Query Monitor vs Variable Inspector

Query Monitor is the developer tools panel for WordPress and WooCommerce. It enables debugging of database queries, PHP errors, hooks and actions, block editor blocks, enqueued scripts and stylesheets, HTTP API calls, and more. It includes some advanced features such as debugging of Ajax calls, REST API calls, user capability checks, and full support for block themes and full site editing. It includes the ability to narrow down much of its output by plugin or theme, allowing you to quickly determine poorly performing plugins, themes, or functions. Query Monitor focuses heavily on presenting its information in a useful manner, for example by showing aggregate database queries grouped by the plugins, themes, or functions that are responsible for them. It adds an admin toolbar menu showing an overview of the current page, with complete debugging information shown in panels once you select a menu item. Query Monitor supports versions of WordPress up to three years old, and PHP version 7.4 or higher. For complete information, please see the Query Monitor website. Here’s an overview of what’s shown for each page load: Database queries, including notifications for slow, duplicate, or erroneous queries. Allows filtering by query type (SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, etc), responsible component (plugin, theme, WordPress core), and calling function, and provides separate aggregate views for each. The template filename, the complete template hierarchy, and names of all template parts that were loaded or not loaded (for block themes and classic themes). PHP errors presented nicely along with their responsible component and call stack, and a visible warning in the admin toolbar. Usage of “Doing it Wrong” or “Deprecated” functionality in the code on your site. Blocks and associated properties within post content and within full site editing (FSE). Matched rewrite rules, associated query strings, and query vars. Enqueued scripts and stylesheets, along with their dependencies, dependents, and alerts for broken dependencies. Language settings and loaded translation files (MO files and JSON files) for each text domain. HTTP API requests, with response code, responsible component, and time taken, with alerts for failed or erroneous requests. User capability checks, along with the result and any parameters passed to the capability check. Environment information, including detailed information about PHP, the database, WordPress, and the web server. The values of all WordPress conditional functions such as is_single(), is_home(), etc. Transients that were updated. Usage of switch_to_blog() and restore_current_blog() on Multisite installations. In addition: Whenever a redirect occurs, Query Monitor adds an HTTP header containing the call stack, so you can use your favourite HTTP inspector or browser developer tools to trace what triggered the redirect. The response from any jQuery-initiated Ajax request on the page will contain various debugging information in its headers. PHP errors also get output to the browser’s developer console. The response from an authenticated WordPress REST API request will contain an overview of performance information and PHP errors in its headers, as long as the authenticated user has permission to view Query Monitor’s output. An an enveloped REST API request will include even more debugging information in the qm property of the response. By default, Query Monitor’s output is only shown to Administrators on single-site installations, and Super Admins on Multisite installations. In addition to this, you can set an authentication cookie which allows you to view Query Monitor output when you’re not logged in (or if you’re logged in as a non-Administrator). See the Settings panel for details. Browser extension Query Monitor is also available as an optional browser dev tools extension. This is an alternative to using the in-page panel that gets output into the admin toolbar. Using the browser extension has some advantages over the in-page panel: The Query Monitor panel doesn’t take up space within the page you are inspecting The panel can be resized, undocked, and moved around like any other developer tools panel Information about the Query Monitor browser extension can be found here. Other Plugins I maintain several other plugins for developers. Check them out: User Switching provides instant switching between user accounts in WordPress. WP Crontrol lets you view and control what’s happening in the WP-Cron system Thanks The time that I spend maintaining this plugin and others is in part sponsored by: Automattic ServMask WP Staging All my kind sponsors on GitHub Privacy Statement Query Monitor is private by default and always will be. It does not persistently store any of the data that it collects. It does not send data to any third party, nor does it include any third party resources. Query Monitor’s full privacy statement can be found here. Accessibility Statement Query Monitor aims to be fully accessible to all of its users. Query Monitor’s full accessibility statement can be found here.

Variable Inspector allows you to easily inspect your PHP $variables in a visually clean manner at a central dashboard in wp-admin. It aims to be an easy and useful enough dev and debug tool. It provides a single-line code to inspect your variable (see “How to Use” below). Nothing is shown to site visitors nor being output on the frontend, and the $variable content is nicely formatted for review using var_dump(), var_export() and print_r() on the inspector dashboard in wp-admin. It’s a real time-saver for scenarios where Xdebug or even something like Ray is not ideal or simply an overkill. For example, when coding on a non-local environment via tools like Code Snippets, WPCodeBox, Scripts Organizer or Advanced Scripts. Additionally, because it is a regular WordPress plugin, you simply install, activate and use without the need for complicated configuration. What Users Say “Huge time-saver when working with PHP variables.” ~Jeff Starr “Works great! Love this thing.” ~Josh “Every developer need it. You can debug easily every variable.” ~Pexle Chris “All I need. Enough to test the function of snippets. Works flawless.” ~@tesig “It does what it does very well, and doesn’t try to do everything.” ~@swb1 How to Use Simply place the following line anywhere in your code after the $variable_name you’d like to inspect: do_action( 'inspect', [ 'variable_name', $variable_name ] ); If you’d like to record the originating PHP file and line number, append the PHP magic constants __FILE__ and __LINE__ as follows. do_action( 'inspect', [ 'variable_name', $variable_name, __FILE__, __LINE__ ] ); This would help you locate and clean up the inspector lines once you’re done debugging. Give Back A nice review would be great! Give feedback and help improve future versions. Github repo to contribute code. Sponsor my work with as little as USD 1 monthly or one-time. PRO Version If you need something more versatile for larger, more complex projects, these PRO features might come in handy: vi( $variable ) inspector to replace the do_action() above and automatically includes the file path and line number. Or, use vis( $variable_name, ‘variable_name’ ) when inspecting in/via code snippets plugins (Code Snippets, WPCodeBox, Scripts Organizer, etc.) or custom code module of page builders (Bricks, Oxygen Builder, etc.) dump_print_r and dump_print_tree viewers: both viewers combines var_dump and print_r, with the later allowing for collapsing and expanding data nodes, which is especially useful for inspecting long and complex arrays and objects. kint viewer: an advanced viewer with table view for multi-dimensional arrays, node access path info, capability to search inside variables, pop-up window viewing and advanced info for your complex objects, e.g. available methods and static class properties. Categorize and filter results by color. This, for example, allows you to categorize $variables according to which stage they’re in inside your code. Add counter or notes to inspection results. Another way to tag $variables and provide context for the inspection results. Search filter: easily find certain $variables by name and type. View up to 250 results. The free version is limited to 25 results. Individual and bulk deletion of results. Easily clean up your inspection dashboard from obsolete results you no longer need to reference. You can also select certain variables in bulk. Click here to see a screenshot of the PRO version or see below in the screenshots section. What PRO Users Say “I was looking for a tool like this for a while. Great solution! Love this thing.” ~Marco Frodl “I have used it for a couple of days and it has helped me a lot to go faster when debugging.”” ~Javier Sor “I’ve only just started using it and it really helps me get my head around the code of a plugin I’m trying to customise” ~Tim Dickinson “I’ve been testing it and I really like it. It helps a lot and saves a lot of time in development. It’s also compatible with Oxygen, Bricks, WPCodeBox, etc.” ~Juan Jose Gonzalez, oxygenados.com “I just bought this! Great plugin – thank you for the hard work!” ~Tim Dickinson “I used to use Ray locally, I’m also using Xdebug a lot .. if I need to debug some variables, I use Query Monitor. I bought this, because the UI is nice, it has all those good features from both worlds.” ~Peter Morvay “Worth the buy! It is really good… great for debugging. Specially, when you want to write custom code or understand some snippet ChatGPT gave you.” ~John D Get the PRO version now! Check These Out Too Admin and Site Enhancements helps you to easily enhance various admin workflows and site aspects while replacing multiple plugins doing it. System Dashboard: Central dashboard to monitor various WordPress components, processes and data, including the server. Debug Log Manager: Log PHP, database and JavaScript errors via WP_DEBUG with one click. Conveniently create, view, filter and clear the debug.log file. WordPress Newsboard: The latest news, articles, podcasts and videos from 100+ WordPress-focused sources.