to multiple WordPress sites, but it’s not simplified. Unlike InstaWP’s one-click setup, this setup involves more technical procedures. Users must install the MainWP Dashboard plugin on the central hub and a child plugin on each managed site.
Winner: InstaWP
InstaWP takes the lead due to its more straightforward and user-friendly 1-click connection system. It is ideal for beginners or users who want a rapid setup without the additional technical procedures that MainWP demands.
2. Setup Management Options
InstaWP: InstaWP management comes with various management options that can be customized per site using the Remote Management (Beta) section on the live site. After linking your sites successfully to InstaWP, you can easily specify which parameters can be monitored and managed from your centralized dashboard.
MainWP: MainWP’s central dashboard provides similar management options and flexibility, but it involves more menus and settings and could have a more intuitive interface than InstaWP’s.
Winner: InstaWP
InstaWP’s setup management options are simplified and customizable per site, allowing businesses to offer their customers different site management packages and pricing structures. Its simple process for handling remote features makes it the winner.
3. Mass Management of Themes and Plugins
InstaWP: From your InstaWP dashboard, you can manage and update outdated WordPress themes and plugins in bulk, with the option to update sites individually or all at once. You can update sites individually or in bulk. This makes it easy to handle multiple WordPress sites simultaneously, saving time on updates by classifying plugins and themes according to their most recent updates.
MainWP: MainWP also features bulk management of themes and plugins across multiple WordPress sites. However, the process could be more streamlined than InstaWP’s and may need more configuration.
Winner: Tie
Both tools have robust bulk management features. However, InstaWP is preferable due to its more streamlined process, as MainWP may need more configurations.
4. Purge Cache
InstaWP: InstaWP supports over 20 plus cache plugins, enabling you to clear your live site’s cache with a single click directly from the central dashboard, streamlining the critical task of WordPress cache maintenance.
MainWP: MainWP also offers cache clearing from the centralized dashboard but doesn’t support as many WordPress cache plugins as InstaWP.
Winner: InstaWP
InstaWP wins for its efficient one-click cache clearing, and its support for more than 20 plugins without extra setups is an advantage over MainWP.
5. Uptime Monitoring
InstaWP: InstaWP has a heartbeat monitoring feature that you can enable in your live site, which you can use to monitor uptime on your behalf. Your live site sends “heartbeats” to InstaWP, an uptime monitoring system that alerts you whenever your site stops sending these signals, allowing you to quickly address any downtime issues. This feature is enabled by default and can be toggled on or off.
MainWP: MainWP also offers an uptime monitoring feature, using Uptime Robot, NodePing, Site24x7, and Better Uptime.
Winner: Tie
Both InstaWP and MainWP offer uptime monitoring directly from the central dashboard. However, InstaWP is still a preferred choice because it can notify you when your site is down.
6. User Role Management
InstaWP: InstaWP allows you to manage user roles across multiple sites directly from the dashboard. You can create new user accounts on your live site and assign specific roles to them. However, you must log into the live site to delete users.
MainWP: MainWP also supports user role management, allowing you to manage users in bulk across all WordPress sites. It allows more in-depth control over users’ access settings across all connected WordPress sites.
Winner: MainWP
MainWP wins for having more flexible user role management, allowing greater control over user access across all connected sites.
7. 1-Click WP-Admin Login
InstaWP: InstaWP also comes with a one-click Magic Login button, which, when clicked, automatically logs you from your centralized dashboard into your live site’s WP admin panel for further actions.
MainWP: MainWP also has a one-click passwordless login feature that enables users to log into the WP admin panel of managed sites from the central dashboard.
Winner: Tie
InstaWP and MainWP allow you to log into your managed sites without passwords and complicated verification checks, providing users with a more efficient way to access their WordPress admin dashboard.
8. Vulnerability and Performance Monitoring
InstaWP: InstaWP’s dashboard provides integrated vulnerability scanning and performance monitoring. Users may search for malware, vulnerabilities, and performance concerns with a few clicks via an in-built Google Page Insights tool.
MainWP: MainWP also provides vulnerability scanning and performance monitoring, although, like many of its other capabilities, these rely heavily on third-party plugins and integrations. Although this offers the user additional customization alternatives, it can also make the process more complex and challenging to set up, requiring more time.
Winner: InstaWP
InstaWP’s built-in vulnerability and performance monitoring are more convenient for users who want these features without needing additional plugins or configurations.
9. Backup and Restore WordPress Sites
InstaWP: InstaWP can also back up and restore WordPress sites. InstaWP WordPress staging can create instant backups of your live site.If you face any issues, you can swiftly restore your live site by pushing the “backup” staging copy. You can also connect InstaWP with Duplicator and UpdraftPlus Backup for seamless integration. You use these plugins for your backup and InstaWP to restore sites from the backups.
MainWP:
MainWP also offers backup management options, requiring additional processes and configuration. First, you have to install Extensions. Then, you must look for the Backup Extension and install a backup WordPress extension, e.g., the Updraftplus extension. Then, you have to install the plugin on your live site, and the process gets complicated as you go.
Winner: InstaWP
InstaWP backup and restore process is simplistic and straightforward. It enables users to effortlessly backup and restore websites without needing complex setups.
Conclusion
MainWP has long been a popular choice for managing WordPress sites, offering a range of features for centralized management. However, as users increasingly seek alternatives that prioritize simplicity, efficiency, and quick setup, InstaWP emerges as a standout solution.
InstaWP addresses the need for an intuitive, low-maintenance tool that simplifies the complexities of managing multiple WordPress sites. While MainWP provides extensive customization options, InstaWP focuses on streamlining the process, making it a more accessible choice for developers, agencies, and freelancers alike.
By combining ease of use with robust features such as plugin and theme management, site monitoring, security updates, and content control, InstaWP not only saves time but also enhances productivity. For those looking for a user-friendly yet powerful alternative, InstaWP proves to be the ideal tool for managing WordPress sites efficiently and effectively.
