Aouwal Static Site Export – Static Site Generator

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How do I export WordPress to HTML?

Install and activate the plugin, open Static Export in the admin menu, choose which post types and archives to include, then run the export. The plugin renders every page, localizes the assets and builds a ZIP file. Download the ZIP, unzip it, and upload the folder to your static host. The Deploy tab has the full walkthrough for GitHub and Cloudflare Pages.

What does Aouwal Static Site Export do?

It is a static site generator for WordPress. It converts your WordPress site into a static HTML site. The plugin crawls each public page, saves the rendered HTML, downloads and localizes all assets, and packages the result into a ZIP file. You can then host the site anywhere without WordPress, PHP or a database.

Does it support custom post types?

Yes. Every public post type is listed in Settings and you choose which ones to export. Products, portfolio items, documentation pages and other custom post types are exported with the same permalink structure they use on your WordPress site.

Does it work with Elementor?

Usually yes. Elementor renders its layout to HTML and CSS on the server, so pages export with their design intact. Widgets that need a server, such as forms, popups with dynamic content and logged-in-only sections, cannot work on a static host and should be tested before you publish.

Does it work with WooCommerce?

Product and category pages can be exported, so a product catalog works as a static site. The cart, checkout, my-account and product search pages are dynamic, so they cannot work without WordPress. The plugin does not convert WooCommerce into a static shop.

Does it export images?

Yes. Images are downloaded and stored in the uploads structure the HTML expects, including srcset and <picture> sources. Images served from a CDN or another domain are localized too when they are reachable. Any single asset larger than the Maximum asset size setting (25 MB by default) is skipped and listed in the log.

Does it export CSS and JavaScript?

Yes. Stylesheets and scripts are downloaded and rewritten to local paths, including CSS url() and @import references, so icons, fonts and background images keep working. Inline styles and inline scripts stay in the page. Files are not minified or combined, so the export matches what your site already serves.

What happens to search and comments?

Search and comments are server-side features, so they cannot run on a static host. The plugin removes search forms, comment forms, comment sections and comment feeds from the export by default. Both cleanup steps can be turned off in Settings, for example when you only need a partial static copy. There is no built-in replacement for them.

Does the export include any credit or branding?

No, not unless you enable it. In Settings, under Attribution, you can turn on an invisible, source-code-only credit. It is off by default and never appears in the browser or in the exported pages your visitors see.

Can I deploy to Cloudflare Pages?

Yes. The export includes _redirects and _headers files, which Cloudflare Pages reads automatically, and the Deploy tab gives you the GitHub and Cloudflare Pages steps. Connect the repository once and every new export redeploys the site.

Can I schedule exports or publish to Netlify automatically?

Not from the plugin settings. Scheduled exports, deploy targets and cache purging are not built in yet. The supported pattern is a cron job that runs wp aouwal-static-export run --batch=10, unzips the ZIP into a Git repository, then commits and pushes. Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and Vercel deploy the new commit automatically. The «Automate exports with WP-CLI and cron» section has the exact commands.

Can I host the exported site anywhere?

Yes. The output is plain HTML, CSS, JavaScript and media, so it runs on any static hosting or CDN: Netlify, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Amazon S3, Vercel, or a basic web host. No WordPress, PHP or database is required.

Do I need to know how to code?

No. You run the export from the WordPress admin and download a ZIP file. The Deploy tab gives you copy-and-paste commands for GitHub and Cloudflare Pages, so you can publish the site without writing any code.

Does the plugin change my live site?

No. The plugin only reads your content and writes the export to a files folder inside your own WordPress uploads directory. Your live site, database and settings stay unchanged, and you can delete the export files at any time.

Where are export files stored, and are they public?

Exports are written to wp-content/uploads/aouwal-static-site-export/, the same area WordPress uses for its own export files. The folder is protected from browsing with an index.php file and, on Apache, a .htaccess deny rule. The ZIP is served only through a signed, expiring admin link, never a permanent public URL, and the file disappears when the job is pruned. Nginx ignores .htaccess, so on Nginx either add a deny rule for wp-content/uploads/aouwal-static-site-export/ or move exports outside the web root. Developers can relocate the directory with the aouwal_export_dir filter.

Which WordPress and PHP versions are supported?

The plugin requires WordPress 6.0 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. It is tested up to WordPress 7.1. It uses only the WordPress HTTP API and the WordPress filesystem, so it works on standard shared hosting.

Can I update the exported site later?

Yes. Run a new export to create a fresh ZIP, then push the updated files. On Cloudflare Pages, every push to your connected repository redeploys the site automatically, so updates take only a few minutes.

Does the plugin work on large sites?

Yes. The crawl runs in batches, and each batch is one request, so a PHP timeout applies to a batch, not to the whole site or to a single page.

Batch size is set in Settings and accepts 1 to 50. The default is 5, so a 2,000-page site already exports in 5-page requests. Do not set 50 or 100: 50 is the maximum and 100 is not accepted. Lower it to 2 to 5 on shared hosting, raise it to 10 to 20 on a fast server. WP-CLI uses 10 URLs per batch by default:

wp aouwal-static-export run --batch=10

Memory: 256 MB is the practical minimum and 512 MB is comfortable for large media libraries. Any single asset larger than the «Maximum asset size» setting (25 MB by default) is skipped and listed as an error in the log, so one huge video or archive cannot run the export out of memory.

Discovery and ZIP packaging each run in a single request on current versions. Sites with tens of thousands of posts can still hit a limit there. If that happens, exclude heavy post types, raise max_execution_time temporarily, or run the export with WP-CLI.

Can I export a staging site protected by HTTP Basic Auth?

Yes. Enter the username and password in Settings > Network > HTTP Basic Auth, then run the export as usual. The plugin sends the Authorization header only to your site’s own hosts, so credentials never reach Google Fonts, a CDN or a Gravatar, and the header is dropped when the origin redirects to another domain.

The password is stored encrypted and is never rendered back into the settings page or written to the export log. Leave the password field blank to keep the saved value; tick «Remove stored credentials» to delete it. Basic Auth only: cookie-based protection and WordPress «site password» plugins are not supported, and without credentials a protected site still logs HTTP 401 for every URL.

Why does the export time out or get rate-limited?

Two settings in Settings > Network control it. Raise «Request timeout» (60 seconds by default, up to 120) when a single slow page or a large file is abandoned. Add a «Delay between requests» of 200 to 1000 milliseconds when your host or a security plugin rate-limits the crawl.

If PHP itself runs out of time, lower «Batch size (concurrency)» instead, because each batch is one PHP request. The same values are available for a single run with WP-CLI: wp aouwal-static-site-export run --timeout=90 --delay=250 --batch=5.

Can I crawl through a Docker container or a reverse proxy?

Yes. Set «Custom crawl origin» to the URL the server can actually reach, for example http://wordpress:8080 for a container name or http://127.0.0.1:8080 for a local proxy. The crawler requests pages and assets from that origin, while every link, canonical URL and sitemap entry still uses the normal site URL, so the exported site is identical to a direct crawl.

The origin host is trusted like the site host, so it does not have to be publicly routable. Link-local and cloud metadata addresses such as 169.254.169.254 are always refused, and the origin URL cannot contain a username or password. On a proxy that uses a private certificate authority, choose «Verify against a custom CA bundle» and enter the absolute path to the PEM file on the server.

Is the exported site good for SEO?

Yes. The export keeps your page URLs, titles and content, generates a sitemap.xml and robots.txt, and strips version tags and staging «noindex» meta. Because the pages are static HTML, they load quickly and are easy for search engines and AI systems to crawl.