Limitations

WordPress Playground is under active development and has some limitations you should keep in mind when running it and developing with it.

You can track the status of these issues on the Playground Project board.

In the browser

Temporary by design

Playground creates fresh WordPress instances on each page load. Refreshing the browser page discards all database changes, uploads, and modifications.

Why this happens: Playground streams WordPress directly to your browser rather than serving it from a traditional server. Each refresh starts a clean slate.

To persist your work:

• Save: Enable browser storage via the "Save" button (top right, next to address bar), before refreshing the page via the browser bar.
• For development: Use Playground CLI which supports persistent local storage

tip

The dedicated refresh button inside Playground only reloads WordPress content—it preserves your PHP/WP state. The browser's refresh button (F5 or Cmd+R) destroys the entire instance.

1. Exporting Playground:

2. Save button:

Browser support

WordPress Playground is designed to work across all major desktop and mobile browsers. This includes:

• Desktop browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers
• Mobile browsers: Safari (iOS), Chrome (Android), and other mobile browser variants

Playground leverages modern web technologies and should function consistently across these browser environments. However, some advanced features may have varying levels of support depending on the specific browser and its version.

Performance expectations

Loading times vary based on what Playground needs to set up:

Scenario	Typical Load Time
Fresh WordPress (no plugins)	5-10 seconds
With small plugins	10-20 seconds
With large plugins (e.g., WooCommerce)	30-60 seconds
On mobile devices	1.5-2x slower than desktop

Factors that affect performance:

• Plugin size: Large plugins take longer to install at runtime
• Network speed: WASM files are 15-30MB
• Device memory: Low-memory devices may experience slowdowns
• Browser: Chrome/Edge perform best; Safari slightly slower

Note: Opera Mini support is not currently confirmed.

When developing with Playground

Iframe quirks

Playground renders WordPress in an iframe so clicking links with target="_top" will reload the page you’re working on. Also, JavaScript popups originating in the iframe may not always display.

Run WordPress PHP functions

Playground supports running PHP code in Blueprints using the runPHP step. To run WordPress-specific PHP functions, you’d need to first require wp-load.php:

{
	"step": "runPHP",
	"code": "<?php require_once('wordpress/wp-load.php'); OTHER_CODE ?>"
}

Using WP-CLI

You can execute wp-cli commands via the Blueprints wp-cli step. However, since Playground runs in the browser, it doesn't support the full array of available commands. While there is no definite list of supported commands, experimenting in the online demo will help you assess what's possible.