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LightStart – Maintenance Mode, Coming Soon and Landing Page Builder
Version: 2.6.20
Description
Add a maintenance page to your blog that lets visitors know your blog is down for maintenance, add a coming soon page for a new website or create a landing page for an existing site. User with admin rights gets full access to the blog including the front end.
Activate the plugin and your blog is in maintenance-mode, works and only registered users with enough rights can see the front end. You can use a date with a countdown timer for visitor information or set a value and unit for information.
Also works with WordPress Multisite installs (each blog from the network has its own maintenance settings).
Features
- Fully customizable (change colors, texts and backgrounds).
- Subscription form (export emails to .csv file).
- Countdown timer (remaining time).
- Contact form (receive emails from visitors).
- Coming soon page;
- Landing page templates;
- WordPress multisite;
- Responsive design;
- Social media icons;
- Works with any WordPress theme;
- SEO options;
- Exclude URLs from maintenance;
- Bot functionality to collect the emails in a friendly and efficient way;
- GDPR Ready;
Bugs, technical hints or contribute
Please give us feedback, contribute and file technical bugs on GitHub Repo.
Credits
Developed by Themeisle
What’s Next
If you like this plugin, then consider checking out our other projects:
- Optimole – Optimole is your all-in-one image optimization solution for WordPress & beyond.
- WPShout – In-Depth WordPress Tutorials for Developers
- Revive Social – Revive Old Posts helps you keep your content alive and in front the audiences that matter.
- CodeinWP – CodeinWP stands for all-things-WordPress. From web design to freelancing and from development to business, your questions are covered.
- DomainWheel – Free Short Website name generator, with the help of AI, for instant ideas.
Check-out our blog to learn from our WordPress Reviews and see other WordPress plugins.
Installation
- Unpack the download package
- Upload all files to the
/wp-content/plugins/
directory, include folders - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Go to
Settings
page, where you can change what settings you need (pay attention to Exclude option!)
Screenshots
Faq
Check out our Snippet Library.
WP Maintenance Mode can be unstable due to the cache plugins; we recommend deactivating any cache plugin when maintenance mode is active. If you really want to use a cache plugin, make sure you delete the entire cache after each change.
If you change your login url, please add the new slug (url: http://domain.com/newlogin, then you should add: newlogin) to Exclude list from plugin settings -> General Tab.
Notice: wp-cron.php
is excluded by default.
Reviews
ignore review, tech issue
By dogstarcrew on August 15, 2025
ignore this review
Damaged my divi theme website
By Anita (anita0505) on August 9, 2025
It damaged my website. I use divi theme. My Homepage was without content. It costs me hours.
Nice Plugin
By bwales on August 3, 2025
First time building a site and this plugin made it easy to set up a coming soon page.
Great plugin
By orlandorobin on August 2, 2025
amazing plugin. I used it for a landing and it was very easy to use
Do NOT! download this plugin
By tropicalhainan on August 1, 2025
I had no problems or complaints with this plugin for quite a few years. Today I activated maintenance mode and the plugin downloaded (and activated) two seperate plugins, Optimole and Gutenberg Blocks ... which completly crosses the line for me. I deactivated and deleted all three immediately.
Good App
By irocknashville on July 28, 2025
The app works well.
Installed an image optimization plugin without permission
By rawhasan on July 18, 2025
This plugin Installed an image optimization plugin without my permission!
Scared the hell out of me finding an image optimization plugin that I never installed. There is not even any deactivate button on that plugin. I deleted that from the server. Only found the clue where it came from when visiting this recently installed plugin advertising that image optimization plugin.
I've then removed this malicious plug-in immediately. I don't actually need a plugin to show a simple maintenance page. Just putting a index.html file on the root is enough to do that!
I do not recommend installing this plugin to any site.
Bloatware/Adware - Installs multiple plugins without permission.
By KingDingbat on June 30, 2025
I'm shocked that anyone would be OK with a plugin that installs and activates multiple other plugins without permission, and even when declined. On top of that, it's pretty spammy with ads within the UI.
LightStart installs (at least) Optimole, OtterBlocks (also by themeisle) and Social Icons Widget (by WPZoom) all without disclosing, and all without permission. I actually declined the prompt for templates and Optimole and it still installed anyway. At the time of this writing, the other two are not disclosed or prompted anywhere. This needs to at least be clearly outlined on the plugin page that installing this plugin comes with at least 3 other plugins. Better yet, just dont.
This behavior is gross and it is insane that this is allowed, let alone well reviewed. Stop it.
Great coming soon add-on
By patrezp on May 5, 2025
I've tried multiple coming soon add-ons, but this one fits my needs the best. I can use my own prepared coming soon page
The best cooming soon
By arielavila on April 24, 2025
I like how it work
Changelog
Version 2.6.20 (2025-09-04)
- Updated dependencies
Version 2.6.19 (2025-07-11)
- Improved onboarding wizard
Version 2.6.18 (2025-05-27)
- Updated dependencies
Version 2.6.17 (2025-04-16)
- Updated dependencies
Version 2.6.16 (2025-01-10)
- Fixed compatibility issue with WordPress 6.7
- Fixed broken onboarding layout
Version 2.6.15 (2024-12-04)
- Codebase changes.
Version 2.6.14 (2024-11-11)
- Fixed conflict with WPForms
- Updated dependencies
Version 2.6.13 (2024-10-14)
- Codebase updates.
Version 2.6.12 (2024-09-17)
Bug Fixes
- Compatibility with Elementor: Fixes a compatibility issue with Elementor.
- Fixes Checkbox Styles: Fixes a styling issue with Checkbox in the wizard that makes it almost invisible on screen.
Version 2.6.11 (2024-04-18)
Improvements
- Updated internal dependencies: Enhanced performance and security.
Version 2.6.10 (2024-02-28)
Fixes
- Updated dependencies
Version 2.6.9 (2023-12-22)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed compatibility issue with WP 6.4
- Fixed broken templates layout issue on the Safari browser
- Enhanced security
- Fixed compatibility issue with WP-Optimize
Version 2.6.8 (2023-06-07)
- Fix the Save button Module tab not working
- Codebase updates
Version 2.6.7 (2023-04-01)
- Bug fix: Addressed an unnecessary ‘no maintenance page’ error occurrence.
Version 2.6.6 (2023-03-31)
- Remove error notice for users that use an overriding custom template
- Update dependencies
Version 2.6.5 (2023-03-01)
Update dependencies
Version 2.6.4 (2023-02-24)
- Add the option to manage maintenance status on all sites from the network dashboard
- Update dependencies
Version 2.6.3 (2023-02-06)
- Update dependencies
Version 2.6.2 (2022-12-16)
- Add the option in the wizard to skip importing a template and installing Otter
- Improve the quality of the template screenshots
- Fix the template overriding issue
Version 2.6.1 (2022-11-03)
- Add a notice to announce the rebrand of the plugin
Version 2.6.0 (2022-11-02)
- Adds Landing pages templates
- Adds more Coming soon and Maintenance mode templates
- Rebrand the plugin into LightStart
Version 2.5.4 (2022-10-10)
- Fix subscribers entry export for legacy forms.
- Fix PHP notice showing up on edge cases new installs.
Version 2.5.3 (2022-09-28)
- Fix wrong template loaded when the current post template is empty.
Version 2.5.2 (2022-09-27)
- Fix maintenance mode issue for previously logged users #321
- Allow comments into exclude textarea so that you can comment on the IP addresses for location, props @joostdekeijzer
- Fix PHP notice errors on specific scenarios #324
- Fix Otter for saving subscriber entry
Version 2.5.1 (2022-09-08)
- Fixes a bug which was causing error on some instances
Version 2.5.0 (2022-09-08)
- New Feature: Adds compatibility with Block Editor or any page builder for building the maintenance mode page.
- New Feature: Adds coming soon and maintenance mode starting templates.
Version 2.4.7 (2022-08-08)
Fixes
- Fix login form display
- Fix email collecting by the bot
- Improve accessibility of the maintenance page thanks to @SophieWeb
Version 2.4.6 (2022-06-15)
- Improve data sanitizations for custom css and contact module
Version 2.4.5 (2022-06-15)
- Harden security and improve release process
Version 2.4.4 (2022-02-10)
Update dependencies
Version 2.4.3 (2022-01-27)
- Change ownership to Themeisle
2.4.2 (18/01/2022)
- Misc: 900 000 Active Installs Celebrations!
- Misc: WordPress 5.9 compatibility
- Fix: jQuery UI CSS theme reference from jQuery CDN
- Misc: Text fixes in the dashboard
2.4.1 (20/07/2021)
- Misc: WordPress 5.8 compatibility
2.4.0 (13/05/2021)
- Design: add “Custom CSS” setting; Finally! 🙂
- Design: add “Footer links” color setting
- Design: add a list of available shortcodes under the “Text” editor
- Bot: make {visitor_name} placeholder work in all messages after the visitor types his name
- Misc: add shortcode for responsive video embeds; Compatible with YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion.
- Misc: make the exclude mechanism work with Cyrillic characters
- Misc: add
wpmm_maintenance_template
filter; It works the same way as thewpmm_contact_template
filter, but for the maintenance template. - Misc: now you can override the
contact
email template too; Check/views/contact.php
for more details. - Misc: better compatibility with translation plugins like Loco Translate
- Misc: the image uploaders (from the dashboard) are now translatable
- Misc: improve uninstall routine
- Misc: add
wpmm_delete_cache
action; It is called after each setting change. - Misc: add support for cache plugins like WP Rocket, WP Fastest Cache, Endurance Page Cache, Swift Performance Lite, Cache Enabler, SG Optimizer, LiteSpeed Cache, Nginx Helper;
- Misc: remove
wpmm_count_where
helper function - Misc: code improvements
2.3.0 (07/12/2020)
- Modules: add support for Google Analytics 4 measurement ID
- Design: enable media buttons on wp_editor (now you can add images from the editor)
- Bot: fix translation issue
- Misc: add filters for capabilities
wpmm_settings_capability
,wpmm_subscribers_capability
, andwpmm_all_actions_capability
(the last one can be used to override all capabilities) - Misc: fix [loginform] shortcode redirect attribute
- Misc: a few CSS & Javascript improvements
- Misc: bump “Tested up to” version to 5.6
2.2.4 (20/05/2019)
- bump “Tested up to” to 5.2.0
- fix typo in Italian translation (it_IT)
- Bot: add a note about how you can export the list of subscribers #195
- Bot: add client-side sanitization to the input fields #176
2.2.3 (20/02/2019)
- bump “Tested up to” version to 5.1.0
- replace “wpmu_new_blog” action with “wp_initialize_site” action for WP 5.1.0 users because the first one is deprecated in the new version
- small improvement to “check_exclude” method from “WP_Maintenance_Mode” class
2.2.2 (27/11/2018)
- Google Analytics module: migrate from analytics.js to gtag.js + add ip anonymization #178
- GDPR module: accept links inside texareas + add policy link target #188
- add charset meta tag #200
- fix PHP Notice: Undefined index: HTTP_USER_AGENT
- add plural and single form translation for subscribers number (settings page)
Earlier versions
For the changelog of earlier versions, please refer to the full changelog.