Admin Color Bar
This utility plugin provides the ability to configure the color of the Admin Bar seen in the WordPress Dashboard and allows setting a message that will appear within the Admin Bar. This allows you to more easily…
Consider an alternative
Admin Color Bar shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 20+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (20+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 7 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 5.0 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Admin Color Bar stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| admin | >100 |
| admin bar | >100 |
| color | >100 |
| customize | >100 |
| dashboard | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
About Admin Color Bar
From the official readme · v1.2Description
This utility plugin provides the ability to configure the color of the Admin Bar seen in the WordPress Dashboard and allows setting a message that will appear within the Admin Bar. This allows you to more easily identify when you’re working on Local, Staging and Live WordPress installations.
Usage Scenarios:
The Admin Color Bar plugin is useful when working with multiple installs of WordPress, such as when you have a local development environment, a staging site as well as a live site.
By setting the Admin Bar’s background color to Orange on a staging site, and Red for a local site, you can more easily identify which site you’re working on. This reduces the possibility that you’ll make errors by performing actions on the wrong site.
If you are using DesktopServer for your local development and would like to use the Admin Color Bar plugin as a Design Time plugin, you can install this in your /Applications/XAMPP/ds-plugins/ directory on Macintosh or the C:\xampplite\ds-plugins\ directory on Windows and it can then be configured to automatically start for all of your local development web sites. This allows you to use the plugin in your Local environment, where it’s needed and not to deploy it to your Live environment where it may not be needed. For more information on DesktopServer and local development tools, please visit our web site at: https://serverpress.com/get-desktopserver/
How it Works:
The plugin provides configuration options that allow you to select a background color and text color for the Admin Bar. You can also select a message that will be displayed within the Admin Bar to provide additional information to the users of the site.
The configuration settings will be seen by all users on the site. If you are using the plugin in a MultiSite environment, the settings are not shared among all the sites. You will need to configure each site on the network.
Support:
Support Details: We are happy to provide support and help troubleshoot issues. Visit our Contact page at http://serverpress.com/contact/. Users should know however, that we check the WordPress.org support forums once a week on Wednesdays from 6pm to 8pm PST (UTC -8).
ServerPress, LLC is not responsible for any loss of data that may occur as a result of using this tool. We strongly recommend performing a site and database backup before testing and using this tool. However, should you experience such an issue, we want to know about it right away.
We welcome feedback and Pull Requests for this plugin via our public GitHub repository located at: https://github.com/ServerPress/admin-color-bar.
Installation
Installation instructions: To install, do the following:
- From the dashboard of your site, navigate to Plugins –> Add New.
- Select the “Upload Plugin” button.
- Click on the “Choose File” button to upload your file.
- When the Open dialog appears select the admin-color-bar.zip file from your desktop.
- Follow the on-screen instructions and wait until the upload is complete.
- When finished, activate the plugin via the prompt. A confirmation message will be displayed.
or, you can upload the files directly to your server.
- Upload all of the files in
admin-color-bar.zipto your/wp-content/plugins/admin-color-bardirectory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
Changelog
First release.
1.2 – May 31, 2017
- Change plugin name. Previous repository: https://github.com/ServerPress/local-admin-color-bar
- Initial release to WordPress repository.
1.0.1 – May 10, 2016
- Fix plugin name.
1.0 – May 15, 2015
- Initial Release
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Admin Color Bar alternatives
All admin plugins →
FAQ
Admin Color Bar: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 7, 2026
Is Admin Color Bar free?
Yes. Admin Color Bar is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Admin Color Bar safe to use in 2026?
Admin Color Bar shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 20+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 8 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Admin Color Bar?
Admin Color Bar is active on 20+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 3,058 times since it launched in June 2017. It was downloaded 83 times in the last 30 days.
Does Admin Color Bar work with WordPress 7.1?
Admin Color Bar is officially tested up to WordPress 5.0.30, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Admin Color Bar last updated?
The latest version, 1.2, was released on October 22, 2018 (8 years ago).
Who makes Admin Color Bar?
Admin Color Bar is developed and maintained by Dave Jesch.
What are the best alternatives to Admin Color Bar?
The most popular alternatives to Admin Color Bar are Loginizer (1M+ installs), Redux Framework (900K+ installs) and Admin Menu Editor (300K+ installs).
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