Managing a WordPress site has two big tasks: keep an eye on things (monitor) and keep things running well (maintain). Without good management, your website is at risk. Your visitors’ experience worsens. Your place on Google search results can drop. You could even start losing money. Trying to keep an eye on all this stuff yourself? It eats up a ton of time and you can’t be watching 24/7.

Without a trusty tool to help out, you’re always worried your site might crash or get hacked. That stress means you have less time for the fun parts of your job, like making cool content. You’ll also need to work on marketing and growing your business. 

What you really need is something that can take this stress off your shoulders. You need a management tool and WP Umbrella is one option among many out there. This WP Umbrella review is here to help you figure out if it is the right pick to help keep your site safe and sound.

TL;DR: WP Umbrella lacks key security features. It lacks a malware scanner and firewall. Plus, its backups are painfully slow. Some basic features like performance monitoring and bulk updates are great. But, we recommend that you use WP Remote instead. It offers fast backups and strong security. They keep your WordPress site safe and well-managed.

Overview of WP Umbrella

WP Umbrella is a tool for managing WordPress sites. It does conduct vulnerability scanning but misses an even more critical scanner: a malware scanner. This gap could leave your site open to lurking threats. It only tells you where you might be vulnerable without checking if you’ve already been hit.

The dashboard, while minimalist, might be too basic for those who need in-depth data at a glance. It’s clean but possibly at the expense of detailed insights.

On the plus side, WP Umbrella is affordable, which makes it an attractive option for those on a tight budget. Yet, keep in mind that you might need more tools, which would cover all your security bases. This could cancel out the cost advantage.

The bulk update feature is useful. It saves time when managing multiple WordPress sites. You can update plugins, themes, and WordPress all at once. However, this is a fairly standard feature among WordPress management tools.

WP Umbrella provides good reports. It gives you a snapshot of your site’s health and performance. But, remember this: without a malware scanner, it might miss key issues that are already affecting your site. 

In essence, WP Umbrella could fit you. But, only if you have a security strategy in place and want budget site management. But if you want full security features, such as spotting malware in real-time, WP Umbrella will not suffice. 

You’d benefit from exploring WP Remote, which offers a more well-rounded set of security and management features. These features ensure both the prevention and the quick detection of threats. In website management, especially for WordPress, covering all angles of security and performance is key. It keeps an online presence healthy, efficient, and secure.

Security 

WP Umbrella’s security was honestly disappointing. It did not have several basic security features that a good management tool should offer like malware scanning or a firewall. 

Let’s talk about scanning. There is a button in the Security tab for scanning. But, it only picks up on vulnerabilities. You can do 4 of them in a day. You can also automate one vulnerability scan a day. This turned out to be reliable. It recognized all the ones we had installed on our test site. 

We also tested the tool on a hacked test site with a lot of malware. WP Umbrella doesn’t have a malware scanner and so it didn’t pick up on any of the malware. 

Additionally, WP Umbrella performs a security audit on your site. It checks if your site uses SSL or if your WP_DEBUG is set to false. It also checks if your site is indexable. This isn’t really a security feature, but let’s move past that. This security check section is also where you see the list of inactive plugins or themes. 

All of this can be helpful, but it is by no means security. Real WordPress security comes from having a robust firewall, a malware scanner, and a malware removal feature. WP Umbrella has zero brute force protection, doesn’t limit logins, and doesn’t even have two-factor authentication. You’re better off using a complete solution like WP Remote, or pairing WP Umbrella with a reliable security plugin like MalCare. 

Backups

The WP Umbrella dashboard has a tab for Backups. There, you can customize your backups: choose full or partial backups, for instance. You can set up a schedule as well. 

There is a setting called Running Time that warns you that backups can impact your server. They recommend that you schedule backups for times that see less traffic, like at night. We have to point out that good site management shouldn’t come at the cost of site performance. WP Remote backups are smart and incremental backups that put zero load on the site and server. 

There are 3 on-demand manual backups a month.These are stored for 14 days. Automatic backups are stored for 50 days, compared to 14 days for manual backups.

During our tests, their backup feature proved to be very slow. It took over an hour to back up our test site, which was just under 200 MB. An active site will be exponentially larger. 

We do like that the backups are stored on secure Google Cloud servers located in Belgium. This means that it’s not taking up space on your servers. Offsite backups are good practice.

There is also a pretty easy restore feature. Just pick a backup and choose Restore from the Actions dropdown. However, there is no way to test a restore beforehand.

Theme, plugin, and core management

We’ve briefly mentioned the Bulk Management tab. It’s a one-stop shop to update plugins, themes, and your WordPress core. You can also deactivate or delete plugins and themes using this tab. 

Client reports

The reporting feature is clean and easy to navigate. 

On the top of the dashboard, you can find the Reporting tab. Here, you can create a template, add a name for the template and title, choose and customize things like colors and which sections to include, etc. You can choose from Overview, Analytics, Performance & Uptime, Updates, Backup, Security Check, and Custom Work.

Each section is customizable. You can add a title and description and data will be automatically populated in each section, based on WP Umbrella features. 

Finally, you can customize the email that will be sent out. You can create a template for content and the sender address, followed by choosing how regularly you want to send the email. That’s it. You’re all set. 

Performance monitoring and management

WP Umbrella focuses a lot on performance monitoring. For starters, you can see how each site is performing on the dashboard. It considers various critical aspects such as page load times, server response times, and the overall uptime of the site. 

However, WP Umbrella’s toolset is missing optimization features. So, while it flags performance issues well, users might need to look elsewhere for deep, useful insights or for tools that can help directly. For example, they don’t help you with caching and image optimization.

The Bulk Management tab also has database optimization. You get a glimpse of all the revisions, spam comments, trashed posts, etc. You can choose what you want to optimize, like removing all trashed posts, transient pages or spam comments. This can be very helpful for performance as it reduces the load on your server. 

Setup and usability

Starting with WP Umbrella is pretty easy, especially with their free trial. All you need to do is sign up with your email and name, and tell them if you’re working solo or with an agency. They’ll give you an API code right after.

Then, pop over to your WordPress site, install the WP Umbrella plugin, and put in your API code in the plugin’s settings. This links your site to WP Umbrella and you’re good to go.

The WP Umbrella dashboard is neat. It shows all your sites in one spot. You can see things like page speed, required updates, backup status, problems, and how to quickly get to the admin panel. There are special sections for doing things in bulk, seeing reports, and setting up alerts. It’s all very sleek and simple. But, when they talk about what some features do, they don’t give a lot of details, which can be a bit confusing. The scanner, for example, doesn’t tell you what it’s scanning for and doesn’t show us if a scan ended or what it discovered.

wp-admin access

Like any good tool that helps you manage multiple sites, WP Umbrella also has a button to quickly access your site’s dashboard. This can be very helpful as it reduces having to sign into each one. 

Pricing

In terms of pricing, WP Umbrella is immensely affordable. You get to try it free for 14 days to see if you like it. After that, it’s just $1.99 a month for each website you have. Since you pay per site, it’s a budget-friendly option whether you have one site or several.

Support and resources

In our opinion, the support team at WP Umbrella seems to have its ups and downs. While it aims to be helpful and responsive, not everyone’s experience matches up. You can find mixed reviews out there. Some people find them quick and efficient, solving issues in a snap, while others feel they were left waiting longer than they’d like for a response or solution. So, it looks like your mileage with their support team may vary.

They do have a library of FAQs and documentation in their Help Centre that you may find helpful. 

What is WP Umbrella missing?

When managing multiple WordPress sites, certain features are crucial for efficiency, security, and overall site health. The lack of these features in a management tool like WP Umbrella can greatly impact your ability to effectively oversee and secure multiple sites.

A malware scanner is essential. It quickly finds threats on all sites. This ensures fast action to reduce risks. WP Umbrella only had a vulnerability scanner.

Backups shouldn’t slow down your site. They also can’t affect your server speed and should be quick. Our test site took over an hour to backup.

A firewall acts as a first line of defense, filtering out malicious traffic before it can reach and damage your sites. WP Umbrella’s suite of security features is incomplete without it.

Malware removal tools save sites. They clean infected sites, ensuring business continuity. Not only is this feature missing, but it is dependent on a good malware scanner that can detect all the malware—which WP Umbrella doesn’t have.

Bots are a big risk for multiple sites. Bot protection can prevent many problems, from spam to breaches. This is especially true when the bots attack your login page, for example. This kind of attack is called brute force attack and WP Umbrella is not equipped to handle it.

The limit login feature is key for preventing brute force attacks. It works by limiting the number of login attempts. This enhances security on all sites and WP Umbrella doesn’t offer it.

Hardening options like changing security keys and blocking PHP execution help fortify your sites against attacks. This is essential if you are managing multiple sites. It’s a pity that you don’t get these benefits with WP Umbrella.

The activity log tracks changes across sites and who made them. This is crucial for monitoring and auditing and helps find unauthorized activities early. Without an activity log, WP Umbrella leaves a gap in security measures. 

Managing user roles and passwords is critical. It ensures access controls are effective and authentication processes are secure. This safeguards each site.

WP Umbrella doesn’t have cutting edge features like visual monitoring, either. Visual monitoring enables you to quickly spot and fix unauthorized changes. It works across multiple sites, keeping them consistent and intact.

Alternative to WP Umbrella

WP Remote is a superior alternative to WP Umbrella, considering essentials like security, backup, performance, and site management features. 

WP Remote is a robust solution for managing WordPress sites. It offers a wide range of features to improve website security, management, and performance. Its backup capabilities are at the heart of its offering. They provide automatic, incremental, and full backups. The backups are stored offsite, kept encrypted, and, crucially, done in real-time for ecommerce sites. They are also recoverable through flawless restores, even if sites have completely crashed. The minimum storage duration is 90 days. And, all this happens without impacting site performance.

WP Remote is also great for security. It has a firewall just for WordPress along with a highly accurate malware scanner, and quick and automatic malware removal. This is all backed by a team of WordPress security experts. Additionally, the firewall has bot protection and a limit login feature. It also has many hardening options, like changing security keys and blocking PHP execution. It also has a crucial vulnerability scanner. 

The site management tools are also great. They have integrated staging and on-demand backups. They also have staged and auto-updates, visual regression testing, and the UpdateLens feature for safe updates. Bulk management simplifies things while user management includes detailed activity logs. It also includes user role and password management. These features further streamline the administrative process.

WP Remote’s monitoring features are very comprehensive. They include uptime, visual, and performance monitoring. Moreover, its GA4 integration helps enhance its analytics. WP Remote also offers customizable reports for client services. They include white labeling for agency customers. These features enhance trust and branding.

The WP Remote platform is also very easy to use. It has a single dashboard for managing multiple sites. It has collaboration features and single sign-on for wp-admin. It also has alerts for critical events. These features are integrated with Slack and Google Workspace. Other key features are host-agnostic migration, GDPR compliance, and great support. Support is 24/7 by email. These features make WP Remote a standout for WordPress site management.

What to look for in a management tool?

When using a tool to manage multiple sites, several key features are a must. These features can make your job much easier and more efficient:

It has a single dashboard that gives you a quick overview of all your sites, like health, updates, and any alerts.

The ability to bulk update all your sites at once or one at a time. This saves a ton of time and keeps things consistent. It must cover WordPress core, plugins, and themes.

Security monitoring features that watch your sites for vulnerabilities, malware, and unauthorized access attempts. These features keep your sites safe.

Performance monitoring tools to track your site’s speed and responsiveness. They alert you about issues that could hurt user experience or SEO.

Uptime monitoring that notifies you immediately if your sites go down. This helps you take quick action to minimize downtime.

The ability to back up and restore your sites. Backups should ideally happen automatically and on a schedule. Restoring should be easy if something goes wrong.

The ability to manage user access across multiple sites from one interface. This should also allow custom roles and permissions.

SEO tools to help you monitor and manage SEO settings and performance across your portfolio of sites.

Content management features that allow you to manage and update content across multiple sites from one place. This includes bulk publishing options.

Staging environments are important features too. They let you create staging sites for testing changes without affecting live sites. They are crucial for managing updates and new features safely.

The ability to generate comprehensive reports that cover updates, backups, security, and performance. These reports are crucial to keep clients or stakeholders informed.

Responsive and knowledgeable customer support in case you run into issues or have questions.

A tool with all these features can greatly cut the complexity, risk, and time required to manage multiple WordPress sites. It is a key asset for website managers, developers, and agencies.

Final thoughts

WP Umbrella might seem like a good website management option, but it lacks basic security tools, such as a malware scanner and a firewall. Also, its slow backup process is a big drawback for any WordPress site owner. For those reasons, our final recommendation leans towards WP Remote. Its quick backups and strong security make it more dependable, not to mention all the other site management features that it has. It’s a better choice for managing and protecting your WordPress site.

FAQs

What is WP Umbrella?

WP Umbrella is a website management tool for WordPress site owners. It helps with monitoring site performance and health. However, it’s worth noting it misses some key security features like a malware scanner and firewall. It also has slow backups.

Can WP Umbrella help with malware?

No, WP Umbrella does not have a malware scanner or malware removal feature. 

How does WP Umbrella handle backups?

WP Umbrella offers backup services. But, the process operates more slowly than with other similar tools, and it consumes significant server resources.

Is WP Umbrella suitable for managing multiple WordPress sites?

Yes, you can manage many sites from WP Umbrella’s dashboard. 

How much does WP Umbrella cost?

After a 14-day free trial, WP Umbrella charges $1.99 per month per site. It is an affordable, but somewhat limited, option for managing WordPress. 

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