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Change File Permissions and Owner of a Staging Site
Some hosting setups use an unusual configuration of the owner and permissions of a WordPress website. For example, your hosting setup may use PHP-FPM that runs as the…
Founder
Rene Hermenau
Building WordPress infrastructure tools since 2015
About
About René Hermenau
I'm René Hermenau, founder of WP STAGING. I've been developing WordPress infrastructure software since 2013, building WP STAGING since 2015, and publishing code on GitHub since 2011.
WP STAGING started as a developer project to solve a problem I kept running into during client work: cloning and migrating WordPress sites safely without breaking serialized data, file paths, media references, or database relationships.
Today, WP STAGING is built and maintained by a team of more than 10 people. The free plugin is used on 100,000+ active WordPress installations, and WP STAGING Pro powers backup, migration, staging, and deployment workflows for agencies, hosting providers, ecommerce stores, and professional WordPress teams.
I'm still hands-on with the codebase, architecture, and technical direction of the product. Much of my work focuses on reliable database exports, memory-efficient processing on large WordPress sites, safe restore workflows, staging-to-production deployments, and reducing the risk of partially written files or database tables during migrations.
On this author page, you'll find technical articles, documentation, and product guides I have written, reviewed, or helped shape with the WP STAGING team.
When you touch code, leave it 10% better than before and write a test.
If you're stuck on a WP STAGING question, start with the documentation. If you hit a bug, file it on GitHub. Our team reads everything that lands there.
Areas of expertise
WordPress backups and restore workflows
WordPress staging sites and cloning
WordPress migrations and site transfers
WordPress database structure and serialized data
Remote Sync and server-to-server WordPress transfers
WP STAGING CLI and local Docker-based WordPress development
Plugin architecture, large-site performance, and safe deployment workflows
At a glance
Role: Founder of WP STAGING
Focus: WordPress backups, staging, migrations, database handling, plugin architecture, and deployment safety
Experience: Developing WordPress infrastructure software since 2013 and building WP STAGING since 2015
Code: github.com/rene-hermenau
Recent articles by Rene Hermenau
2,690 total-
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ARTICLE
How to Stop WordPress Auto Updates: A Complete Guide
WordPress, one of the most popular content management systems (CMS), regularly releases updates to enhance security, improve performance, and introduce new features. While these updates are beneficial, there…
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ARTICLE
How to Fix Chained Critical Requests in WordPress
A critical request chain is a series of requests that depend on each other and are crucial for page loading. It follows the Critical Rendering Path, which determines…
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WP STAGING and WPML Configuration
Do you use a quality multilingual plugin like WPML, Weglott, Polyglot, or another, and you set up the language settings to use custom folders with the language code,…
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Fix Featured Images Not Showing in WordPress
Featured images are an essential element of your WordPress site, enhancing its visual appeal and boosting SEO. However, nothing is more frustrating than discovering your featured images don’t…
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ARTICLE
How To Fix the “Sidebar Not Appearing” WordPress Error
Anyone who manages a website knows that glitches and errors are part of the environment. For WordPress users, a common issue can be a missing sidebar. It can…
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Update WP STAGING | PRO
We continuously update and improve WP STAGING, so we release new versions periodically all the time. As a result, you will get periodic update notifications in your production…
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Why WordPress Is Slow + How to Fix It
Speed is crucial when building or rebuilding a website, not just for WordPress but for any site. Faster loading times impact your Google search ranking and how long…
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How to Fix open_basedir Restriction Error
When you create a staging site with the free WP STAGING plugin, PHP can stop the process with an open_basedir restriction error. The message means PHP is configured…
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Activate Post Name Permalinks on the Staging Site
When you create a default staging site that is located in a subfolder, WP STAGING sets the "Permalinks" option of the staging site to "Plain" and disables the…
Try WP STAGING
Clone, stage, and back up WordPress sites in seconds. Built and maintained by Rene Hermenau and team.