WP Spotlight’s Origins: Setting The Record Straight

The WordPress ecosystem thrives on innovation, and at WP Spotlight, we take pride in delivering solutions that empower users. 

While our journey has been one of growth and collaboration, recent claims and allegations about similarities to other products warrant clarification. 

This post sheds light on WP Spotlight’s origins, development, and originality, ensuring complete transparency for our community.

The Origin of WP Spotlight

The journey of WP Spotlight began with WP Adminify, a plugin we launched in 2021 that lets users customize their WordPress admin experience.

At the time, among WP Adminify’s many features, its powerful search functionality quickly became a favorite. (Screenshot from WP Adminify V1.0.8, released in 2021)

As you can see from the screenshot of one of our earliest versions of WP Adminify that we already had search support for:

• Post Types
• Taxonomies
• Comments
• Users
• Media
• Plugins

Over the past 3 years, driven by user requests, we've continually refined this search into the current search that exists inside the WP Adminify Plugin. (Screen grab from the latest version of WP Adminify)

This feature allows users to seamlessly search users, post types, media and plugins from their WordPress dashboards with precision and ease.

As you can see from the progression of WP Adminify, some of the the basic foundations of WP Spotlight already existed on WP Adminify in as early as 2021. 3 years ago.

Light bulb moment: It was during the refinement of the search feature for WP Adminify that we realized that this can be developed into a product of its own.

At the time, there were only 2 genuine search and navigation plugins available on WordPress. We looked at them and thought we could do better. This aligned perfectly with some of our users wishes. They wanted a better localized WordPress search without needing the broader WP Adminify suite.

One of the suggestions we got also asked us if we could create something like the Spotlight search from macOS which gave us more ideas to focus on.

In response to these requests, we started developing the tool that was to become WP Spotlight. 

WP Spotlight’s Development Timeline

With WP Adminify we had already created some of the basic foundations of search that we would eventually implement on WP Spotlight. Here's a breakdown of WP Spotlights development:

2021: We released WP Adminify which consisted of a robust search functionality as part of its suite of admin tools.

2022: We went on Appsumo with WP Adminify where we received further interest from some users on the search feature of WP Adminify.

2023: We started development on some of the core features of WP Spotlight.

Early 2024: We were focusing heavily on the launch of WP Adminify v4.0. but we had also developed most of the core features of WP Spotlight and we planned to release it some time later in the year. We still hadn’t even come up with a name yet.

October 31, 2024: We publicly reveal a sneak peek of WP Spotlight, showcasing its features and inviting feedback.

The timeline clearly shows that WP Spotlight was conceptualized in as early as 2021 and publicly showcased in October 2024. That's over 3 years of development (on and off). This shows a clear picture of WP Spotlights origins.

Codebase Transparency

Now that we’ve clarified WP Spotlight's conception and origins, we want to address allegations that have been made by another similar plugin: CommandUI. 

Transparency and integrity are central to our development philosophy, and we are committed to dispelling misconceptions by highlighting the inspirations behind our design, the tools powering our features, and the originality of our codebase.

UI Design Inspirations

WP Spotlight’s user interface is the result of inspiration derived from various sources. There were many established tools and plugins that already existed on WordPress before CommandUI such as the Admin Search plugin and the Turbo Admin extension.

Admittedly our most prominent source of inspiration was macOS’s Spotlight search. As experienced WordPress users ourselves the importance of an intuitive and fast search such as Spotlight on WordPress was not lost on us. We even named our product after it to pay homage.

Here are most of the sources that shaped WP Spotlights UI:

• macOS Spotlight – Apple's built-in search tool that allows you to quickly find files, apps, and information on your Mac.
• CMDK – A modern and lightweight command menu for developers.
• Proxmox Community Scripts – A valuable resource for improving script-based workflows.
• Raycast – A powerful command palette designed for Mac users.
• Turbo Admin – A WordPress admin navigation tool offering improved efficiency.
• WP Spotlight Search Plugin – A plugin designed to enhance search within WordPress.
• Admin Search Plugin – A tool to streamline admin navigation.

It’s also worth noting that while these tools provided valuable inspiration, WP Spotlight's interface and functionality were independently conceptualized and built to address the specific needs of WordPress professionals.  

All the sources we’ve listed are open source projects. 

Any one can use these libraries and come up with their own designs as we’ve done. As was pointed out by a sensible user on X. You indeed cannot license UI.

Technical Foundations

As we’ve already shown, most of the search functions in WP Spotlight already existed inside WP Adminify. 

For WP Spotlight, we took those features and extended and optimized them with new technologies to ensure speed, efficiency, and compatibility. 

Key technical components include:

• Query Handling: Reliant on WordPress’s native REST API for seamless data retrieval and integration within the WordPress ecosystem.
• Search Functionality: Powered by the Fuse.js library, an open-source and highly efficient fuzzy search tool.
• Search Algorithm: Inspired by concepts from fuzzysearch but customized to handle WordPress-specific requirements.

These elements were carefully chosen and put inside WP Spotlight so that we can provide users with a fast, accurate, and intuitive search experience tailored to their WordPress workflows and just like the resources listed earlier these are open source as well. 

Codebase Originality

We understand the seriousness of the claim that WP Spotlight copied CommandUI’s codebase, and we categorically refute it. 

WP Spotlight’s code is entirely original and developed from scratch, adhering to rigorous ethical standards over a considerable amount of time. 

• Independent Development: Our architecture and implementation were built in-house, guided by our team’s expertise and user feedback over the years.
  
• Transparency: WP Spotlight does not share a single line of code with CommandUI or any other plugin.
  
• Validation: We invite independent experts or trusted developers to review our codebase to confirm its originality. In this public codebase we have only shared one of our APIs (users) for obvious reasons but we also welcome a full code review. (under appropriate terms)

Here's also an image of our private git repo to show our private file structure:

We chose established tools and libraries to enhance development efficiency, such as WordPress REST API and Fuse.js. 

These open-source resources are freely available to all developers and form a common foundation for countless tools within the WordPress ecosystem.

Now. Even if we were to ignore all the above…

Let’s Talk Timelines (And a Little Common Sense)

Alright, let's break this down step by step. Here’s the timeline:

• October 24: CommandUI drops a feature video on YouTube showcasing their product.
• October 31: We release our first teaser for WP Spotlight. ⇒ Here’s the facebook post.

Now, let’s entertain the wild accusations for a moment. In the seven days between these events, we supposedly:

1. Miraculously obtained CommandUI’s YET-TO-BE-RELEASED plugin’s source code.
2. Analyzed it, figured out how it worked, and then...
3. Copied it, wrote our own extensive features from scratch, and—just for fun.
4. Built, tested, and polished an entire standalone plugin for launch.

We’re good at what we do—but even we’d need a time machine to pull that off!

The reality? 

WP Spotlight was years in the making, born from our work on WP Adminify (launched in 2021) and developed into a standalone tool based on our customer feedback and requests. It’s the result of years of planning, coding, testing, and refining—not some seven-day sprint of improbable wizardry.

Nice try, though! 😉

If you’re still not convinced then we’d implore you to check out our full comparison post between WP Spotlight and CommandUI which further highlights the differences between these two plugins, mainly how we have many more full fledged features that CommandUI simply does not have and is not possible to be developed over a few days. Here are just a few:

• Multisite management features
• Custom keyboard shortcuts(up to 4 key combinations)
• Media upload/download directly from search
• Update plugins/themes/WordPress core from search

We have many more original features already in the pipeline that we'll be releasing in the coming weeks. You may check out our roadmap to get a better idea of kind of features we've been working on.

Addressing the Claims Professionally 

We respect the work of other developers in our space and welcome the diversity of tools available. 

But lets be real, the WordPress search tool is not a radically revolutionary tool or concept that anyone has monopoly over. 

Many before us—and even CommandUI—have built WordPress search tools with varying functionality and design. 

WP Spotlight represents our unique take on it, rooted in our user feedback and unique ideas. 

To make it absolutely clear: WP Spotlight was built from the ground up. We’ve provided ample proof to support this till now. 

But we understand as well some further clarifications are also required so lets talk about it.

Clarification 1: The Origin of WP Spotlight

WP Spotlight’s search functionality has been a part of WP Adminify since 2021, directly refuting the claim that 'the concept was copied.'

In fact, we introduced a basic version of a WordPress-native search feature three years before CommandUI even entered the scene. So, who copied who again?

Even if we were to ignore this, the concept of “search” itself (WordPress based or not) is not proprietary to CommandUI. They do not own the concept of search! No one does. 

There were countless search plugins that existed on WordPress before CommandUI was released. 

So did CommandUI “steal” their search concept? 

No. They took an existing concept and developed their own unique product around it based on their own unique ideas. 

Exactly what we’ve done.

Except we had the foundations in place way before CommandUI. 😏

Clarification 2: Accessibility Claims

While we initially claimed CommandUI lacked keyboard accessibility (accessibility ready) based on available information on their website at the time. 

We now recognize their product is indeed accessible and have retracted the claim.

Another point of contention:

In our previous blog post we wrote “Keyboard Accessibility”. We meant Accessibility ready i.e you can navigate all the options on WP Spotlight using the keyboard Tab key.

Clarification 3: Our Development Process

WP Spotlight is the culmination of 3 years of development, user feedback, and our team’s dedication to creating meaningful solutions. It’s a product designed for WordPress users who demand efficiency and innovation.

To our users: we thank you for your trust and support throughout this journey. WP Spotlight represents what’s possible when innovation meets collaboration.

Ultimately, despite what we say you can be the judge yourself. 

We merely request, you reserve judgement for a bit and try WP Spotlight. 

We’re confident that afterwards you’ll see that when it comes to productivity, there’s clear daylight between us and any other search and navigation plugin on WordPress currently. 

Here’s our demo. Give it a spin! 

Final Thoughts

What we’d like to end on is that we encourage a collaborative, positive environment in the WordPress ecosystem. 

Instead of rivalry, we’d like to focus on building tools that enhance the community’s productivity going forward.

Despite the clear hostility that has been directed towards our brand we remain open to dialogue if necessary.

Going ahead we refuse to entertain allegations that do not come with some form of evidence. We did this because we felt we owed an explanation to our users and the WordPress community.

PS: For the ones claiming that “It is a WordPress plugin but their site is not even using WordPress”, our site IS built on WordPress, just on headless cms.