WP Center

Local WordPress sites on your Mac, built to migrate cleanly to cPanel.
A native macOS app with no accounts, no cloud and no telemetry. It only talks to localhost, unless you share a site or connect your live sites.

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Table of contents

• What is WP Center?
• Features
• Requirements
• Building from source
• Getting started, step by step
  • 1. Create your first site
  • 2. Start, open and sign in
  • 3. Work on the site
  • 4. Test emails with Mailpit
  • 5. Share the site with a client
  • 6. Export to cPanel
  • 7. Bring a live site from cPanel
  • 8. Manage your live sites
• The wpc command-line tool
• Settings
• How it works under the hood
• Privacy and security
• Project structure
• Testing
• Troubleshooting
• Acknowledgements
• Contributing
• License

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What is WP Center?

WP Center is a native macOS (SwiftUI) app for creating and running WordPress sites locally. It is a rebuild of WordPress Studio with every external service removed: no WordPress.com account, no sync, no AI, no telemetry and no auto-updates.

Its main goal is a predictable path from your Mac to a cPanel server. Each site can use the same database engine, database version and PHP version as your hosting, and one click produces a WPvivid backup ready to restore on cPanel.

Features

Feature	Description
One-click sites	Create a fully installed WordPress site in seconds, with a strong random admin password.
cPanel-matched databases	MariaDB (10.6 to 11.8) or MySQL (8.0, 8.4): the versions cPanel & WHM 136+ can install that are also available for Mac. SQLite for quick throwaway tests.
PHP per site	PHP 8.1 to 8.5, following cPanel's EasyApache 4. PHP 8.4 is bundled; other versions are installed from Homebrew only when you ask.
Passwordless WP Admin	Opens the dashboard already signed in, using a one-time, 60-second token that only works on your Mac.
Export to cPanel	Drives the WPvivid plugin to produce a clean backup and fixes MySQL 8-only collations that MariaDB rejects.
Status and storage	Each site shows the WordPress, plugin and theme updates WordPress already knows about, whether debug mode is on, and how much disk space uploads, the database, plugins and WPvivid backups use, with one click to delete older backups.
Move between Macs	Export a whole site (files, database, PHP and engine) into one .zip and import it into WP Center on another Mac.
Duplicate	A full copy of a site (files and database) with its own address and password, to try things without touching the original.
Import from cPanel	Turns a WPvivid backup made on the server into a local site in one step, with local URLs and a new admin password. Exports from Studio, Local and other WP Centers work too.
Email catcher	Every email sent by WordPress lands in a bundled Mailpit inbox. Nothing leaves your Mac.
Live sites	Connect your published WordPress sites to see their versions and pending updates in one table, update plugins, themes and WordPress on one or every site, and open WP Admin already signed in.
Share by link	A temporary public HTTPS link (Cloudflare Quick Tunnel), no account needed, to show your work to a client.
wpc CLI	Start, stop, inspect and export sites from Terminal, plus WP-CLI with each site's own PHP and database.
Ready for AI agents	Each site gets AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, an always up-to-date WPCENTER.md and WordPress skills, and wpc gives agents a site summary, one-time sign-in links, PHP logs, caught emails and cache clearing. Claude, ChatGPT (Codex), Cursor, Windsurf and other AI editors can open a site from the app.
Menu bar and login item	Control your sites from the menu bar and resume them automatically when you log in.
English and Portuguese	Follows your Mac's language.

Requirements

To run the app

• macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon.
• Homebrew, only for MariaDB/MySQL sites and for PHP versions other than 8.4. WP Center installs the formulas it needs (mariadb@10.11, mysql@8.4, php@8.2, …) when you ask it to.

To build from source

• Xcode Command Line Tools (Swift 6 toolchain, macOS 26 SDK).
• WordPress Studio, once. The build copies the PHP runtime, WordPress, the SQLite plugin, WP-CLI and some skills from it. Nothing is downloaded. By default it reads them from Vendor/studio/ (not in git), a copy of the same folders inside Studio.app/Contents/Resources, so Studio can be uninstalled afterwards.
• brew install mailpit cloudflared. Both are bundled inside the app, so end users don't need them.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/pixelhunter1/wordpressCenter.git
cd wordpressCenter
./build.sh
open "dist/WP Center.app"

build.sh compiles the Swift sources with swiftc, assembles dist/WP Center.app, copies the runtime from Studio, bundles Mailpit and cloudflared, and warns about any UI string that is missing an English translation.

Tip

On a fresh clone there is no Vendor/studio/ yet: build straight from Studio with STUDIO=/Applications/Studio.app/Contents/Resources ./build.sh. You can override the bundled tools the same way with MAILPIT= and CLOUDFLARED=.

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Getting started, step by step

1. Create your first site

1. Open WP Center and click + in the toolbar (or press ⌘N).

2. Enter a site name. By default it is also used as the WordPress site title.

3. Choose the database engine:

   • MariaDB (recommended): cPanel's default engine, with 10.11 preselected.
   • MySQL: the same as cPanel's MySQL (8.0 or 8.4).
   • SQLite: quick tests only. It cannot be exported to cPanel.

   Pick the same version your server runs. Help → cPanel Database Versions shows the official table of what each operating system (AlmaLinux, CloudLinux, Ubuntu) supports.

4. Choose where the database runs:

   • On this Mac (managed by the app): WP Center installs the Homebrew formula on first use, initialises it and creates a random cPanel-style database and user (wpc_xxxxxxxxxx) for the site.
   • Existing server: enter the host, port, database name, user and password, then click Test Connection.

5. Choose the PHP version (8.1 to 8.5). A version that isn't installed yet is installed when you create the site.

6. Optionally set the WordPress username. The password is always new and strong.

7. Click Create Site. WordPress is installed in ~/WP Center/<site-name> (you can change the folder in Settings).

Note

Set your server's engine, version and PHP once in Settings → New Sites, and every new site starts with them preselected.

2. Start, open and sign in

Select the site in the sidebar. The detail view shows its status, address, credentials, database and PHP version.

Action	Shortcut	What it does
Start / Stop	⌘R	Starts PHP's built-in server on the site's own localhost port (and the database server, if needed).
Open Site	⌘O	Opens http://localhost:<port> in your chosen browser.
WP Admin	⇧⌘A	Opens /wp-admin already signed in, without typing a password.
Emails	⇧⌘E	Opens the Mailpit inbox.
Share		Creates a temporary public link (see step 5).

The More menu adds Show in Finder, Open in Editor, Open in Terminal, Copy Address, Rename… and Delete Site…. Deleting moves the folder to the Trash; MySQL/MariaDB databases are not deleted.

The WordPress Access card shows the username and password and has Generate New Password…. If the stored credentials stop working, for example after restoring a WPvivid backup from production, it changes to Restore Access, which resets the admin password without touching any other data.

3. Work on the site

The site folder is a normal WordPress install, so you can edit themes and plugins with any editor. For command-line work use wpc wp, which runs WP-CLI with the site's PHP and database:

cd ~/WP\ Center/my-site
wpc wp plugin install wpvivid-backuprestore --activate
wpc wp search-replace 'https://example.com' 'http://localhost:8901' --dry-run

4. Test emails with Mailpit

When a site starts, WP Center launches the bundled Mailpit (SMTP on 127.0.0.1:1025, web UI on 127.0.0.1:8025). A small mu-plugin routes wp_mail() there, so password resets, WooCommerce orders and contact form submissions are caught locally instead of being sent. If another Mailpit is already using port 1025, it is reused.

5. Share the site with a client

1. Click Share, then Create Link (or Start and Create Link if the site is stopped).
2. WP Center opens a Cloudflare Quick Tunnel and copies a https://….trycloudflare.com link to the clipboard.
3. Send the link. The site works over HTTPS without any database change: URLs are rewritten on the fly.
4. Click Stop Sharing when you're done. The link also closes when you stop the site or quit the app.

Important

This is the only feature that reaches the internet, and only when you start it. Automatic sign-in is refused for every request that comes through the tunnel.

6. Export to cPanel

1. Install and activate the WPvivid Backup plugin in the site, for example with wpc wp plugin install wpvivid-backuprestore --activate.
2. In the WPvivid Backup card, click Export….
3. If any table uses a MySQL 8-only collation (utf8mb4_0900_*), WP Center warns you and offers:
   • Convert and Export (recommended): converts to utf8mb4_unicode_ci, which works on both MySQL and MariaDB. Your data is kept.
   • Export Without Converting: only if your cPanel uses MySQL 8.
4. The backup files are saved to a subfolder named after the site and the date, in ~/Downloads by default (configurable in Settings, or ask every time).
5. On cPanel, in a WordPress site with WPvivid installed: WPvivid → Backup & Restore → Upload → Restore.

Left out of the export, so the server gets only what belongs there:

• Studio leftovers (SQLite database, SQLite plugin and loader);
• development mu-plugins (dev-*) and WP Center's own mu-plugins (automatic sign-in, mail, sharing);
• files for AI agents (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .claude/, .agents/, …).

The wp-config.php on cPanel is never replaced.

7. Bring a live site from cPanel

1. On the server, in WPvivid → Backup & Restore, make a backup of the database and files and download it. Large backups come in several parts (….part001.zip, ….part002.zip); keep them in the same folder.
2. In WP Center: File → Import Site… and choose the backup (any one part is enough). WP Center shows WPvivid as the source and suggests the domain as the name.
3. Click Import. WP Center creates the site with its own database on the managed MariaDB/MySQL, swaps the live URLs for http://localhost:<port> and gives the first administrator a new password.

The WPvivid plugin isn't needed on your Mac, and the live site is never touched. Exports from WordPress Studio, Local and another WP Center are imported the same way (wpc import <file> from Terminal).

To move a site to WP Center on another Mac, use For another WP Center in the site's Export card (or wpc export --wpcenter). It writes one .zip with the files, the database, the PHP version and the database engine; import it there with File → Import Site…. Passwords are not included.

8. Manage your live sites

The Live Sites section of the sidebar keeps your published WordPress sites next to the local ones, without mixing them up. It needs a small plugin on each site, WP Center Ligação, which ships inside the app.

1. Click + next to Live Sites (or Connect Live Site…) and type the site's address, for example shop.com.
2. If the plugin isn't there yet, click Save the Plugin…. On the site, open Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload wpcenter-ligacao.zip and activate it. To update it later, upload the new zip and choose Replace current with uploaded.
3. WP Center opens the site's own Authorize Application page in your browser. Approve it as an administrator. The browser hands the result back to the app, and the site appears in the sidebar.

Once connected:

Where	What you can do
All Live Sites	One table with every site's WordPress and PHP versions and pending updates. Update All updates plugins and themes on every site; Check asks every site for new updates.
A site's detail	Plugins and themes with their versions and available updates, WordPress core updates, debug mode, and whether the server can update itself or asks for FTP.
WP Admin	Opens the dashboard already signed in (plugin 1.2 or later). Older plugins open the normal login page.
Disconnect	Revoke on the Site… opens the site's profile, where you revoke the "WP Center" application password; Disconnect from This Mac… forgets the site in WP Center.

Updates run through WordPress's own updater on each site, the same one as the Update Now button. Make a backup first if the site has no recent one.

Note

Live sites must use HTTPS. Connecting uses WordPress's built-in application passwords: your admin password never reaches the app, and some security plugins (e.g. Wordfence) must allow application passwords.

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The wpc command-line tool

Turn it on in Settings → Advanced → wpc command in Terminal. This creates ~/.local/bin/wpc, a symlink to the app. Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH, then open a new Terminal window.

Usage: wpc [--path <site-folder>] <command>

  wpc list            List the sites (--json)
  wpc create "Name"   Create and start a new site; --db sqlite|mariadb|mysql, --db-version 10.11, --php 8.3
  wpc status          Status, address, credentials and database of the site (--json)
  wpc context         Summary for agents: theme, builder, plugins, content, WooCommerce (--json)
  wpc start           Start the site (and the database server, if needed)
  wpc stop            Stop the site
  wpc admin           Open wp-admin already signed in
  wpc login-url [page] One-time wp-admin sign-in link (e.g. plugins.php), valid for 60 s
  wpc flush           Clear caches: object cache, transients, permalinks, Elementor, cache plugins
  wpc logs [lines]    Recent PHP errors and wp-content/debug.log
  wpc screenshot [page] Full-page PNG of a site page (e.g. contact/ or wp-admin/edit.php, signed in);
                       --width 390 for mobile, --viewport for the first screen only, --out file.png
  wpc mail [ID]       Latest emails caught by Mailpit; with an ID, shows one as text (--json)
  wpc export          WPvivid backup ready to restore on cPanel
                        --convert     fix MySQL 8 collations
                        --no-convert  keep them (MySQL 8 servers only)
                        --wpcenter    the whole site in one .zip, for another WP Center
  wpc duplicate       Full copy of the site (files and database); --name "Name"
  wpc import <file>   Create a site from a WPvivid backup or a Studio, Local or WP Center export
  wpc wp <args…>      WP-CLI with the site's PHP and database

Commands act on the site in the current folder, or the one given with --path. Sites started from the CLI keep running after the command exits, and the app and wpc can stop each other's servers.

Settings

Pane	What you can configure
General	Open at login · what happens when WP Center opens (resume the sites that were running, or start none) and when it quits (stop the sites, or keep them running) · menu bar icon · export folder.
New Sites	Sites folder · default database engine, version and PHP version, to match your cPanel server.
Skills	Skills for AI agents, copied into each site's .claude/skills and .agents/skills. Turning one off removes it from every site.
Apps	Browser, code editor and terminal used by Open Site, WP Admin, Open in Editor and Open in Terminal.
Advanced	wpc command · install or remove PHP versions · installed database servers, with Remove… for unused ones.

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How it works under the hood

┌────────────────────────────── WP Center.app ──────────────────────────────┐
│  SwiftUI GUI  ·  wpc CLI  ·  --selftest      (one executable, three modes)│
│                                                                            │
│  SiteStore ──► php -S 127.0.0.1:<port> router.php       (one per site)     │
│      │           └─ bundled PHP 8.4, or Homebrew php@8.x                   │
│      ├──────► mariadbd / mysqld    ports 3310+ / 3320+, socket in /tmp     │
│      ├──────► mailpit              SMTP :1025 · UI :8025                   │
│      └──────► cloudflared          only while a share link is open         │
│                                                                            │
│  LiveStore ──► https://<live-site>/wp-json/wpcenter/v1   (connected sites) │
│                                                                            │
│  Runtime/*.php ─ helpers run with `wp eval-file`, inputs via env vars      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

• Web server. Each site is served by PHP's built-in server with 4 workers. Port checks cover both 127.0.0.1 and ::1, so localhost works in every browser. Stopping a site ends the whole process tree.
• Databases. Versioned, keg-only Homebrew formulas, each with a fixed port and its own data directory in ~/Library/Application Support/WP Center/Databases/. Servers start with utf8mb4_unicode_ci as the default collation, which keeps backups compatible with MariaDB on cPanel. Each site gets its own random database and user.
• WordPress configuration. The generated wp-config.php disables automatic core updates, so a background update never contacts wordpress.org mid-request. You can still update manually from the dashboard.
• Helper scripts. Runtime/*.php run inside the site through WP-CLI. They read their inputs from environment variables, never argv, so secrets don't show up in ps, and they return one WPCENTER_RESULT {json} line.
• Live sites. The WP Center Ligação plugin (Plugin/wpcenter-ligacao/) adds three admin-only REST routes: status (versions, plugins and themes with their updates), update (runs WordPress's own upgraders) and login (a one-time sign-in code). The app authenticates with an application password created when you approve the connection in the browser.
• State. ~/Library/Application Support/WP Center/ holds sites.json and live-sites.json (both mode 0600), per-site logs and database data.

Privacy and security

• No external services. No accounts, analytics, crash reporting or update checks. The only outbound connections are a share link, while it is open, and the live sites you connect yourself.
• Automatic sign-in uses a one-time token stored only as a SHA-256 hash. It is valid for 60 seconds and accepted only in the local environment, only from loopback and never through a share tunnel.
• Live sites are reached over HTTPS only, with a WordPress application password that you approve in the browser and can revoke at any time in the site's profile. Your admin password never reaches the app. The plugin's routes only answer administrators, and its WP Admin sign-in code is single-use, valid for 60 seconds and stored only as a SHA-256 hash.
• Managed databases give root access only through a local Unix socket, with no password and no network access.
• Credentials are stored in sites.json and live-sites.json with owner-only permissions and passed to helpers through environment variables.

Project structure

Sources/WPCenter/
  App.swift          entry point (GUI, CLI, self-test) and the SelfTest suite
  Engine.swift       SiteStore: sites, servers, PHP versions, export, sharing, Mailpit
  Database.swift     database engines and the official cPanel version table
  CLI.swift          the wpc command
  Transfer.swift     import from Studio, Local, WPvivid and WP Center, export for another WP Center, duplicate
  Live.swift         LiveStore: connected live sites and their REST API
  LiveViews.swift    the Live Sites views
  Preferences.swift  settings, login item, browser/editor/terminal choice
  Views.swift        all SwiftUI views
Runtime/             router, PHP helpers, mu-plugins and AI-agent skills copied into the app
Plugin/              WP Center Ligação, the plugin for live sites (zipped into the app by build.sh)
Localization/        en.lproj (English text), pt-PT.lproj and pt.lproj
Assets/, Scripts/    logo and app icon generator
build.sh             builds dist/WP Center.app

Testing

There is no XCTest target. The app ships with an end-to-end self-test:

"dist/WP Center.app/Contents/MacOS/WPCenter" --selftest

It creates real sites in a temporary folder (SQLite, every installed managed MariaDB/MySQL version and every installed Homebrew PHP), starts them, makes HTTP requests and checks sign-in, access reset, rename, collations, PHP versions and stop behaviour. Exit code 0 means every check passed.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
"Homebrew is not installed"	Install it from brew.sh and try again. It's only needed for MariaDB/MySQL and extra PHP versions.
"Port … is in use by another app"	Another database server (or Studio) is using that port. Stop it, then start the site again.
The site didn't start	The error shows the log path: ~/Library/Application Support/WP Center/Logs/<site-id>.log.
Credentials stopped working after a restore	Use Restore Access in the WordPress Access card.
"The WPvivid plugin is not active on this site"	Install and activate WPvivid Backup before exporting.
wpc: command not found	Turn on the command in Settings → Advanced, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH and open a new Terminal window.
"This site doesn't accept application passwords"	Make sure the site uses HTTPS and that no security plugin (e.g. Wordfence) turned application passwords off.
"The WP Center Ligação plugin isn't active on this site"	Use Save the Plugin…, upload it in Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin on the site, activate it and click Check.
Live site WP Admin opens the login page	Update the site's WP Center Ligação plugin to 1.2 or later.
A new build doesn't seem to apply	Quit the running app first: osascript -e 'tell application id "local.wpcenter" to quit'.

Acknowledgements

WP Center builds on WordPress, WordPress Studio, WP-CLI, SQLite Database Integration, WPvivid, Mailpit, cloudflared, WordPress agent skills and Homebrew.

WP Center is an independent project and is not affiliated with Automattic, WordPress.com, cPanel, WPvivid or Cloudflare.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to build, test and follow the project's conventions.

License

WP Center is free software, released under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later, the same licence as WordPress and WordPress Studio.

The built app bundles third-party components that keep their own licences:

Component	License
WordPress	GPL-2.0-or-later
SQLite Database Integration	GPL-2.0-or-later
WordPress agent skills (Runtime/skills)	GPL-2.0-or-later
Agent skills from WordPress Studio	GPL-2.0-or-later
WP-CLI	MIT
PHP	PHP License 3.01
Mailpit	MIT
cloudflared	Apache-2.0