How to create a Softaculous staging environment

Softaculous provides a quick and easy way to clone your existing software installation into a staging environment. A staging environment lets you test updates, plugin changes, and other modifications before applying them to your live site.

Creating a staging copy

1. Log in to cPanel and search for Softaculous Apps Installer.

2. Click the Installations icon (or navigate to All Installations) to view your current software installations.

3. Find the installation you want to stage and click the Clone icon next to it.

4. In the clone settings, specify the destination:

   • Choose a subdomain (e.g., staging.yourdomain.com) or a subdirectory (e.g., yourdomain.com/staging)
   • Select the database name for the cloned copy

5. Click Clone Installation to create the staging copy.

Softaculous will duplicate both the files and database, giving you an independent copy to test changes safely.

Pushing staging to production

Once you’ve tested your changes in the staging environment, you can use Softaculous to push the staging copy back to production. From the All Installations page, use the Push to Live option on your staging installation to overwrite the production site with the staged changes.

For a detailed walkthrough, see the Hawk Host blog post on creating a WordPress staging environment through Softaculous.