WordPress Sample Content For Testing

For all your theme testing and plugin development needs, here’s a huge list of WordPress sample content collections and dummy content generators.

Export Files

See How to import WordPress export files for instructions on how to import the files listed in this section on your site.

Theme Unit Test Data from WordPress.org

http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Unit_Test

  • 22 Posts
    • Sticky post
    • Gallery post
    • Published and draft posts
    • Aside
    • Post with no title, and a post with a very long tile
    • Password-protected post
  • 15 Pages and sub-pages
  • 50 Categories and sub-categories
  • 50 Tags
  • 28 Comments
    • Includes a couple of pingbacks
    • Threaded comments
    • Comments with multiple design elements
  • 4 Users
  • Likely the best and most comprehensive test content collection.

Sample WordPress Content by WPCandy

  • 12 Posts containing different elements.
  • 10 Pages
  • 8 Categories and sub-categories
  • 7 Tags
  • 14 comments

Note: There’s also ChurchMag’s WordPress Dummy Data, but it seems almost identical to the WPCandy post collection.

Test Post Pack by Think Design Blog

  • 30 Posts
  • 5 Pages and sub-pages
  • 15 Categories and sub-categories
  • 30 Tags
  • 6 Comments
  • Custom fields

WordPress Sample Content by Andi Saleh

  • 14 Posts, including a password-protected post
  • 9 Pages and sub-pages
  • 11 Categories and sub-categories
  • 29 Tags
  • 26 Comments and pingbacks

Note: The author claims that the export file includes threaded comments, but this does not appear to be the case.

Dummy Data Pack by BetterWP.com

(Scroll down to the “Pre-generated data” section. Or use this direct link to the export file.)

This data pack is for those who want to stress-test their WordPress installation. It contains a randomly generated set of:

  • 1000+ Posts
  • 1000+ Pages
  • 10 Categories (100 posts each, no sub-categories)
  • 99 Tags
  • 2000+ Comments

WP .XML Test Data Import

  • 10 Posts
  • 5 Pages
  • 11 Categories (but no sub-categories)
  • 21 Tags
  • 10 Comments
  • 7 Default Links

Sample Content by LetUsBuzz.com

  • 13 Posts
    • Sticky post
    • Post split into multiple pages
    • Post with no title
    • Post with a very long title
  • 11 Pages and sub-pages
  • 52 Categories and sub-categories
  • 35 Comments and pingback, including threaded comments
  • 3 Users

Themeover’s Theme Preview Dummy Data

  • 17 Posts
  • 10 Pages and sub-pages
  • 8 Categories and sub-categories
  • 49 Tags
  • 10 Comments, including threaded comments
  • 2 Users
  • A custom menu
  • Most posts contain a YouTube video, except for the standard “testing the elements” type post.

Plugins

Demo Data Creator

  • Generates posts, pages (and sub-pages), categories, users, comments and links.
  • The randomly generated content is varied and includes different elements – headings, tables, lists, and so on.
  • Delete all data with a single click. Note: This really deletes <em>all</em> data, not just the items generated by the plugin.
  • WPMU and BuddyPress compatible.
  • Appears to be actively maintained.
  • Bug: Sometimes doesn’t generate as many items as specified. For example, when I told it to generate 50 posts, it only created 40.

WP Dummy Content

  • Generates posts and pages, including optional sub-pages.
  • Choose from a number of content presets like plain text, styled text with lists and quotes, etc.
  • Configurable post templates, status (draft/published), chronological spacing, category and custom fields.
  • Delete all dummy content with a single click.
  • Not actively maintained.

WP Example Content

  • Creates 6 example posts and 9 pages, including 2 sub-pages.
  • Remove all example posts with a single click.
  • Zero configuration. It just adds a pre-defined, non-randomized set of posts and pages to your site.
  • Appears to be actively maintained.

Better Lorem Ipsum Generator

  • Generates posts, pages and custom post types.
  • Assigns randomly generates tags, categories and custom taxonomies to the generated posts.
  • Creates comments for the generated posts.
  • No “delete generated data” option.
  • Hasn’t been updated in more than a year.

SCF Dummy Content

  • Generates posts and categories.
  • All posts have the same (user-specified) content and very similar names.
  • Configurable post and category names.
  • Bug: Very slow. When I attempted to generate 10 posts, it took several minutes and the plugin crashed after creating only 5 posts.
  • Not actively maintained.
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4 Responses to “WordPress Sample Content For Testing”

  1. It is a great collection. Thanks for the time to put it all together to help others. Do you know, if there is a way to reset all the content (posts, pages, media, links, menus, etc) without resetting the entire database?

    I tried “WordPress Reset” plugin, but it resets the entire database.

  2. Jānis Elsts says:

    I don’t know of any plugins like that, but you could probably do it by manually emptying the tables that WP uses to store the content. Something like this:

    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_posts;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_postmeta;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_comments;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_commentmeta;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_links;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_terms;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_term_relationships;
    TRUNCATE TABLE wp_term_taxonomy;
    INSERT INTO wp_terms(`term_id`, `name`, `slug`, `term_group`) VALUES(1, "Uncategorized", "uncategorized", 0);
    INSERT INTO wp_term_taxonomy(`term_id`, `taxonomy`, `description`, `parent`, `count`) VALUES(1, "category", "", 0, 0);
    INSERT INTO wp_terms(`term_id`, `name`, `slug`, `term_group`) VALUES(2, "Blogroll", "blogroll", 0);
    INSERT INTO wp_term_taxonomy(`term_id`, `taxonomy`, `description`, `parent`, `count`) VALUES(2, "link_category", "", 0, 0);
    

    I haven’t tested it myself, but this set of queries should delete everything except users, options, and the two default categories – “Uncategorized” and “Blogroll”.

  3. Wow! That was very kind of you to provide me a starting point (or probably a complete solution) to fix my issue. This is going to save a lot of time for me. I have not tested it, yet, but will give it a go, soon.

    Thanks again, for all your help, Jānis.

  4. Mickey says:

    A work mate referred me to your site. Thnx for the resources.

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