Get Free Unlimited WordPress Test Installs from the Strangely Named Poopy.life

Last Updated on September 9, 2022 by 38 Comments

Get Free Unlimited WordPress Test Installs from the Strangely Named Poopy.life
Blog / Resources / Get Free Unlimited WordPress Test Installs from the Strangely Named Poopy.life

Setting up free WordPress test installs has never been easier than with Poopy.life. Let’s learn all about this new service and how it works.

Before we dive into the rest of the article – yes, the service we’re going to talk about is called Poopy.life. We’ll tell you why in a minute, but for now, let’s focus on what it can do.

If you’re the kind of person that uses WordPress test sites regularly, you know that spinning them up and deleting them when you’re done gets old, fast. That’s where Poopy.life comes in. In this article, we’ll tell you all about what Poopy.life can do, explore how it can help you streamline your WordPress development, and teach you three different ways to use it.

What is Poopy.life?

The Poopy.life homepage.

Poopy.life is, quite simply, the quickest way to set up free WordPress test installs. In fact, anyone can do so in a matter of seconds (we clocked it) without signing up for an account.

Each of these installs has a default shelf life of seven days, although you can extend that shelf life as you see fit. Plus, you can have as many installs as you want running simultaneously. If you have a particular setup that you’d like to use for future installs, the platform also enables you to create templates and share them with other users.

Now, let’s talk about what you’re really dying to know about – where on earth does the name Poopy.life come from? The team behind the platform chose that name to prevent the service from being used commercially by other companies. Their thinking was, with a name so ridiculous, no one would consider using it professionally.

That same team is also behind other popular WordPress services, including WP All Import and Oxygen. In fact, they’ve been using a similar solution to Poopy.life internally for years, so that users can test their products before purchasing them using disposable installs.

For now, the service remains completely free, but its creators have already revealed their plans to add commercial tiers in the future (probably under a different name than Poopy.life).

Key Features:

  • Create unlimited free WordPress test installs
  • Extend the ‘life’ of your installs for as long as you want
  • Use multiple instances of WordPress simultaneously (on different tabs)
  • Each install comes with a unique link
  • Share WordPress site templates with other users

Price: Free | More Information

3 Ways to Use Poopy.life to Create Free WordPress Test Installs

As we mentioned earlier, there are multiple ways you can use Poopy.life to speed up your WordPress testing. Let’s find out what they are now.

1. Create a Basic WordPress Test Install

Creating a basic WordPress site with Poopy.life couldn’t be easier. All you have to do is go to the service’s homepage and click on the link that reads poopy.life/create (the one under the friendly-looking emoticon):

Creating a new Poopy.life install.

The platform will open a brand new WordPress install in a new tab:

Your new WordPress test install.

It really is that simple. There are no limitations to what you can do with the install, so feel free to play around as you see fit, or even use it as a staging site.

Keep in mind though, if you want to access a particular installation at a later date, you’ll have to either bookmark it or save its unique link somewhere else. That link should be the first thing you see as soon as you access your test install, right below your admin bar:

The link, username, and password to your new installation.

As you can see, Poopy.life also provides you with a default username and random password (which can be changed, of course). Remember to save those as well if you’re planning on holding on to a particular install for later use.

Finally, keep in mind that each Poopy.life test install only lasts for one week by default. If you want to extend that time, you’ll need to head to the Sandbox tab on your dashboard, and click on the button that reads Add 1 Week:

Adding an extra week to your test install.

You can do this as many times as you want, and you can add multiple weeks in advance if you want to play it safe.

2. Use Poopy.life’s Email Command to Keep Track of Your Installs

Unless you’re using a Poopy.life sandbox site on a one-off basis, you’ll want to grab its URL in order to come back to it in the future. Fortunately, the service enables you to send an automated welcome email with your site’s login information to a particular address. To do that, just use the following URL:

http://poopy.life/[email protected]

Then, the service will spin up a new install as usual and send you an email during the process:

A welcome email from Poopy.life.

This feature comes very handy if you’re looking to keep a record of your Poopy.life test installs, so we encourage you to take advantage of it.

3. Create a WordPress Test Install Template

A while ago, we mentioned how Poopy.life enables you to create templates of your sites and share them with other users. To do that, you’ll have to access the Sandbox tab within one of your installs and find the Create Sandbox Template button:

Creating a sandbox template.

Doing this will cause your website to reload, only now you’ll find a unique URL within the Sandbox Template Settings section:

The link to your new template.

Using this link, anyone can set up a carbon copy of your test install. The only difference is that Poopy.life will change the passwords between each of them, for security purposes.

Keep in mind that each template represents a snapshot of your site at the exact moment you took it. You can always return to the Sandbox tab and update yours by clicking on the Save Sandbox Template button at the bottom. There’s also an option to delete your template altogether if you want to  – all you have to do is click on Delete Sandbox Template, and it’ll go away.

Conclusion

Poopy.life is the latest in a long line of WordPress testing environment tools, but it’s also one of the most interesting ones (and not only due to its name). While other tools focus on streamlining local development, Poopy.life is all about creating disposable sites. It’s not the perfect solution for every situation, but it can save you time if you need to run some quick tests.

If you’re looking to get the most out of Poopy.life, here are the three top ways it can help you:

  1. Create basic WordPress installs
  2. Use its email command to keep track of your installs
  3. Craft reusable WordPress templates

Do you have any questions about how to use Poopy.life? Ask away in the comments section below!

Article thumbnail image by Abscent / shutterstock.com

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38 Comments

  1. Hi,Can I create an actual site from scratch in poopy life and copy the site into another wordpress? (live server)

  2. Great idea! Is it also possible to test out Beta or Release Candidates on this service?

    • Hi, thanks for commenting! That should be possible – anything you can install on a regular WordPress site, you can install on this testing service.

  3. Since all the competitors of this poopy thing are posting maybe I should also share my sites as well: http://qSandbox.com & http://wpdemoserver.com

    The article would have been better to compare different services that existed long before rather than to focus on just one particular service that was release recently.

    Slavi,
    Orbisius & qSandbox

    • Hi Slavi, thanks for your suggestions.

  4. It sounds like another nice tool for WP developers. I’ll just put it right out here: there is no way I will ever use a tool named poopy anything. Doesn’t matter what it is or what it does. I’m sure I’m in the minority, and I mean nothing personal. It seems lately that more and more customer support teams are writing back as if we’re all in a fabulous kindergarten class together. Not sure why this has become the paradigm du jour, but I’m a 61 year old developer who’s livelihood depends on my craft and professionalism. My clients are serious-minded companies and corporations who have no time for cheery playground antics like being support ‘heros’ or my using tools that start with poopy. Just not going to happen. Again, this is not a personal attack, but more a reply to a trend I’ve been seeing for awhile. I sincerely wish you well with this product, and if you ever decide to clone or rebrand it into something with a professional name, I’d love to use it.

  5. Interesting idea. My thought is that this would be great for temporary sites where trainers are running WordPress introductory courses. I have had to work with up to 20 delegates on a multisite install and it throws up a few awkward problems when delegates want to try something that seems to be outside the capacities I’ve built into the multisite environment. Have any of the Soflyy team got any insight to shed on how practical their environment would be for that kind of use?

  6. Thanks so much! This is perfect to test plugins compatibility before to install them on a site.

    • You’re welcome! It does seem like a pretty useful tool. 🙂

  7. Interesting.

    Just noticed that after I imported a test site, the ability to create sandbox template is gone. The button is there, but not functioning.

    • Hmm, that’s odd. I’d suggest contacting the developers directly for help.

  8. Absolutely fascinating.
    How many times have I hadd to run up an install on my server just to test a thing or two? Or messed up a reall site because I was too lazy to run up a test one.

    This is just what I needed and is now in my support Library.

    Thanks so much Guys

    • Hi John! Thanks for your comment. 🙂

  9. Thanks for the fascinating post. Say you’ve used Poopy to develop a site with the help of your team, and that you’ve shown your client and they love it. How easy is it to then publish the demo site to your own server?

    • You’re welcome, Nicholas! Right now this resource is designed primarily as a testing platform, but you can sign up here to receive news about upcoming features such as migration: https://soflyy.typeform.com/to/PNEJz7.

  10. I don’t get these services (poopy and cakewp)

    What stopping people from Duplicating in a sub-domain? (Duplicator plugin anyone)
    or even better yet…

    Use Installatron that any Good Hosting companies have, to Clone your website? Easily and you are in full control. If the test’s are successful, then move (or clone) it over the current website.

    Now ET, that’ll make a great post!

    • Hi Glenn! You’re right that there are a lot of ways to create a test site. This is simply an easy option for those who don’t want to download a plugin or other tool.

  11. Yeah this service is great if you are looking to create a test drive for some product like a theme/plugin or for some other reason. I used it and it’s really good.

    I also have a similar service but specifically for Divi, Elementor & OceanWP. On my free service when a user creates any particular product demo like divi, the site generated is bundled with the Divi theme and activated already and you can play around and test drive it for as long as it expires ( mentioned in the notification email )

    Here it is:
    demo.cakewp.com

    Cheers.

    • This is awesome, Munir! Thank you for demo.cakewp.com.

    • Hi Munir, thanks for the input. 🙂

  12. So do they ever dump and wipe the site?

    I love bathroom humor

    • Lol, we’ll change our “This Sandbox will expire on Monday, May 22nd, 2017” warning to say “This Sandbox will be dumped and wiped on Monday, May 22nd, 2017”

  13. What a really useful and helpful find. Thank you for sharing this.

    • No problem! 🙂

  14. Will give it a try soon. Nice name!

    • Come back and let us know what you think after you’ve tried it out. 🙂

  15. Such a cool site and a wonderful resource.
    Thanks for sharing it, it’s great 🙂

    • You’re welcome, Haroun! Thanks for your comment.

  16. Thanks. I’m always creating my own test installs, but that takes time, and I add another database to my pile etc. This will save a bunch of time and save the mess of trying to delete everything later.
    Awesome. Thanks again.

    ernie

    • Hi Ernest; you’re welcome! We’re glad you found this resource so helpful. 🙂

  17. In ET support forum we’re often asked to give access to the admin area of the site with some problems. Can we have a similar environment where we can replicate the problem and support team will investigate it in that way?

    • This is Louis from Soflyy – creators of Poopy.life.

      This is generally how we handle support for our products: ask the customer to re-produce the problem on our test installs, then our team logs in and investigates.

      If the problem can’t be reproduced on our test installs, we know the problem is with their server / server settings.

      If it can be reproduced, then we have a safe place to debug it without breaking the user’s actual site.

      • That certainly takes care of the backwards and forwards blame game that hosts like to play 😉

    • That would often require being able to exactly duplicate server settings too though (memory, limits, php version etc.)

      • yeah, it can’t cover 100% of the cases. But I often work locally and find some bugs and it’s sometimes difficult to investigate them for ET support team.

  18. This is a great service. I really like that they let users to install plugins and themes they like to test drive. I’m sure this will help developers in debugging their products.

    We have built a similar service here, demo.diywithwp.com but it’s not nearly advanced as this. We built our service as more of a learning resource for the WordPress community. We have integrated WordPress and specially Divi learning resource to the dashboard so a newbie can get hands on training.

    Thanks for writing this useful post 🙂

    • You’re welcome! Thanks for the suggestion. 🙂

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