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Smooth Sandbox
Smooth Sandbox

Smooth Sandbox

0/5 (0 ratings) — active installs Updated Nov 6, 2026
playgroundrecordingsandboxtesting
Download v1.0.3

Try your next WordPress change on a copy of your own site.

Smooth Sandbox turns your site’s content, settings and installed packages into a reusable Snapshot, then opens it in PluginPeer’s browser-based WordPress Playground. Explore changes with familiar pages, media and plugin settings without setting up a separate staging server.

Use it to investigate a plugin conflict, try a different theme, check a supported PHP version or record the steps that reproduce a bug. Start with your own site instead of an empty WordPress installation.

What can you use it for?

  • Troubleshoot plugin conflicts. Choose which captured plugins to load and narrow down the combination that causes a problem.
  • Try changes before applying them to your site. Experiment with plugin settings, themes and content in the sandbox, then decide what to change on your live site.
  • Check compatibility. Launch your captured site with supported WordPress and PHP versions to see how it behaves in Playground.
  • Make bug reports easier to follow. Record a session in PluginPeer and keep its link in your WordPress dashboard for later reference.
  • Return to a repeatable starting point. Launch again from the same Snapshot, or update it when you want to test with newer site data.

Your site, ready to experiment with

A useful test environment needs more than a few sample posts. Smooth Sandbox includes your site’s database and plugin settings, supported media, installed themes and selected plugins. Custom and modified packages are copied from your site, and your own must-use plugins come along too.

You choose whether to include private content, user accounts and detected credentials. Users are excluded by default; selected accounts receive new sandbox-only passwords. Plugin and theme packages use their captured versions, so each launch starts from the versions in your Snapshot.

Prepare once. Launch again when you need it.

Snapshot generation runs in the background on your WordPress server. Updates reuse unchanged files and refresh the database. If an update fails, your last completed Snapshot stays available.

Choose your launch options, click Boot up sandbox, and continue in PluginPeer. There is no separate staging hosting to configure. When a test is worth keeping, use PluginPeer’s recording or environment-saving tools.

PluginPeer is required to launch and record sandbox sessions. Local Snapshot generation does not upload your site to cloud storage. Launch transfers the selected data to PluginPeer’s browser runtime; recording or saving in PluginPeer can upload data to its storage services. See the service details below and the FAQ for data handling and compatibility limits.

External services

PluginPeer provides the browser runtime, import receiver, environment tools and recording service.

  • Service: https://pluginpeer.com
  • Terms: https://pluginpeer.com/terms
  • Privacy: https://pluginpeer.com/privacy
  • Runtime versions come from a catalogue bundled with the plugin and updated with plugin releases. Opening plugin administration screens does not contact PluginPeer.
  • After explicit launch, the browser transfers the selected database, packages, media, source URLs, user profiles with new passwords, and selected credentials to Playground. Source database connection credentials are excluded.
  • Recording and saving use PluginPeer’s storage and access controls. WordPress stores returned recording URLs.
  • Service requests expose normal connection information such as IP address and browser/request metadata. No Smooth Bundle account connection is made by this plugin.

Smooth Bundle provides asset storage and delivery for PluginPeer. Browser assets use https://pluginpeer.smoothbundle.com. Recording or saving in PluginPeer can upload captured assets, recording data or saved environments to Smooth Bundle through PluginPeer. Some replay assets use public delivery URLs; visibility and retention depend on the PluginPeer feature used. Local Snapshot generation does not use cloud storage. See the privacy policy and terms.

WordPress.org supplies public plugin and theme packages. During Snapshot generation, WordPress may download exact releases from https://downloads.wordpress.org to compare their contents with installed files. Only package slugs and versions are requested; no site content or credential values are included. Playground also downloads verified packages when launching. See the WordPress.org privacy policy and terms.

Third-party code

Includes the unmodified database library from WordPress SQLite Database Integration 3.1.1 under GPL-2.0-or-later. It prepares SQLite Snapshots without replacing the source database connection. License and source checksum: vendor/sqlite-database-integration/LICENSE and SOURCE.txt.

Plugin PHP, JavaScript and CSS are included as readable source. PluginPeer is a separate service.