Easily Create WordPress Intranet with Local Servers & Plugins (in 2024)

Looking to create an intranet site (private network) that only your employees or members can access? Wondering if you can create an intranet site with WordPress to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity within your organization?

What is an Intranet?

An Intranet is a local network accessible only to people who are physically present in the area covered by the network. Organizations use Intranet to create a private network where only their members have access. It is a secure way of sharing information rather than using a public network.
Intranets allow employees to access business information on a closed system.

WordPress Intranet

WordPress is an excellent platform to build your organization’s Intranet. You can setup a WordPress Intranet from scratch or if you already have an Intranet or VPN setup and other systems are using it, WordPress Intranet site can be used along with them without any problem.
A true WordPress Intranet (a.k.a.traditional Intranet) which is accessible only by people connected to your local network is created using a local hosting solution. You can use local server tools like XAMPP or WAMP on a Windows, LAMP on Linux system and MAMP if you are using Mac OS.
We will see how to setup WordPress Intranet using local server in the later parts of this article.

WordPress Extranet

Extranet is basically a hosted Intranet. Your WordPress site will be hosted by a webhost just like any other site but will be access is restricted to selected users. You will be able to access your Intranet outside of the office even from anywhere in the world.
This type of restriction can be done using WordPress Intranet themes and plugins, which we will cover in this article.

Also see: Best Intranet Software

How to create a WordPress Intranet Website

First you need to install WordPress in a local server, then you need to install some other plugins to create an effective Intranet Hub. Read this article to get hosting and install WordPress.

Creating WordPress Intranet using a Local Server

If you only want people who are physically present in your location to access the company Intranet you need to setup a traditional intranet.
You a dedicated computer you can use as a server and you’ll just need to set up a local WordPress website to use as the foundation for your intranet.

How to Create WordPress Intranet using LocalWP?

Set up a local WordPress website using LocalWP. LocalWP is a tool that lets you create and manage local WordPress sites easily. You can download it from here and install it on your computer.

• After installing the application, click the plus icon “ + ” in the bottom left corner and enter your desired site name and domain.
• Then, click the Continue button to configure the local environment.
• You can either select a predefined environment or create your own.
• Finally, click the Add Site button to create your local WordPress site.

Creating WordPress Intranet using MAMP or XAMPP

MAMP

MAMP is a software package that includes all the components you need to set up a local server, such as Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Perl. Download and install MAMP. You can choose the version that matches your operating system (Windows or Mac OS X). Run the installer file and follow the instructions to install MAMP on your computer.

XAMPP

XAMPP is a software package that includes all the components you need to set up a local server, such as Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Perl. Download and install XAMPP. You can choose the version that matches your operating system (Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X). Run the installer file and follow the instructions to install XAMPP on your computer.

To create a local server with MAMP or XAMPP, you need to follow these steps:

• Start the MAMP / XAMPP Control Panel. You can find it in the Start menu on Windows, or in the Applications folder on Mac OS X. The MAMP Control Panel allows you to start and stop the different components of your local server, such as Apache and MySQL.
• Start Apache and MySQL. These are the two essential components for running a web server and a database server. Click the Start Servers button in the MAMP /XAMPP Control Panel. You should see a green indicator next to them when they are running.
• Test your local server. To check if your local server is working properly, open a web browser and type http://localhost:8888 or in the address bar. You should see the MAMP /XAMPP welcome page with some information and links to access different tools and settings.

Set Up A Virtual Host

Next, you’ll need to set up a virtual host in the Apache config file in XAMPP. This lets your web server handle requests for an actual URL – like intranet.local. You can get step-wise process here.
When the website is up, anyone in your network should be able to access it using its LAN IP address.

WordPress Intranet Plugins

There are several plugins which can be used to setup a WordPress Intranet. You don’t need all of them. Based on your requirement you can install the plugins which solves your purpose.

All-In-One Intranet

To create a WordPress Intranet which is accessible from anywhere in the world to authorized personnel, you can use All-In-One Intranet plugin. With this WordPress intranet plugin you can lock down WordPress site and turn it into a secure portal accessible only by your members/staff. It is a perfect tool for creating corporate intranets.
To make your WordPress site private you can just check in to the box saying “Force site to be entirely private” to make your WordPress site into an Intranet site.

HelpieKB Wiki Plugin

Just making your site private is not enough for a company Intranet. There would be many teams and departments within the company and you will need to create a restricted wiki for their respective spaces. Not all of the staff / members could be given equal access. You need to choose who can view, review and approve the content on your intranet wiki.
HelpieKB wiki is the best tool for this purpose. With Helpie you can create an internal wiki restricted for various teams and departments.

WordPress Intranet Active Directory

You could want to company intranet to be connected into the company’s active directory. To do this you can use Next Active Directory Integration plugin to connect your WordPress Intranet site with LDAP server to allow WordPress to authenticate users against the Active Directory.

BuddyPress Intranet

BuddyPress converts your WordPress website into a social network.

• You will be able to invite users to register on company intranet
• Users will be able to create extended user profiles
• You will be able to create user groups to sort users into departments or teams
• Users can follow each other as friends
• Users can send private messages to each other

Intranet Forms

Gravity Forms – this plugin’s flexibility offers up a ton of different use cases for intranets. If you can do it with a form, Gravity Forms can help you do it. Entries made with Gravity Forms are searchable in nature, and the various fields and entry types can be customized as per the nature of the requirement.

Intranet Calender

Booking Calendar – this plugin can help you let people book meeting rooms or other common areas so that people can always easily check the availability.

Intranet Directory

Your intranet can keep employees connected by giving each person a profile page. With WordPress, it’s very easy to do this, because the system already has a profile for each person. The plugins below build on this functionality, with additional fields and a layout suitable for intranet use.

• Google Apps Directory (No longer Available): builds an employee database from your Google Apps domain. Includes a search function.
• Employee Directory (No longer Available): includes profiles, search, and additional taxonomies for your profile pages. You can also use sidebar widgets to display featured staff, or recent visitors to the intranet.

WordPress Intranet File Management

You can upload your documents to the WordPres site or you can embed Google docs using the plugin mention below.

• Google Drive Embedder : allows your editors to embed any G Suite document into your WordPress intranet site. This plugin must be used with the Google Apps Login plugin.
• PDF Embedder: embed PDFs within WordPress using auto-generated JavaScript.
• Google Doc Embedder : this plugin uses the Google Drive viewer to embed files into a WordPress site. Optionally, you can also offer the documents for download. A great solution for organizations that are already using G Suite.
• WP File Search: makes all of the files in the WordPress Media Library searchable, using the regular search box. Supports PDF, DOCX and ODT.

If you have any questions share it in the comments section.