Super Speedy Imports: Pro vs Lite

Super Speedy Imports ships in two editions from one codebase. Pro is the paid edition sold on superspeedyplugins.com. Lite is the free edition (branded "Super Speedy Imports Lite" because wp.org bans "Free" in a plugin name). Lite is the same plugin as Pro with the paid features removed, so the two share identical import internals for the features they have in common.

This article lists every difference so you can see exactly what you get in Lite and what an upgrade to Pro unlocks.

In one line

Lite imports Posts and WooCommerce simple products, with taxonomies and a single featured image, at full multi-worker speed. Pro adds variable products, product attributes and galleries, custom post types, ACF/SCF and custom field writing, custom PHP function mapping, scheduling, undo, CSV export, the taxonomy import/export tools, image-size selection and the performance-tuning panel.

What Lite includes (free)

• Import Posts (any of title, content, excerpt, categories, tags, one featured image, and the image’s alt/title/caption/description).
• Import WooCommerce simple products.
• Taxonomies, including WooCommerce global attribute taxonomies (pa_color, pa_size, and any other pa_*) on simple products.
• A single featured image per item.
• The full mapping GUI: the field-mapping rows, the Import Fields side panel, grouped/ungrouped views, match-field selection and blank-match handling.
• Config Export / Import (the JSON config buttons on the Config screen that save and load an import’s field mapping). This is not the CSV export feature below.
• Demo Data: the Posts (1,000 and 20,000) and simple-products sample imports.
• Email alerts on completion and the daily summary, and the ssi_import_run_complete / import-complete hooks.
• Full import speed: the GitHub Lite build keeps the parallel workers, the direct-mysqli fast path and the curl image-download fast path (see the two-Lite-builds note at the end).

What Pro adds

The Pro-only features in detail

• Variable products: the variable/attribute engine and the parent-product synthesiser. Lite has no variable-product stages, so a variable-product CSV is out of scope there.
• Product galleries: attaching more than the single featured image to a product.
• Custom product attributes: free-text, non-taxonomy attributes. Note the taxonomy attributes (pa_*) are a free feature and stay in Lite; only the custom-attribute engine is Pro.
• Custom Post Type imports: Lite imports Posts and WooCommerce simple products; importing into arbitrary custom post types is Pro.
• Custom Fields / Post Meta: writing to ACF/SCF field groups and custom post meta. Lite still detects your ACF/SCF field groups and shows them in a locked "Custom Fields (PRO Only)" preview, so you can see what an upgrade would let you map.
• Custom PHP functions: the "Custom Functions" mapping that runs a snippet per row. This is stripped entirely from Lite (a hard wp.org rule); it shows as a locked "PRO Only" section.
• CSV Export: exporting a post type back out to a re-importable CSV, both the Export tab and wp ssi export. In Lite the tab appears as a locked "Export Beta" preview.
• Scheduled imports: the cron scanner and schedule-save that run an import on a timetable. The Schedule tab’s email alerts are free; the actual scheduling is Pro.
• Undo (BETA): the lossless snapshot that lets you revert a completed run. A snapshot is taken when Enable undo (BETA) is set, and you restore it with wp ssi undo <id>. The whole undo engine is Pro-only.
• Taxonomy import/export tools: the tools that export and re-import taxonomy trees. Re-registration of previously imported taxonomies stays in Lite; the export/import handlers are Pro.
• Image-size selection: Lite regenerates all registered WordPress image sizes for every image. Pro lets you pick exactly which sizes to generate and skip the rest, which is faster on large imports.
• Performance Options: the Settings panel that tunes workers and per-stage behaviour. Locked in Lite.
• Beta features: the Settings panel that toggles opt-in betas (currently the Setup checklist card on the mapping screen). The whole panel is Pro-only, so those betas cannot be enabled in Lite.

How Lite presents Pro features

Lite does not hide the paid features. Every Pro area stays visible as a greyed-out "PRO Only" preview (a gold badge on the section header), so a free user can see exactly what Pro adds and where. The plugin title reads "Super Speedy Imports Lite".

GitHub Lite vs wp.org Lite

There are actually two Lite packages built from the same free edition:

• GitHub Lite (self-hosted, distributed from GitHub) keeps the update checker, the curl image-download fast path, the direct-mysqli fast path and the parallel proc_open workers, so it imports at full Pro speed.
• wp.org Lite additionally removes those, because wp.org forbids phone-home updates and rejects the low-level functions the fast paths use. It runs single-worker in-process with the $wpdb path, so it is slower on very large imports but wp.org-compliant.

Feature scope (which fields and products it can import) is identical between the two Lite builds; they differ only in update mechanism and raw speed.