A WP2Static alternative
WP2Static has gone quiet. This works without a plugin.
WP2Static's last release was 7.2, in January 2023; its website no longer answers, and it is not in the WordPress plugin directory. If you relied on it, MakeStatic gives you a static copy of the same WordPress site without installing anything in it.
A copy that works, not just its HTML
Writing a site out as static HTML keeps what is in each page and the files it names. What a page asks for once it is open — the data a script fetches, a file another file loads, a redirect from an old address — is not among them, and that is where exported sites quietly stop working.
We keep every answer your site gave while its pages were opened, and give the same answer again: the same content, the same kind of file, the same redirect. That is why the copy behaves like your site instead of only looking like it — and why you can check it yourself, side by side, before you decide anything.
What changes
WP2Static wrote your pages out inside WordPress and deployed them wherever you had set up — through an add-on per destination, each of which you kept working. MakeStatic copies the pages from their address and hosts them. Publishing is a button, and each publish is listed with the pages that were added, changed or removed.
Forms and search
A contact form or a newsletter sign-up is received by us when a visitor sends it, mailed to you and listed on your site's page. The search box answers from the text of your pages. Logins and comments cannot be files; they are listed for you after the first copy of the whole site.
Where WP2Static's way is still the better fit
If you deploy to your own hosting and want the files in your own hands, an exporting plugin is the closer fit. MakeStatic hosts the copy and has no export, and every page of the copy ends with one line of ours, "Made static with MakeStatic".
Questions people ask
- Can I keep using WP2Static?
- It can still be installed from its source code, but nothing has been released since January 2023, so every WordPress update is a question of whether it still works.
- Is MakeStatic open source?
- No. It is a hosted service: you put in the address, and the copy is served for you.
See it on your own site
About twenty seconds, and nothing to sign up for. You will have your site and the copy open next to each other before you decide anything.