Siteward Child is now on WordPress.org. Install it on every site you manage, free and unlimited.Get Siteward Child
The lean alternative to MainWP & ManageWP

Manage unlimited WordPress sites from one lean dashboard.

Uptime monitoring, fleet-wide updates, backup checks and critical-error alerts for hundreds of sites, without the bloat or the per-site fees. Self-hosted, secure, and built to scale.

No per-site fees · No credit card · Connect your first site in 2 minutes
All systems up
209 / 214 online
1 site down
alert sent · 2s ago
Siteward Dashboard, Sites
Sites214
Online209
Down1
Updates38
Attention12
fernandfig.co.nz
https://fernandfig.co.nz
Up
198 ms
willowandsage.com Backup stale
https://willowandsage.com
Up
1.8 s
2 upd
harbourdental.nz Critical error
https://harbourdental.nz
Down
Built for agencies & freelancers managing WordPress at scale
From an agency running Siteward
“We’ve struggled to find a tool that helps us properly manage our clients’ sites, having trialled MainWP, WP Umbrella and ManageWP, all of which fell short of the mark. Jason at Siteward is responsive to feedback and actually uses the tool regularly, so it keeps improving as the feature set gets richer. I’d recommend Siteward to any agency or freelancer that looks after multiple client sites.”
Why agencies switch

The pain of managing WordPress at scale

The tools meant to help end up charging per site, slowing to a crawl, and going quiet exactly when something breaks. Siteward fixes the parts that actually hurt.

Per-site fees that punish growth

Cloud tools charge ~$1–$2 per site per month for each add-on, backups, monitoring, reporting. At 200 sites that’s thousands a year.

Siteward: one flat price, unlimited sites. No per-site fees, ever.

Dashboards that crawl at scale

Other managers bog down past ~100 sites, slow admin pages, manual “sync” buttons, special tuning just to stay usable.

Siteward: a parallel engine checks your whole fleet in seconds, fast at 200+ out of the box.

Backups that fail silently

Backups quietly stop working and you only find out when a restore fails, the worst possible moment.

Siteward: backup status at a glance with flags for missing, stale and failing backups, before you need them.

Updates that break sites silently

A routine plugin update triggers a white screen or fatal error, and nobody notices until the client calls.

Siteward: detects critical errors and auto-paused plugins within minutes, and tells you which one broke.

Stop paying by the site.

Per-site tools get more expensive with every client you win. Siteward doesn’t.

$5,000–$21,000/yr
200 sites on per-site cloud tools*
vs
$129/yr
200 sites on Siteward, flat

*Based on published per-site add-on pricing (~$1–$9/site/month). Your mileage varies by add-ons; the point is it scales with site count, Siteward doesn’t.

Everything, nothing more

The essentials done properly

Every feature earns its place. No dashboards full of things you’ll never use.

Solid uptime monitoring

Parallel checks across your whole fleet, retry-then-alert to avoid false alarms, and instant notifications by email and Zapier, free on every site.

Fleet-wide updates

See every pending core, plugin and theme update in one place. Select sites and bulk-update, by plugin or by site, with live progress.

Critical-error detection

Catch fatal errors, white screens and auto-paused plugins within minutes, and see exactly which plugin or theme broke the site.

Backup visibility

UpdraftPlus status at a glance, with flags for missing, stale or failing backups before they become a problem.

Secure & self-hosted

Runs on your own server. Each site is linked with an OpenSSL keypair and every request is signed, your data never routes through a third party.

Built for scale

A parallel engine checks and updates hundreds of sites in seconds, not minutes, with concurrency you control.

Tags & segmentation

Label sites by client, server or anything you like, then filter the fleet and scope bulk actions, so you can update or sync everything except the sites you tag “do not touch”. Free and unlimited.

Explore all features →
Siteward vs the rest

Leaner than MainWP. Cheaper than ManageWP.

MainWP is powerful but adds up in paid extensions and slows down at scale. ManageWP charges per site for the features you actually need. Siteward keeps it flat, fast and self-hosted.

MainWP

Self-hosted, but paid extensions stack up and the dashboard drags past ~100 sites.

ManageWP

Polished cloud tool, but you pay per site per add-on, every month, forever.

Siteward FLAT

One flat price, unlimited sites, parallel engine that stays fast at 200+.

Compare Siteward, MainWP & ManageWP →
Up and running fast

Three steps to a managed fleet

1

Install the dashboard

Install the free Siteward plugin from WordPress.org on one central WordPress site, your control panel.

2

Connect your sites

Install the lightweight Siteward Child plugin on each site and paste its secure connection key.

3

Monitor & update

Watch uptime, run bulk updates, and get alerted the moment something needs you.

Hundreds of sites. Seconds, not minutes.

Siteward checks and updates your fleet in parallel, so adding more sites doesn’t slow you down. One agency, one dashboard, total visibility.

200+
sites per dashboard
~10s
to check a full fleet
On the roadmap

What’s coming next

We’re building the highest-impact requests from agencies, openly. Filter by area or sort by status.

ShippedSecurity

SSL & domain expiry alerts

Watches every site’s SSL certificate and domain registration and alerts you days before either lapses, so a forgotten renewal never takes a client site offline.

Next upSecurity

Fleet vulnerability monitoring

See every vulnerable plugin, theme and core version across all sites, cross-referenced against a live feed, and patch fast before the exploit window closes.

PlannedUpdates

Safe updates & one-click rollback

Pre-update snapshots and automatic rollback if an update breaks a site, pairs with the critical-error detection you already get.

ShippedUpdates

Fleet plugin management

Activate, deactivate, uninstall or install plugins across selected sites at once, from a ZIP or a URL, including premium plugins, with filters and live progress.

PlannedReporting

White-label client reports

Scheduled, branded PDF reports so your maintenance work is visible, and your care plans stick.

PlannedMonitoring

Licence & renewal tracking

Track premium plugin licences and renewal dates across the fleet, with alerts before one lapses and quietly breaks updates.

PlannedPerformance

Performance & PageSpeed scores

Track Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed scores per site over time, surfaced right in your client reports.

Missing something? Tell us what to build next.
Questions

Frequently asked

What is Siteward?

Siteward is a lean, self-hosted WordPress multi-site management tool, a MainWP and ManageWP alternative, that lets agencies monitor uptime, run fleet-wide core, plugin and theme updates, and catch critical errors across unlimited WordPress sites from one dashboard, at one flat price with no per-site fees.

Is Siteward a good MainWP alternative?

Yes. Siteward offers the same core idea, manage many WordPress sites from one self-hosted dashboard, but deliberately stripped of bloat, with a parallel engine that stays fast at scale and no paid-extension sprawl. See the full comparison.

Does Siteward charge per site?

Never. Siteward is one flat price for unlimited managed sites, unlike per-site cloud tools that bill ~$1–$2 per site per month for each feature.

Where is my data stored?

Entirely on your own dashboard site. Siteward is self-hosted; there’s no third-party cloud in the middle. Sites connect over signed, encrypted requests.

Will it tell me when an update breaks a site?

Yes. Siteward detects HTTP 5xx errors, WordPress’s “critical error” white screen, recovery mode, and auto-paused plugins, and alerts you by email or Zapier, naming the culprit.

Unlimited sites · Free to start

Take control of your WordPress fleet.

Monitor unlimited sites free, upgrade to Pro for SSL & domain-expiry alerts and Zapier. No per-site fees, ever.