GitHub and WordPress are two very popular platforms. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have the best of both worlds and bring all the power of GitHub to your site? If that’s you, check out our list of the best GitHub plugins for WordPress to make the most of these excellent platforms.

What’s GitHub?

To understand what GitHub is, first we need to explain what Git is. Git is an open-source version control system created by Linus Torvalds, the same guy who created Linux. A version control system helps developers manage the revisions of their projects and stores those modifications in a central repository. Version control systems are very useful when several people are working on the same code or when it’s an open-source project as every developer can see the changes in the code, download it, and modify it.

Advantages of using GitHub

Git isn’t the only version control out there but it’s the most famous because it has multiple advantages over the other systems. In most of these systems, if someone makes changes to the project, those modifications are applied directly to the central repository.

With Git, however, if a developer wants to modify a project, they have to copy the whole repository to their system (known as “forking”) and then make the changes on their local copy. After that, they can send a notification (known as “pull request“) to the owner to apply those changes to the central server.

Finally, the owner can merge those modifications with a click (known as “merge“). So GitHub is a platform that hosts Git repositories and provides many other features that make it easy to use and collaborate with others. It has more than 40 million users around the world and it was acquired by Microsoft in 2018.

Why use GitHub plugins in WordPress?

As you can imagine, many developers that create themes and plugins for WordPress host the source codes in GitHub. But that’s not all. Some add-ons allow you to take the GitHub-WordPress integration to a whole new level.

Some tools add Git features to WordPress and let you add version control, install themes and plugins remotely, deploy them straight from GitHub, embed repositories on your site, and much more.

Best GitHub plugins for WordPress

The best WordPress GitHub plugins are:

1. WP Pusher
2. GitHub Updater
3. VersionPress
4. GitHub Actions for WordPress
5. GitHub Embed
6. Markdown GitHub
7. Gist GitHub Shortcode
8. GitHub Release Downloads
9. Embed Block for GitHub
10. Github Commit Contribution
11. Writing on GitHub

Let’s have a closer look at what each of them has to offer.

1. WP Pusher

WP Pusher is an excellent tool that allows you to automatically deploy the changes you make to your Git repository to your WordPress site. This way, you can install and update themes and plugins directly from GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab regardless of the hosting you use. This is very useful for developers because every time they push a new change to the Git repository, it will automatically update your plugins and themes without having to use an FTP client.

Additionally, WP Pusher is multisite and doesn’t require you to have Git installed on your server, any hosting service you use will do.

Price

This top plugin is freemium. It offers a free version and three premium plans:

• Free version
• Freelancer – 99 USD per year (5 sites)
• Agency – 199 USD per year (20 sites)
• Big Agency – 499 USD per year (100 sites)

The free version only supports public repositories while the premium plans include private repositories and email support. On top of that, they all have a 30-day money-back guarantee so if you don’t like the product, you can get a full refund.

2. GitHub Updater

This tool isn’t in the WordPress repository but it’s one of the most powerful GitHub plugins for WordPress. GitHub Updater allows you to update any plugin or theme hosted in GitHub. With this tool, you can enable automatic updates to your GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, or Gitea plugins, themes, and language packs.

The magic of this tool is that it allows you to update your WordPress plugins and themes every time you release a new version, the same way your users receive an update when they download an add-on or theme from the WordPress repository. Additionally, it lets you install themes and plugins remotely. So how do you use this plugin? The only condition is that your plugin or theme must contain a header in the style.css header or in the plugin’s header to indicate its location on GitHub.

It’s worth noting that this plugin was originally developed by Joey Kudish but as it hadn’t been updated for a while, another group of developers called Radish Concepts took over the project.

Price

GitHub Updater is a free tool that you can download from GitHub. You can find the original version here, and the new one here.

3. VersionPress

VersionPress is an excellent open-source plugin that brings all the power of Git to WordPress. What makes VersionPress one of the best GitHub plugins for WordPress is that it adds version control to files and to the database allowing you to track every change you make to your site. This means that you can undo any change you made or even bring your site back to a previous state by reverting all the changes to that point.

What’s more, VersionPress lets you create staging environments for testing and merge them with the live database. Even though it may sound complicated, this tool is pretty easy to use and creates Git commits for both file and database changes in natural language so it’s accessible even to non-technical users.

Price

VersionPress is free and you can download it from GitHub.

4. GitHub Actions for WordPress

GitHub Actions for WordPress is one of the best plugins for those who develop their plugins on GitHub. This tool allows you to deploy your new releases directly to the WordPress plugin repository every time you tag a new version on GitHub. You can do that from the command line or by using the GitHub releases interface. This has great benefits because it lets you manage all your developments directly from GitHub.

For more information, check out this documentation page.

Price

GitHub Actions for WordPress is 100% free.

5. GitHub Embed

GitHub Embed is a very simple but very effective plugin that allows you to embed GitHub details in a WordPress page or post. You just have to paste the code in the URL as you would with any other embedded source. This tool currently lets you embed:

• Repositories
• User profiles
• Project milestone summaries
• Project contributors

In terms of design, GitHub Embed provides basic styling but adds classes so you can customize it to match the look and feel of your site.

Price

GitHub Embed is free and you can download it from the WordPress plugin repository.

6. Markdown Github

Even though it hasn’t received any updates for several months, this is still one of the best GitHub plugins for WordPress. Markdown Github allows you to store all your site information in GitHub as markdown files and have all your content version controlled.

But how does it do it? Every time the page loads, Markdown Github queries the GitHub API so the changes you make in the repository immediately apply to your site. This is a great option for those who need to update their site with external users via pull requests. Additionally, this plugin comes with 3 shortcodes to display the last 5 commits, display formatted links to the repository with the latest update, and more.

Price

Markdown Github is a free tool and you can download It from the WordPress repository.

7. Gist GitHub Shortcode

As its name suggests, Gist GitHub Shortcode allows you to add GitHub Gists to your posts via shortcodes. For example, you can include a full Gist with the following shortcode:

[gist id="3837669"]

Additionally, you can insert a file in a gist:

[gist id="3837669" file="index.php"]

Even though it doesn’t receive updates very often, the last one was more than 7 months ago, Gist GitHub Shortcode is free and you can download it from the WordPress repository.

8. GitHub Release Downloads

This plugin allows you to get the download count, links, and other information for releases of GitHub repositories via shortcodes. For example:

• The shortcode [grd_count] gives you the sum of all download count values for a selected release (a GitHub repository).
• [grd_list] returns the download list for the selected releases including the tag name, description, and the list of files that can be downloaded.
• [grd_latest_version] gives the tag name of the latest published release.

Before you start using this tool, go to your WordPress dashboard > Settings > GitHub Release Downloads and set values for the GitHub username and the repository name you’ll use by default in the shortcodes.

Price

GitHub Release Downloads is a free tool that you can download from the WordPress repository.

9. Embed Block for GitHub

Embed Block is an excellent tool for those who want to embed Github repositories in their sites. It allows you to easily add a GitHub Repository embed block to the Block Editor and display a card with the repository information.

Using the Gutenberg Editor, you can add a GitHub repository to any page or post on your website. Additionally, Embed Block is very easy to use. Simply enter the repository URL and the plugin will embed a card with all the repository details. The block includes some basic CSS styles but you can easily change it with a bit of CSS.

Price

This tool is free and it’s available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

10. Github Commit Contribution

With this plugin, you can display all the contributions you’ve done in GitHub. This can be useful to create more authority and show your clients or potential employers that you’re a respected source of knowledge in your field.

Github Commit Contribution can be easily integrated with any portfolio or resume website and it’s fully responsive, cross-browser compatible, and retina ready. Additionally, it comes with two predefined layouts and supports shortcodes.

Price

This tool is available in Code Canyon for 13 USD.

11. Writing On GitHub

The last tool in our list of the best GitHub plugins for WordPress is Writing on GitHub. As its name suggests, it allows you to write content collaboratively with other authors and let your users propose improvements to your WordPress content via GitHub.

Writing On GitHub is a very useful tool for teams as it allows them to write and edit posts collaboratively using GitHub. Additionally, teams can sync the content of two different WordPress installations as well as stage and preview the content before deploying it to production.

Price

The best part is that Writing OnGitHub is 100% free.

Conclusion

To sum up, these plugins will allow you to combine the best of GitHub and WordPress. With some of these add-ons, you can take the GitHub-WordPress integration one step further and improve your productivity. You will be able to add version control to your site, deploy new releases directly from GitHub, embed repositories on your site, store all the information of your website in GitHub as markdown files, and much more.

So which plugin should you use first? We recommend you start with WP Pusher, GitHub Updater, and VersionPress. They all have free versions and they have excellent features that will help you make the most of GitHub on your site with ease.

Do you use any GitHub plugins? Let us know what other tools we should include in the comment section below.