Try Simple History right here in your browser. Nothing is installed, nothing is signed up for, and your own site is not touched — the entire WordPress site below runs on your own computer.
Click Activate Live Preview below and you get a fresh WordPress site with the latest version of Simple History already installed and activated. Starting it up takes up to a minute, and you are logged in as an administrator automatically. The log arrives pre-filled with a month of example activity, so there is something to look at right away.
Then start changing things. Every change shows up under Simple History in the admin menu. If you are not sure where to start, there is a list of things to try right below the preview.
Good to know
- Everything runs in your browser, powered by WordPress Playground. No data is sent anywhere.
- It all resets when you reload or close the page, so feel free to break things.
- The preview window is a bit cramped. Use the Open in New Tab button below it for a full-size view, and use a laptop or desktop rather than a phone if you can.
- If you end up logged out, the username is
adminand the password ispassword.
Things to try
All of these show up in the log immediately. Open Simple History in the admin menu after doing them.
- Publish a post, then edit its title. You get one entry for the new post and one for the edit — with the details of what actually changed.
- Change the site title in Settings › General. The log shows the old value next to the new one.
- Install and activate a plugin. Installs, activations, deactivations and updates are all logged.
- Add a user, or change someone’s role. User changes are some of the most useful things to have a record of.
- Log out and log in again with the wrong password. Failed login attempts are logged too, not just successful ones.
- Upload an image to the media library, then delete it again.
- Search and filter the log by date, by user, or by type of event.
- Open the site name in the toolbar at the top to peek at the latest events without leaving the page you are on.
Ready to use it on your own site?
Everything you just tried is in the free version, and installing it takes about a minute.
If you need more than the free version
The demo above runs the free plugin. Simple History Premium adds the things the free version leaves out: keeping the log for longer than 30 days, alerts by email or Slack when something important happens, exporting search results for audits, and a dozen other things.