Respira vs Novamira: Two Honest Answers to AI Editing WordPress (2026)

Quick summary (TL;DR)

Novamira is a free, open-source (AGPL) plugin by Dynamic.ooo that gives AI coding agents deep access to a WordPress site: PHP execution, file editing, WP-CLI, a chat interface, a visual workspace where you watch the agent drive the editor, and a design system it checks pages against. Their own FAQ is direct about the intended environment: development and staging, not production.

Respira is built for the opposite constraint: the site that is already live. Structured tools instead of PHP execution, native write paths across 17 page builders, snapshots and duplicate-before-edit and rollback, a hosted dashboard for a whole fleet of sites, and an Art Direction layer that enforces a design system at build time and verifies the rendered page afterwards.

The honest axis of difference: Novamira’s visual mode is watch-the-agent-work, a live spectator view of the editor. Respira’s is receipts and enforcement: what was written, where, when, verified against the design direction, with screenshots and an undo path.

Both positions are coherent. Which one you need depends on whether the site your agent is touching can afford to break.

What is Novamira?

Novamira is made by Dynamic.ooo (Ovation S.r.l., based in Italy), the team behind Dynamic Content for Elementor since 2018. The free plugin is AGPL-licensed, distributed through novamira.ai and GitHub, and it moves fast: 31 releases in its first five and a half months, roughly one every five to six days, with about 599 GitHub stars as of this writing.

The free plugin is genuinely capable:

• PHP execution, file CRUD and WP-CLI as the write primitives, inside a sandbox with crash recovery
• A chat interface in wp-admin (bring your own key)
• A visual workspace where you watch the agent drive the open editor live
• A design system feature: a DESIGN.md document with tokens, dos and don’ts, readiness gates and waivers, plus a preflight check agents call before shipping
• On-site skills: Markdown playbooks you upload and the AI follows
• An OAuth server on the site itself, with PKCE and a device-code flow

Novamira Pro adds 30 or so per-plugin specializations (two builders get deep integrations: Elementor and Bricks; the rest go through generic abilities), memory, and design-token sync. Pricing as of the verification date: €49/yr personal (3 sites), €99/yr agency (1000 sites), €199 lifetime.

What Novamira does well

Credit where it is due, because several of these are excellent:

1. They are honest about production. Their own FAQ answers “Does Pro work on production?” with “No.” The recommended setup is development or staging with backups. That is not a weakness in their thinking, it is a consequence of choosing PHP execution as the write primitive, and they say so plainly.
2. Design as a product. The DESIGN.md direction with readiness gates, waivers and a mandatory preflight check is real product thinking, not a checkbox. Incomplete imports save as blocked drafts instead of silently activating.
3. Connection troubleshooting. Managed-host fingerprinting, a warning when a firewall is likely to interfere, a copyable troubleshoot report, a notice when a working connection breaks. This is careful work.
4. Velocity and openness. A release every five to six days, and AGPL code anyone can audit.
5. Error honesty as a habit. They shipped “ability failures surfaced as errors instead of masked by success” as an explicit release item. That instinct matters more than most features.

What is Respira?

Respira connects AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, Codex, anything that speaks MCP) to live WordPress sites. The architecture starts from the assumption that the site cannot afford to break:

• Structured tools, not PHP execution. Every write goes through a typed tool with a defined scope.
• Native builder write paths. 17 page builders, written in each builder’s own storage format, so pages open normally in the editor afterwards.
• The safety envelope. Snapshots before changes, duplicate-before-edit by default, one-click rollback, read-back verification after writes.
• A hosted dashboard. Multi-site inventory, activity, billing and team access at respira.press, so an agency sees its whole fleet in one place.
• Art Direction. One saved design direction per site: palette, font pairs, spacing, plain-language rules including the don’ts, readiness with honestly marked guessed values. Imports DTCG, Tokens Studio, Tailwind configs and pasted CSS, dry-run first. Apply pushes tokens into the builder’s own native stores (Bricks global colors, the Elementor kit, Oxygen variables, nine builders) with a receipt per builder, and exports strict DTCG so nothing is captive. A check verifies pages two ways: deterministic rules, and a rendered mode that loads the real page desktop and mobile, judges contrast, type scale, spacing rhythm and off-palette color as painted, attaches screenshots, and lists what it could not verify instead of pretending.

The real difference: spectator view vs receipts

Both products understood the same thing: people do not trust an invisible agent editing their site. The answers diverge.

Novamira’s answer is the live view. You watch the agent drive the open editor in real time through a local bridge. It is a genuinely reassuring experience while it happens, and they ship it free, labeled experimental.

Respira’s answer is the record. A Live Page pane shows the real rendered page refreshing as the agent works, through a signed preview link that expires after 15 minutes. Next to it sits the Provenance rail: every apply, every token written into a builder’s store, every check verdict, kept as receipts. Enforcement runs underneath: the build resolves values against the active design direction, and the check judges the rendered result afterwards.

The distinction is what remains an hour later. A spectator view ends when you close the tab. Receipts are still there when a client asks what changed, when something looks off next week, when you need to undo.

Head-to-head comparison

Last verified 2026-08-13, against Novamira’s public changelogs, repository and site. If anything here is out of date or unfair, corrections are welcome at word@respira.press and will be applied.

	Novamira	Respira for WordPress
Made by	Dynamic.ooo (Ovation S.r.l., Italy), makers of Dynamic Content for Elementor	Mihai Dragomirescu, solo founder, Romania
License and distribution	Free plugin, AGPL, via novamira.ai and GitHub; not on wordpress.org	Commercial plugin plus hosted account; two free companion plugins on wordpress.org
Production sites	Their FAQ: no. Development and staging with backups	Built for production: snapshots, duplicate-before-edit, rollback, read-back verification
Write primitive	PHP execution, file CRUD, WP-CLI (sandboxed)	Structured MCP tools per builder; no PHP execution surface
Builder depth	2 deep integrations (Elementor, Bricks); others via generic abilities	17 page builders with native write paths
Design direction	DESIGN.md document, readiness gates, waivers, preflight check	Art Direction artifact per site: readiness, waivers, inferred-value flags
Design checks	String-level rules; structural checks documented as not implemented	Deterministic rules plus rendered checks (desktop and mobile, screenshots, honest unchecked list)
Design token sync	Pro feature, own DESIGN.md format, Elementor and Bricks	Included on paid plans; imports DTCG 2025.10, Tokens Studio, Tailwind, CSS; applies to nine builders’ native stores; exports strict DTCG
Visual trust model	Watch the agent drive the open editor (experimental)	Live Page preview plus Provenance receipts and undo
Multi-site management	None hosted; OAuth per site, 50-connection cap	Hosted dashboard with fleet inventory, teams, activity
Skills / playbooks	Uploadable Markdown skills the AI follows	Skills marketplace plus agent-authored playbooks
Release cadence	A release every 5 to 6 days	Continuous, public changelog at respira.press/releases
Pricing	Free core; Pro €49/yr (3 sites), €99/yr (1000 sites), €199 lifetime	Maker €9/mo (1 site), Builder from €19/mo (5 sites), Studio from €57/mo (25+ sites)

When Novamira is the right choice

• You work on development or staging sites and want maximum agent capability there, including PHP and WP-CLI
• You want open-source code you can read, fork and audit
• You build primarily with Elementor or Bricks, where their deep integrations live
• You want a free tool and accept the stated environment constraints
• You like watching the agent work in the editor as your trust mechanism

When Respira is the right choice

• Your agents touch live sites, client sites, sites where breakage costs money
• You work across many builders, not only Elementor and Bricks
• You manage a fleet: multi-site inventory, teams and billing in one dashboard matter
• You want a design direction that is enforced and verified, not only checked as strings: rendered pages, screenshots, receipts
• You want portable tokens: DTCG in, DTCG out, applied into each builder’s own store

Can they coexist?

Yes, and the split writes itself: Novamira’s stated home is development and staging, Respira’s is production. An agency could let agents run wide on a staging clone with Novamira, then make the production edits through Respira’s safety envelope. The two products disagree about almost nothing factual; they chose different environments and built honestly for them.

Try it

Respira’s Art Direction, the checks and the provenance rail are included on every paid plan. Maker starts at €9/month with a 7-day trial, no card required.

Start with Respira or read more about Art Direction.

Novamira is free at novamira.ai.

Last updated: 2026-08-13 Author: Mihai Dragomirescu, founder of Respira