PluginBuddy Is Live!

Today, I’m pleased to announce the launch of our newest venture — PluginBuddy.com — our premium WordPress plugin marketplace.

To give you some background, PluginBuddy is a division of iThemes and WebDesign.com.

Same company, same team, but different ventures, brands and markets.

• At iThemes, we produce WordPress themes.
• At WebDesign.com, we produce web design training, centered on WordPress.
• At PluginBuddy, we produce WordPress plugins.

We decided to launch PluginBuddy for a couple of reasons …

• We think the need is great — The same reasons why people want and need premium themes are the same reasons people want premium plugins — namely, support, innovation and regular updates with WordPress.
• We think the time is right – With Dustin Bolton, our newest team member, leading this effort, we feel we can provide the same quality of product we’ve done for the last 2 years though iThemes and we’re excited about the plugin ideas our community has given us and the ones we have in store for you through PluginBuddy in the coming months.

If you want more details and backstory on why we firmly believe a Premium WordPress Plugin store like PluginBuddy is needed, please check out my post on this subect.

OUR FIRST OFFICIAL PLUGINBUDDY PLUGIN – BACKUP BUDDY

Although we’ve offered our Billboard plugin for the last year, our first official plugin is called BackupBuddy.

We think this is a MUCH needed plugin solution for EVERY WordPress user ….

BackupBuddy is an easy, all-in-one solution for backups, restoration and migration.

Here’s what that means or what BackupBuddy does ….

• Backup your entire WordPress install — including the widgets, themes, plugins you use … the entire package! You should not leave the backup process up to your web host … just like your laptop or desktop computer, you should be doing regular backups of your blog or website … with BackupBuddy, you can schedule backups and have the files emails, or uploaded to an FTP account for you.
• Restore your WordPress site fast — the restore function within BackupBuddy is a simple restoration process where you upload a script and your backup files and it reinstalls WordPress, your themes, widgets and plugins.
• Migrate a WordPress site to another domain easily — If you build custom WordPress sites for clients this plugin is for you! This is a HOT feature for WordPress developers who build a custom site for a client on a temporary domain (like a sandbox or playground site) then want to reinstall the ENTIRE site with widgets and all on a live client domain.

Check out BackupBuddy and some overview videos of it here

And please leave a comment and let us know ideas you have for plugins you’d like to see coded!