About Watchful
Watchful is the only full-featured, website maintenance tool that makes it fast and easy to perform updates for both free and commercial add-ons. With automatic backups, integrated uptime monitoring, activity logging, remote add-on installation, intrusion detection and automated reporting, Watchful is an essential tool for all WordPress & Joomla professionals.
Watchful launched in 2012 and is based in Sussex, Wisconsin (USA). Our international team is split between the US, Italy, and Romania.
A brief history of Watchful
May 2021
A new productivity tool called the Account Dashboard was released. It identifies high-priority maintenance tasks across all sites at once.
January 2021
Watchful made its first major sponsorship of a WordPress event as a Continent sponsor of Wordfest Live.
November 2020
Revamp of the Watchful report builder completes a multi-step feature roll-out.
June 2020
Support for Joomla 4 launches. Compared to Joomla 3, Joomla 4 is in many ways a radical departure. Our early support during the alpha/beta stages of J4 gives plenty of time for testing.
June 2020
The first of its kind, Watchful adds update scheduling. This feature makes it possible to schedule updates so that ay issues that arise do not interrupt free time, holidays, etc.
April 2020
Watchful acquires XCloner, the popular backup plugin for WordPress.
October 2019
Automatic updates come to Watchful for the first time as a beta feature.
September 2019
WordPress features expands to add native backup plugins and support for Premium plugin updates.
May 2019
We simplify our name from Wacthful.li to just Watchful and move our entire platform to the Watchful.net domain.
January 2019
Francesco Abeni returns to Watchful to take on a new role as Chief Technology Officer.
November 2018
Co-founder Victor Drover becomes sole-owner at Watchful.
April 2017
After many years using our own dedicated servers, we finally made the jump to the AWS, the popular cloud computing service from Amazon.
November 2016
The SEO Audit Tool is released to scan sites for SEO best-practices.
May 2016
Watchful became a very customizable tool with the release of our table customizer which allows users to configure the Watchful interface to suit their needs.
May 2016
Watch wins another industry award, this time for Top Joomla Service. This is the second win for Watchful at a J and Beyond event.
September 2015
Website security and best-practice scanner released. The tools check for filesystem integrity and permission, malware and more.
June 2015
Single-sign was first released to beta-testers. This feature allowed users to be synced across multiple sites at once.
June 2015
Support for sites using Cloudflare was released to improve the accuracy of system alerts.
May 2015
The third version of the Watchful dashboard is released. This was a complete rewrite that focused on prioritizing maintenance, dynamic interface elements and powerful filtering/sorting.
And we finally got to say goodbye to the page refresh!
August 2014
The RESTful API is released, allowing users to create their own applications built on Watchful.
July 2014
Google Analytics was added to Watchful. This provided traffic and referral data to the dashboard that would eventually end up in the report builder.
April 2014
Two-factor authentication is released, allowing users to secure their Watchful accounts.
March 2014
Version 3 of Watchful launches. With a completely re-vamped dashboard, productivity improves dramatically.
The new dashboard also features integrated uptime monitoring for the first time.
January 2014
The Remote Install feature was added, allowing users to upload and install extensions without ever leaving Watchful.
The remote updater becomes a useful tool for applying custom updates, or scripts packaged as add-ons.
January 2014
Remote installer released, allowing extensions to be uploaded and installed directly from Watchful.
September 2013
Watchful acquires competing website manager Admincredible.
June 2013
Watchful wins Innovation of the Year at the 2013 J! and Beyond conference in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands.
May 2013
Watchful wins Best Joomla App at the CMS expo in Chicago.
April 2013
The first updates for commercial/premium software are added.
February 2013
Version 2 of the dashboard launches with tags and notes.
February 2013
Watchful partners with malware and security firm Sucuri.
November 2012
Watchful attends it’s first international event, the Joomla World Conference in San Jose, California.
October 2012
The first Watchful App is released. It monitors sales in RedShop, an eCommerce extension for Joomla.
September 2012
Version 1 of Watchful launches on 3-September-2012 as a collaboration between co-founders Victor Drover, PA Vullioud, and David Pizzotti.
Support for remote backups was added at the last minute.