Description
Siteward is a lean, self-hosted dashboard to manage multiple WordPress sites from one place, a no-bloat way to monitor uptime, run fleet-wide core, plugin and theme updates, watch UpdraftPlus backups and WP-Cron health, and catch critical errors across every site you maintain. It’s a free, unlimited-site alternative to hosted maintenance services, with no per-site fees and no third-party cloud: you own the control panel.
Install it on one central WordPress site, add the free Siteward Child plugin to each site you manage, and connect them with a one-time secure handshake. Then manage everything from your dashboard:
- Uptime monitoring: each site is checked on a schedule; retry-then-alert avoids false alarms, and you get an email the moment a site goes down or recovers.
- Fleet-wide updates: see every pending core, plugin and theme update in one place and apply them one-click or in bulk, with a live progress view.
- Critical-error detection: catches HTTP 5xx errors and the WordPress “critical error” white screen.
- Backup monitoring: see each site’s latest UpdraftPlus backup and get alerted when backups are missing, stale, or failing.
- WP-Cron & health flags: surfaces overdue cron events, recovery mode, plugins/themes auto-paused after a fatal error, and Site Health critical issues.
- Secure & self-hosted: the dashboard initiates all traffic; every request is signed with an OpenSSL keypair and protected against replay. Your data never routes through a third-party cloud.
Every feature above is fully functional and free. Unlimited managed sites. No per-site fees.
Siteward Pro (optional, sold separately): an add-on that adds SSL certificate & domain-expiry monitoring and Zapier webhook notifications.
Installation
- Upload the
sitewardfolder to/wp-content/plugins/, or install it from the Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen.
- Open the Siteward menu and choose Add Site.
- On each site you want to manage, install and activate the free Siteward Child plugin (while it awaits WordPress.org approval, get it from https://omniswp.com/siteward-child/), copy its connection key, and paste it into Add Site.
- (Recommended) Add a real server cron for accurate scheduled checks, the dashboard shows the exact line to add.
FAQ
-
Do I need another plugin on the sites I manage?
-
Yes. Install the free Siteward Child plugin on each managed site and connect it to this dashboard.
-
Is there a limit on how many sites I can manage?
-
No. The free dashboard manages unlimited sites.
-
How are connections secured?
-
The dashboard generates an RSA keypair and signs every request. Each child site verifies the signature, rejects stale timestamps and blocks replayed requests.
-
Does it detect outages even if WordPress is down?
-
Yes. Uptime checks hit each site’s public URL directly, so a full outage is caught even when WordPress is unreachable.
-
What does Siteward Pro add?
-
Backup, WP-Cron and health monitoring are all included free in Siteward. Siteward Pro is an optional, separately-distributed add-on that adds SSL certificate & domain-expiry monitoring and Zapier webhook notifications.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Siteward – Manage Multiple WordPress Sites From One Dashboard” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Siteward – Manage Multiple WordPress Sites From One Dashboard” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
0.9.3
- Added a dismissible notice pointing to the companion Siteward Child plugin download while it awaits WordPress.org approval.
0.9.2
- Settings Maintenance: “Resync all sites now” button that refreshes every paired site, including any showing a stale connection error.
0.9.1
- Fix: align the Cancel button in the update-progress modal header.
0.9.0
- Backup monitoring (UpdraftPlus), WP-Cron health, and health flags (recovery mode, auto-paused extensions, Site Health) are now built in and fully free.
- Backup/cron alerting and per-flag thresholds added to Settings.
- Hardened input sanitization on settings save and bulk updates.
0.8.0
- Public release: unlimited-site monitoring, fleet updates, critical-error detection, and one-click admin login to managed sites.