As WordPress and BuddyPress developers we have worked with many WordPress plugins. Here’s a list of the ones that we use on a regular basis.
List of WordPress plugins
Security
Protects your website against hacks, brute force login attacks, and malware. Active security monitoring for files, firewalls, and much more.
- iThemes Security (formerly Better WP Security) – Free Plugin
- Jetpack – Free Plugin
- Sucuri Security – Free and Premium Plugin
- Wordfence Security – Free and Premium Plugin
- All In One WP Security & Firewall – Premium Plugin
SEO
Optimizes your WordPress site for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).
- Rank Math SEO – Free Plugin
- SEOPress – Freemium Plugin
Form Builder
Allows you to easily create forms, view and edit entries within WordPress, receive email notifications, build mailing lists, and export form entries to CSV.
- Gravity Forms – Premium Plugin
Backup
Provides scheduled backups of your core WordPress database tables and saves them to your server and can even email them to you.
- UpdraftPlus – Free Plugin
- WPVivid – Free Plugin
Redirection
Allows you to redirect links within your website. Useful for migrating a website, changing domains and forwarding outdated pages to newer pages
- Pretty Links – Free Plugin
shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website
Anti-spam
Protects your website from spam comments, registrations, and forum posts.
- Akismet – Free Plugin
- Spam protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk – Premium Plugin
Memberships
Allows you to restrict access to content based on membership levels. Integrate with popular payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, Braintree, or 2Checkout. Features recurring billing, ability to track affiliate commissions on a recurring basis.
- Paid Memberships Pro – Free Plugin
- MemberPress – Premium Plugin
- WishList Member – Premium Plugin
- Restrict Content – Free and Premium Plugin
Show/Hide User IDs
Advanced WordPress users/developers may require user IDs for some plugins or template tags.
- Reveal IDs – Free Plugin
Search and Replace
If you move your WordPress site to a domain or server, you will likely run into a need to run a search/replace on the database for everything to work correctly.
- Better Search Replace – Free Plugin
Need some help installing and configuring plugins? Fill out our contact form to get a quote for our assistance. We’ll be happy to help.
Thanks the great information on favorite WordPress plugins. I’ll definitely check out WP Title 2 and WordPress Database Backup. Also interested in HeadSpace2 which you guys mentioned at the Meetup this week. Great info!
@Maria
Glad to hear you learned about some useful plugins at the meetup. WP Title 2 is a really useful one. It’s one of the first plugins I install on every site I build. WP-DB-Backup is also pretty important. There are others with more features, but that one is really simple to set up and it’s dependable. Set it and forget it. HeadSpace2 is a good plugin. I prefer to use All In One SEO Pack because it’s simpler to configure, which is important when I’m putting it on clients’ sites. HeadSpace 2 has more options however.