Adminify v5 Is Coming Soon: Admin UI Builder, MCP Server, 3D Room and AI Assistant

Adminify v5 is a rebuild from scratch. It still makes wp-admin look and work the way you and your clients want, but the code underneath is new. Adminify v4 loaded every feature on every page and let you switch off a few. Adminify v5 is made of 170+ modules, each with its own switch and settings, and a module you leave off loads nothing at all.

Adminify v4 vs Adminify v5 Settings Panel

BeforeAfter

Everyone on Adminify v4 should upgrade, in time. Agencies that build client admins get the most from the Admin UI Builder. If you only use a handful of tweaks, you keep them and load less of the plugin.

Update and your Adminify v4 settings carry over. The migration maps each old option to its Adminify v5 module and keeps the originals in case you roll back. Take a backup first, as with any major update.

Prices Change When Adminify v5 Ships. Plans will cost more and we may retire some lifetime plans. If you bought Adminify before the Adminify v5 release, none of that applies to you: you get all of Adminify v5 at the price you paid, and your plan stays as it is, whether that is an annual renewal or a lifetime licence.

Why We Rebuilt Adminify v5

We wanted to add new features to Adminify v4, but every new one made the whole plugin slower.

Where Adminify v4 Hit Its Limits

Adminify v4 ran on a bundled settings framework, and after six years we had outgrown it.

• One Big Settings Framework. Every settings screen came from that framework, so we could only build what it could draw.
• iFrame. Adminify v4 showed admin screens inside an iframe, a frame within the page, which made pages heavier and harder to work with.
• Performance. Render-blocking scripts and styles loaded on every admin page and added up to a second to the block editor.
• UI/UX Problems. Eight long tabs with around 230 fields, and many options hidden behind other switches.
• Assets Management. In Adminify v4 we could not load a module's own scripts and styles only where that module needed them, so about 9 MB of JS and CSS was hard to control and keep in check.
• Hard to Extend. Each feature was spread over several shared files, so every new one was harder to add.

In Adminify v4, every switch on the Security tab opened more fields on one long page.

UX Improvements

• Settings Panel Revamped. A new panel: one list of modules instead of eight long tabs of forms.
• Category Filter. A category rail with a count for each, so you jump straight to Security, Media or Performance.
• Active / Inactive. One click shows only what is running, or only what is switched off.
• Instant Search. Type part of a name and the list filters as you type.
• Recommended. A filter for the modules most sites should turn on first.
• Enable All / Disable All. Switch a whole category on or off in one click.
• Pre-built Collections. Ready-made sets for agencies and websites, such as Agency Setup, Website Speed and Website Security, switch on the right modules in one click.
• Custom Collections. Create your own collection, add the modules you use most, and find them again straight away next time.
• Settings in a Drawer. The gear opens a side panel with the switch, docs links and Settings, How it works and Related tabs; Save & Close takes you back to the list.
• Undo. Every switch shows a toast with Undo, in case you flip the wrong one.
• Free and Pro Labels. Each card shows its plan before you fill anything in, and a Plan filter shows only free or only Pro modules.
• Cmd + K Search. Press Cmd + K (Ctrl + K on Windows) anywhere in wp-admin to jump to any module, setting or admin page.
• Changelog Panel. See what changed in each update right inside the plugin, without leaving wp-admin.

Note: Every module uses the same inputs, switches and selects, so each settings screen works the same way.

The video shows the whole flow: switch on Admin Menu Editor, rename Posts to Articles in its drawer, Save & Close, and after a reload the sidebar shows the new name.

Turn on Admin Menu Editor, rename Posts to Articles, save, and the sidebar shows the new name.

Performance Improvements

• Modules load only when enabled. Each has its own folder and manifest, the loader boots what is on, and a disabled module's PHP is never read. Adminify v5 with six modules on loaded 126 of its PHP files on an anonymous front-end request. Adminify v4 with almost nothing on loaded 192.
• That holds on every request type: pages, REST, cron and admin-ajax. Module settings are separate options that are not autoloaded.
• Lighter admin screens with fewer queries. With the same features on both, the Posts list ran 42 fewer queries in Adminify v5. The time Adminify adds before an admin page finishes loading fell from 125 ms on the dashboard and over a second in the block editor to between 55 and 71 ms.
• A smaller build: 4.8 MB download against 5.7 MB, 40% less JS and CSS on disk, three times the features. The carried-over features add zero front-end scripts or styles, as in Adminify v4.

Pagespeed Performance Difference in Adminify v4 vs Adminify v5

What We Measured Against Adminify v4

Two local sites, the same 49 features enabled in both, five loads per page with the browser cache off, medians. "Added" is the page with Adminify minus the same page with Adminify bypassed on that site.

First Look: Adminify v5

Most of your time in Adminify v5 goes to three screens: the dashboard, the module library and the settings drawer.

On an Adminify v4 site the dashboard comes back looking the way your settings left it. On a fresh install you get a clean WordPress dashboard and decide, per role, what goes on it.

Here is the same site in seven looks: three Admin layouts and four Desktop styles, each with its own colour preset and a dashboard built for a different job. Click a thumbnail to see it large.

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Admin UI Builder: A Personalized Admin for Users or User Roles

In Adminify v4 every user got the same Dashboard. In Adminify v5 you build one per user role.

The Admin UI Builder transforms the default WordPress Dashboard for a specific user role: analytics for administrators, latest articles and Quick Draft for editors, store numbers for the shop manager. A role can also get no builder at all (Pro). Themes preview live before you publish.

Each user role gets its own Dashboard: one for the Administrator, Editor and Subscriber.

Dashboard Widgets

Custom Dashboard Widgets replace the old Dashboard Widget and Welcome Widget with a canvas you drop widgets onto: welcome block, quick actions, stats cards, recent posts, site health, client notes, support contact, RSS, video tutorial, HTML or shortcode. WooCommerce sites add store status, orders waiting, sales this month, stock warnings and reviews.

Drag widgets onto the Dashboard and preview the result.

Category Walkthrough

• Admin (24): Admin UI Builder, menu editor and menu search, admin font, favicon, Light/Dark mode, hide admin notices.
• Content (29): Folders, Admin Pages, Post Types Order, Disable Comments, ID and URL columns.
• Security (30): firewall, activity log, AI bot blocking, Disable XML-RPC and REST API, header security.
• Users Management (19): username change, last login, login redirect, role editor, login sessions.
• Media (17): Replace Media, featured image column, default gravatar, images in RSS.
• Performance (15): Heartbeat Control, script manager, revisions control, disable embeds and emojis.
• And More: SEO (13), Utilities (12), Developer (8), Productivity (2) and Commerce (1), with redirects, robots.txt, IndexNow, maintenance mode, rollback and code snippets.

Click through the module categories to see every module and its on/off switch.

The Small Things You Turn on First

• Light/Dark mode: light, dark or system default, a per-user switcher in the admin bar, or a schedule.
• Admin body font (Pro): any Google Font, downloaded once and served from your site.
• Admin favicon (Pro): your icon on every wp-admin tab.
• Wider admin menu: 160 to 480 px, default 260.
• Admin menu search (Pro): find any menu or submenu item by name.

Switch to dark mode from the top bar, then search the admin menu by name.

Theme Modes: Admin and Desktop

Admin mode replaces the WordPress sidebar and toolbar with Adminify's own, in a choice of layouts (classic, floating, rail, top nav, compact, minimal and more) and nine colour presets plus custom. The classic layout and two presets are free. You can also keep the WordPress menu and only restyle it.

Admin Layouts

Pick a layout under Admin UI Builder → Design → Admin and wp-admin switches to it on the spot; the video clicks through all eight, from Default and Full sidebar to Floating, Compact rail, Top nav, Compact, Minimal and Horizontal Nav. Each layout only moves the menu and toolbar, so your dashboard widgets stay exactly where you put them.

Click a layout and wp-admin changes to it right away.

Admin Color Presets

Under Design → Styles you pick one of nine, each a full palette for the menu, toolbar, buttons and accents, and the whole admin recolours as you click. Presets 1 and 2 are free; the other seven and the Custom preset come with Pro. Custom gives you every colour variable to set yourself, so a client's brand colours take a couple of minutes instead of a stylesheet.

Pick a colour preset and the whole admin recolours.

Desktop Mode

Desktop mode wraps wp-admin in a desktop shell: wallpaper, a top bar with a clock, a dock with pinned apps, and windows the admin screens open in. Glass Dock is free; Pro adds Studio Dock, Taskbar, Activities and Room. Each user's dock arrangement is saved for that user.

Try Studio Dock, Taskbar and Activities, with two windows side by side and widgets on the desktop.

3D Room Mode

Room turns the desktop into a 3D room you look into, and your admin screens sit on its floor as things. Click one to open its window, minimise it back into the floor, add widgets like a clock, a calendar or Shortcuts to the walls, and throw a thing to move it; where everything lands is saved for each user. Pick it under Admin UI Builder → Design → Desktop → Room, tune the things' size and shape, and publish.

Set up 3D Room Mode, add a clock, calendar and note, then move, pile and tidy your admin screens.

MCP Server

The Model Context Protocol lets AI clients like Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor work with outside tools. Adminify includes an MCP server, so the AI client you already use can read and edit your site while you chat with it.

• Built in. Switch it on under Adminify → MCP and your site gets a standard MCP endpoint. Clients sign in with OAuth 2.1 or a per-site API key, and nothing passes through us.
• 27 Core Tools. Read posts, pages, media, menus, comments, users and options; create and update content, approve comments and undo the last write. Pro adds bulk post and WooCommerce price updates.
• Works with Your AI Client. Add the site as a connector in Claude or ChatGPT, or paste the endpoint and key into Cursor or Claude Code.
• Off by Default. It stays off until you switch it on. Every call runs as the user who approved it, option writes are allow-listed, destructive tools ask first, and the Activity log records each tool call without storing content or keys.

Try prompts like "List the ten most recent drafts without a featured image" or "Create a Pricing page from this outline as a draft", then "Undo that."

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AI Assistant

Adminify v5 has an AI assistant built into wp-admin. Ask how to do something, what a setting means or for a meta description, and it answers from your own site.

Click AI in the admin bar and ask a question about your site.

At a Glance

• Inside wp-admin. Click AI in the admin bar and a chat opens over whatever screen you are on.
• Knows Your Site. It can read your modules, posts, users and settings to answer, and knows which screen you are looking at.
• Your Own AI Provider. Bring a key for Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, xAI, DeepSeek or OpenRouter, pick the model, and pay the provider directly.
• Asks Before It Changes Anything. Reads run freely; any write shows an approval card with exactly what will change, and nothing happens until you approve.
• Private. Messages go from your server straight to your provider, never through Adminify. Keys are stored encrypted, and chat history stays on your site, per user.
• Admin Controlled. An administrator switches it on and decides what it may see.

What Ships First

The first Adminify v5 release has the Admin UI Builder, the MCP server, the AI assistant and everything Adminify v4 did. The other modules arrive as plugin updates once our team has tested each one, which is why all 170+ do not land on day one.

Upgrading from Adminify v4

Settings migrate automatically. Update and visit wp-admin once. Adminify v4 settings, menu editor data and dashboard widgets are converted into the 49 matching modules, switched on, and each user's light/dark choice copied. Old options stay for a rollback. The Admin Columns Editor, Header & Footer Scripts, Quick Menu and Sidebar Generator add-ons are absorbed into modules and deactivate themselves.

Renamed and Moved

A few things are retired. Search Form: use Admin Menu Search, or the MCP server and assistant for content. Sidebar widget removal: Appearance → Widgets. Defer JS: the Script Manager module or your caching plugin. GZIP and browser cache rules: your host or caching plugin. A few small Admin UI options (background image, button colours, top-bar blocks) were not rebuilt; tell us in support if one matters.

Four add-ons are absorbed as above. The rest keep working with Adminify v5 while their features move into modules; each gets a changelog note when ready.

Back up first: a full backup, database included. Your Adminify v4 options are kept and the Rollback module can reinstall 4.3.2, but a backup makes the update boring, which is the goal.

What's Next

• User Exporter (CSV): export users with roles, meta and last login, using the filters on the Users screen.
• Custom Admin Columns merge: the five column modules and the Admin Columns Editor become one module.
• AI assistant Phase 3: site-wide tasks and the local Claude Code bridge.

FAQ