WP-Portability
WP-Portability is a plugin designed to quietly make your site more portable. It is to designed to facilitate the work that needs to be done to be move a wordpress install to another directory or server or domain name…
Consider an alternative
WP-Portability shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 3/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 24/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 10 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.0 (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 WP-Portability stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| installation | >100 |
| mobility | #19 |
| portability | #96 |
| shortcode | >100 |
| url | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 3 from 2 reviews
About WP-Portability
From the official readme · v1.1.1Description
Summary
WP-Portability is a plugin designed to quietly make your site more portable. It is to designed to facilitate the work that needs to be done to be move a wordpress install to another directory or server or domain name. It makes WordPress much less attached and dependant on its install directory and domain name.
Though anyone can make use of WP-Portability, it was designed with developers in mind. It greatly facilitates designing sites locally amongst a team of developers, moving the site to a staging server and finally pushing it live.
Features
WP-Portability provides the following optimizations:
- Always local URLs: Perhaps the biggest issues with relocating a wordpress install is the fact that every url pointing to other content in the same site (links to other pages, uploaded media, etc.) in the content of posts will break. This can be a nightmare to fix for larger sites. WP-Portability solves this by storing all local urls as a hidden shortcode in the database, which it can then expand to the correct path for whatever domain/install directory you view the site from. You will not see anything differently when you edit your posts, but rest assured that things are being handled dynamically in the background.
- Dynamic file paths: This plugin will automatically determine the url of your WordPress install path. This will set the
WP_SITEURLandWP_HOMEconstants. If these are already set in wp-config, this feature will not work. This feature will automatically disable itself on WordPress Multisite installations (network), as it will not work properly. - Relative Rewrites: This plugin changes the way WordPress creates apache-level rewrites, to always use relative paths, rather than absolute paths. This will enable access to the same installation via different routes (e.g.
http://domain.comandhttp://127.0.0.1/path/to/install). This feature will automatically disable itself on WordPress Multisite installations (network), as it will not work properly.
Upgrade
1.0.1
- Fixed bug in WordPress 4.0
Installation
Installation
- Make sure you are using WordPress 3.1 or later and that your server is running PHP5
- Download the plugin
- Extract all the files.
- Upload everything to the
/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in the WordPress admin.
- Go to the portability settings page in the WordPress admin and adjust your settings.
- (optional) You can force the plugin to parse every post in your site for local links by pressing the Insert Shortcode button. This may take a few minutes.
- That’s it. WP-Portability works silently.
Deactivation / Uninstallation
Unless you intend to reactivate the plugin shortly, you will need to clear all of the hidden shortcodes out of your database.
- Go to the portability settings page in the WordPress Admin
- Press the ‘Purge Shortcode’ button. This may take a few minutes.
- Go to the Plugins page.
- Press the deactivate and/or delete plugin button.
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 WP-Portability alternatives
All installation plugins →
FAQ
WP-Portability: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 4, 2026
Is WP-Portability free?
Yes. WP-Portability is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is WP-Portability safe to use in 2026?
WP-Portability shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 3/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 24/100 on our health check.
How many websites use WP-Portability?
WP-Portability is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 2,247 times since it launched in July 2014. It was downloaded 73 times in the last 30 days.
Does WP-Portability work with WordPress 7.1?
WP-Portability is officially tested up to WordPress 4.0.38, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was WP-Portability last updated?
The latest version, 1.1.1, was released on October 26, 2015 (11 years ago).
Who makes WP-Portability?
WP-Portability is developed and maintained by plankdesign.
What are the best alternatives to WP-Portability?
The most popular alternatives to WP-Portability are WPCore Plugin Manager (9K+ installs), WP Hydra (1K+ installs) and Product Assembly / Gift Wra… (300+ installs).
Powered by PageForge
Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.
This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.
- CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
- AI content, schema & internal links per page
- Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
- Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
