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Free Plugin by Jb Audras v0.3.1

Contextual Adminbar Color

Use custom admin bar colors and favicons to differentiate your environments (staging/prod)

Contextual Adminbar Color

The facts

Rating
5★ from 8
Active installs
500+
Price
Free
Last updated
28 Aug 2026
Added
Nov 2019
Requires WP
5.4
Tested up to
WP 7.1
Requires PHP
5.6
Downloads
10,334

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Contextual Adminbar Color is a WordPress plugin that allows you to customise the admin bar colours to distinguish between different environments such as staging, preproduction, and production. It includes a settings screen where you can select from predefined colour schemes, add favicons, and display custom messages in the admin bar. The plugin is designed to be user-friendly and developer-friendly, with options to control visibility based on user roles.

This plugin is suitable for developers and site administrators who need a clear visual differentiation between various environments in WordPress. It helps ensure that users are aware of the environment they are working in, which can prevent mistakes during development or updates.

Best for: Developers and site administrators managing multiple WordPress environments.

What it does well

  • Custom admin bar colours for different environments
  • Predefined colour schemes available
  • Option to add favicons for browser tab differentiation
  • Custom messages can be displayed in the admin bar
  • Accessibility-ready colour schemes

Where it falls short

  • Limited feature information available

Verdict

Contextual Adminbar Color provides useful functionality for distinguishing between WordPress environments. It is straightforward to use and could be beneficial for those needing clear visual cues.

From the developer

Jb Audras's own description of Contextual Adminbar Color, lightly tidied.

This plugins provides custom admin bar colors to differentiate environments (staging, preprod, production). It’s really easy to use and developer-friendly.

The plugin provides a settings screen which several options:

  • choose between several color predefined schemes.
  • use a favicon to better differentiate your environments in your browser’s tabs.
  • add a custom message in your admin bar, like “Production website”, “staging version” or whatever your want.
  • choose the user roles that will see the color scheme (other roles will see the default admin bar).

It also offers few PHP constants you can use in your wp-config.php file (see Frequently Asked Questions below).

Since WordPress Core will probably deprecate alternate admin color schemes in mid-term, this plugin is meant to be use by those who rely on colors to know is they are in staging, preproduction or production environment.

Last but not least, all provided color schemes are accessibility-ready!

Read the full description on the official page →

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