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The ultimate collection: best WordPress security plugins

The ultimate collection: best WordPress security plugins

Are you looking for WordPress security plugins? Well, you’re in the right place. We know WordPress is a great tool to build a website and maintain top-notch security standards.

However, as time passes by and as you start getting traffic down the line, your site tends to become vulnerable. 

But worry not! WordPress security plugins are there to take you to the rescue! They can boost the level of security of your online platform. 

With so many options available, choosing the right WordPress security plugins for your WordPress website can be a Herculean task.

In this article, we’ll talk about some important key points for securing your site. After that, we’ll discuss the best WordPress security plugins, going over their features, pros, cons and pricing.

We hope by the end of this article, you’ll have gained sufficient ideas to select the best WordPress security plugins for your WordPress website.

Why do you need to keep your WordPress website secure?

secure-wordpress

WordPress password security is a critical component of hardening your website and enhancing WordPress website security. Attackers frequently use password lists to conduct brute force WordPress websites. 

This is why we recommend you always use strong and unique passwords for all of your accounts to ensure the security of your WordPress site.

Proper security practices can prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. The great thing about WordPress is that you don’t need a security plugin to harden your website security. You can manually implement many features. 

Some hosting providers fail to safeguard their hosting platforms adequately. This exposes all websites hosted on their servers to hacker attempts.

Related article: A comprehensive guide to WordPress security issues

Why are WordPress security plugins important for your website?

importance-wordpress-security

Your WordPress website may store sensitive information such as user data, customer details, payment information or other confidential business information. A breach of this information has serious legal and financial consequences. 

Your website informs visitors about who you are, what kind of information and services you provide and what to expect from your brand. It’s a place to make a good first impression while also building trust and loyalty among existing customers.

That is why it’s critical to have your website operational at all times. It can influence your reputation if it suddenly includes links to malware, starts running very slowly after a hack, or goes offline entirely.

If your website gets hacked, the game is over! There may be fees associated with restoring it to working order. 

You can potentially lose customers, search engine rankings and other sensitive data. You can lose some data permanently. So, to be on the safe side, ensure your website is locked down and protected.

16 Best WordPress security plugins

1. Sucuri

sucuri-security-plugin

Sucuri is one of the most powerful and user-friendly WordPress security plugins. It detects malicious code visible in your site’s external source code and diagnoses any core file integrity issues. 

You can customize the Sucuri plugin settings to meet the demands of your website. You can customize email notifications, scan schedules, allowlist or blocklist files and more.

This tool has security hardening solutions that are preemptive methods to improve security in sections of your website. The Sucuri WordPress plugin includes capabilities for verifying the integrity of essential WordPress files such as PHP, JavaScript and CSS.          

Pros: 

  • Includes email alerts, scheduled scans, allowlist or blocklist files and more. 
  • Scans malicious code.
  • Identifies any core file integrity issues. 
  • Security hardening options are preventative measures to increase security in areas of your website.
  • Capabilities for verifying the integrity of essential WordPress files such as PHP, JavaScript and CSS.

Cons:

  • Sucuri Security plugin requires WordPress version 3.6 or higher.

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $199.99.

2. Akismet

akismet-security-plugin

Akismet is one of the most powerful anti-spam plugins in WordPress. This tool checks comments and contact form submissions with the global database. It prevents your site from publishing malicious or spamming content. 

This security solution shows the URL in the comment body to reveal hidden or misleading links. Because each comment has a status story, you can see which comments were marked or cleared by Akismet. 

Akismet analyzes user submissions in real time through advanced machine learning and AI. This plugin’s advanced AI has learned from over 100 million sites while blocking over 500 billion pieces of spam.

Pros:

  • Akismet’s automated filtering saves more time. 
  • Automatically checks every comment and eliminates those that appear to be spam.
  • Automatically monitors which comments were marked or cleared by Akismet and which were spammed or unspammed by a moderator.
  • Protects valuable site information from spam attacks.
  • Keeps your site safe and makes it trustworthy.

Cons:

  • API usage limit because it generates a lot of traffic and, thus, a lot of legitimate API calls.

Pricing:

  • The plugin is free to use and the basic plan starts from $9.95.

3. Wordfence

wordfence-security-plugin

Wordfence is popular, secure and one of the best WordPress plugins. This plugin is largely regarded as the world’s leading WordPress security research team. It contains an endpoint firewall, malware scanner, robust login security, live traffic views and other capabilities. 

This plugin has a web application firewall that identifies and blocks malicious traffic. It can built and maintained by a large team focused 100% on WordPress security. This plugin’s real-time firewall rule and malware signature updates come via the threat defense feed.

It secures your site at the endpoint and allows for deep interaction with WordPress. This plugin has cloud alternatives that don’t break encryption, can’t be bypassed, and can’t leak data. 

Its malware scanner searches core files, themes and plugins for malware, bad URLs, backdoors, SEO spam, malicious redirects and code injections.

Pros:

  • The Web Application Firewall detects and prevents harmful traffic.
  • IP in real time Blocklist prevents all requests from the most harmful IP addresses from reaching your site, protecting it while reducing traffic.
  • Endpoint protection for your site, allowing for extensive interaction with WordPress.  
  • Easily deletes any files that do not belong within the Wordfence interface.
  • Checks your website for known security flaws and notifies you of any issues. 

Cons:

  • The free firewall does not receive updates until the premium version is updated, which can take up to 30 days. 

Pricing:

  • The basic plan is free to use.

4. Next3 Offload

next3-Offload-security-plugin

Next3 Offload is a top-rated media offloading and optimization WordPress plugin. This tool has user-friendly features that help the beginner optimize a WordPress site by offloading the media file to cloud storage.

This plugin automatically rewrites media URLs lightning-fast with Amazon Cloudfront or other CDNs. It uses less space on the website server because of cloud storage and provides a backup media option for the uploaded files.

This plugin allows you to clone your website without copying any images. It supports you to switch to the cloud storage provider. You can download the file to WordPress and delete files from the old provider. 

Pros:

  • Supports multiple cloud storage platforms, including Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, Bunny CDN, Wasabi Cloud and S3 Object Storage.
  • Next3 Offload optimizes images by providing customizable compression options.
  • Takes a backup of the original image files before compressing them. 
  • Improves SEO score by providing lightning fast loading speed. 
  • Converts to any preferred image formats, including WebP, while offloading to the cloud.
  • Optimizes your database by deleting all unnecessary files and transients.
  • Reduces bounce rate and improves user experience.
  • Cleans local server space.
  • Takes a backup for all the other files, such as CSS, JavaScript, and images before compressing them. 
  • Most efficient for website cloning for development purposes. 

Cons: 

  • No free version is available. However, there is a live demo option to get a hands-on experience.   

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $159.

5. UpdraftPlus

updraftPlus-security-plugin

UpdraftPlus is another one of the best WordPress security plugins. The WordPress community really trusts this tool to back up, restore and migrate their WordPress websites.

You can backup to your preferred storage location and restore, including Backup to your preferred storage location and restore. 

The pro version allows you to backup to Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, pCloud, WebDAV or UpdraftVault.           

This plugin has a user-friendly interface. This plugin lets you schedule WordPress backups to occur every 2, 4, 8, or 12 hours, daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly. It enables you to backup and restore your data with a single click and on your own timetable. 

It restores backups from the WordPress control panel. This plugin quickly migrates or clones your WordPress website from your UpdraftPlus dashboard.  

Pros:

  • Manually or automatically backups all of your WordPress files, databases, plugins and themes.
  • Restores backups directly from your WordPress control panel.
  • Migrates or clones your WordPress website in a matter of minutes, all from your UpdraftPlus dashboard.
  • Backs up the WordPress core and non-WordPress files and databases.
  • Sophisticated reporting and emailing capabilities.
  • Allows you to choose which site users have access to backups because access is password-protected.

Cons:

  • Some of the most important features, such as multisite support, cloning, and migration, are only available if you purchase the commercial version of UpdraftPlus.

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $84.

6. Jetpack

jetpack-security-plugin

Jetpack is one of the greatest solutions to make your website safer and faster. This plugin provides comprehensive WordPress site security, including automatic real-time backups and easy restorations, malware scans and spam protections.

With the activity log, you can view each site modification and the user who did it, which is incredibly helpful for troubleshooting, maintenance, coordination and debugging. 

With this plugin’s WAF (Web Application Firewall), you can clarify your website’s defenses, especially because hackers are actively taking advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities.

Pros:

  • Secures with optional 2FA (two-factor authentication) for extra protection.
  • Automatically updates individual plugins for easy site maintenance and management.
  • Automatically performs malware scans and security scans for other code threats.
  • Includes image CDN for images and core static files, like CSS and JavaScript which saves your money and bandwidth.
  • Grows traffic with SEO tools for Google, Bing and Facebook. 

Cons:

  • It’s core is free, but advanced features require a paid subscription.

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $19.95.

7. MalCare

malCare-security-plugin

MalCare is one of the best WordPress security plugins for malware detection. You can get an automatic malware scan, one-click malware removal and real-time firewall removal for complete security for your website.

This plugin never slows down your WordPress site because of its intelligent scanning methodology. It accurately identifies the most complex malware that typically goes undetected in other popular WordPress security plugins.

This plugin comes integrated with a complete website management module that ensures better WordPress security. Its cloud-based scanning ensures that your website is never affected. MalCare’s smart captcha-based login page protection automatically prevents brute force assaults.

Pros:

  • Cloud based deep malware scanner.
  • Receives security risk alerts with WordPress vulnerability scanner.
  • Cleans your site instantly in under 60 seconds.
  • Prevents hacker bots from targeting the login page.
  • Identifies and prevents malicious traffic.  
  • Allows users to harden their WordPress blogs and block entire nations.

Cons:

  • Limited free version features.

Pricing:   

  • This plugin is free to use.    

8. Cloudflare

cloudflare-security-plugin

Cloudflare is another one of the best WordPress security plugins. Its Automatic Platform Optimization (APO) allows users to access various security and performance features, including Cloudflare WAF rulesets, Universal SSL, DDoS protection and more.

This plugin optimizes your WordPress site, which can be overwhelming with several plugins. With Cloudflare (APO), you can increase the performance of your WordPress site with a single plugin for CDN, intelligent caching and other key WordPress upgrades.

This plugin prevents a redirect loop when Cloudflare’s Universal SSL is enabled. You can modify the cache purge, security level, always online, and image optimization settings. This plugin analyzes total visitors, bandwidth saved and threats blocked.

Pros:

  • Automatically locks out bad users identified by Brute Force Protection.
  • Allows users to access a variety of security and performance features, including Cloudflare WAF rulesets, Universal SSL and DDoS Protection.
  • Serves your entire WordPress site from the edge network of over 250+ data centers.
  • Shows analytics such as total visitors, bandwidth saved and threats blocked.

Cons:

  • Limited free version features.

Pricing:

  • This basic plan is free.

9. Solid Security

solid-security-plugin

Solid Security protects your website from attackers and prevents security flaws. It automatically blocks malicious visitors identified by the Brute Force Protection Network. It protects your WordPress website’s most usually attacked component user login authentication.

This plugin allows anyone to secure their WordPress website in under 10 minutes, regardless of technical acumen. You enable the correct security settings based on the type of website you build or maintain for proper security. 

This tool provides a real-time WordPress security dashboard that monitors security-related events on your site around the clock. 

It provides a dynamic dashboard with all your WordPress website’s security activity stats in one place, including brute force attacks, banned users, active lockouts, site scan results and user security stats.

Pros:

  • Allows you to add two-factor authentication to your WordPress login.
  • Uses authentication methods such as mobile apps such as auth and Google authenticator, email and backup codes.
  • Creates and implements a password policy for your users in less than a minute.
  • Secures user accounts with strong passwords while allowing real users to log in with a click of a mouse.
  • Identifies the devices you and other users use to block session hijacking attacks. 

Cons:

  • The free version has some limitations.

Pricing:

  •  This basic plan starts from $69.

10. All-In-One Security (AIOS)      

all-in-one-security-plugin

All-in-One Security is one of the best WordPress security plugins. This tool is quite comprehensive, feature-rich and easy to use.

You don’t need to be a security expert to use AIOS. AIOS is currently used by over 1 million WordPress site owners to secure their website investment.

All-In-One Security provides Login Security Tools to keep bots at bay and to protect your website from brute force attacks. AIOS installs and enforces the most recent suggested WordPress security practices and strategies.

Pros:

  • Collects a wide range of data on website visitors. 
  • Detects if an account uses the default ‘admin’ username and then prompts the user to alter this for improved security.
  • Configures a custom URL for the WordPress ‘Admin’ login page.
  • Prevents external users and bots from fetching user information via author permalink.

Cons:

  • Doesn’t have essential security capabilities like malware scanning, malware eradication and a firewall.

Pricing:

  • The plugin is free to use.

11. WPScan

WPScan-security-plugin

WPScan is a unique WordPress security plugin. Its database includes more than 21,000 known security vulnerabilities. The tool uses this database to scan for WordPress vulnerabilities, plugin vulnerabilities and theme vulnerabilities. 

WPScan offers a free API package that is suitable for the majority of WordPress websites. The WPScan WordPress Security Plugin will check for other security vulnerabilities, such as debug.log files, wp-config.php backup files and whether XML-RPC is enabled.

Pros:

  • A free security plugin for WordPress that makes use of WPScan’s large database.
  • Its database includes more than 21,000 known security vulnerabilities. 
  • Free API plan that should be suitable for most WordPress websites.
  • Notifies you by email when new security flaws are discovered.

Cons:

  • API usage limits: Free usage: 50 requests per day limit.

Pricing:

  • The basic starts from $0. 

12. SecuPress

secuPress-pro-security-plugin

SecuPress Pro is one of the best WordPress security plugins. It is the only plugin with a comprehensive scanner capable of resolving problems.

This feature is the simplest way to ensure your users’ data is secure and their accounts are not compromised. You can use this feature to limit the number of failed login attempts, prevent non-existent username login attempts and define a non-login time frame. 

SecuPress ensures that you can regulate your sessions and avoid double logins. It includes 2FA (Two Factor Authentication). 

This plugin allows you more user and password control, including the ability to set password lifetimes for your users, and promotes strong password use. 

You can prohibit the use of ambiguous usernames such as www or admin.

Pros:

  • Secures WordPress endpoints and APIs by blocking malicious XML-RPC or REST API queries.
  • Blocks bad bots with its Robots Blackhole feature.
  • Has an anti-hotlink feature to help you save bandwidth.
  • Blocks malicious incoming requests.
  • Prohibits SQL injection.
  • Attempts to use brute force are rejected.
  • GeoIP blocking by nation allows you to have greater control over your traffic.

Cons:

  • This plugin is expensive.

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $99.

13. WP fail2ban

fail2ban-security-plugin

fail2ban is one of the simplest and most effective WordPress security plugins. This tool logs failed login attempts to blacklist the IP address. WPf2b allows users to log in using their email address rather than their username.

This plugin identifies some spam bot attempts and records them as a hard failure. Pingbacks are great feature of this plugin. It effectively rate-limits potential attackers by logging the IP address as a soft fail.

This plugin is configured to provide the best protection against threats unique to your site. It functions without impacting site performance or consuming excessive resources.

Pros: 

  • Blocks password-guessing brute force attack.
  • Stops brute force password guessing attacks.
  • Logs failed login attempts so that the IP address can be blacklisted.
  • Users can log in with their email address rather than their username.
  • Keeps track of a spammer’s IP address. 

Cons: 

  • You can’t go far with the limited features of the free version.

fail2ban pricing:      

  • This plugin is free to use.  

14. Ninjafirewall

ninjafirewall-security-plugin

NinjaFirewall is a fully functional web application firewall. It’s an independent firewall that protects WordPress. It enables any blog administrator to take advantage of comprehensive and effective security measures.

Before it reaches WordPress or any of its plugins, it can hook, scan, sanitize or reject any HTTP/HTTPS request sent to a PHP script. The scripts are found within the blog installation directories and subdirectories. This tool filters encoded PHP scripts, hacker’s shell scripts and backdoors.

NinjaFirewall offers real-time file-guard detection, which can detect and inform you if a php file has been recently edited or created. Its file check feature allows you to monitor file integrity by scanning your website hourly, twice a day or daily. 

Pros:

  • Normalizes and transforms data from incoming HTTP requests.
  • Fastest and most efficient brute-force-attack protection for WordPress.
  • Allows you to monitor file integrity by scanning your website hourly, twice a day or daily. 
  • Real-time detection.
  • Allows you to monitor your website traffic in real time.

Cons:

  • Its pro version contains more security.

Pricing:

  •  This plugin is free to use.

15. BulletProof Security

bulletProof-security-plugin

BulletProof Security is the complete website security package for hacker and spammer protection. This plugin secures your website’s files and database with many overlapping outside and inner layers of security. 

This plugin is the protection against malware spammer,  login security, database backup, and anti-spam. BulletProof Security is a proactive security plugin that fixes 100+ known issues/conflicts with other plugins automatically.

This plugin maintains your website’s front end and back end. It has a WordPress automatic update option. It sends email alerts when new plugins and theme updates are available.

Pros:

  • One-click setup wizard.
  • Has a malware scanner.
  • Login security and monitoring for hidden plugin folders.
  • Full or partial database backups, manual scheduled database backups, email zip backups, cron delete old backups.

Cons:

  • Its free version has limited features.

Pricing:

  • This plugin is free to use.

16. Defender Security

defender-security-plugin

Defender Security is another best WordPress security plugins. You can set up this plugin with just a few clicks.

This plugin stops brute force login attacks, SQL injections, cross-site scripting XSS and other WordPress vulnerabilities. 

It has two-factor verification, including app verification, backup codes, lost device email, WooCommerce 2FA and web authentication. You can change the location of WordPress’s default login area. 

You can customize your Defender security settings and export or import existing configurations to another site. This plugin blocks suspected users based on location and country.

Pros:

  • Comes with Two Factor Authentication (2FA) for App verification, code backups, lost device email, WooCommerce 2FA and web authentication.
  • Changes the location of WordPress’s default login area.
  • Scans WordPress core files for modifications and unexpected changes.
  • Protects against compromised passwords.
  • Forces users with selected roles to reset passwords.
  • Protects against common attacks like XSS, code injection and others by adding an extra layer of protective security.

Cons:

  • This free version has limited features.

Pricing:

  • The basic plan starts from $0.

Conclusion

Your WordPress website needs as much security as you can provide. Depending on your specific needs and skill level, you can save time by using one of the WordPress security plugins presented above. 

While a security plugin can be enough to make your WordPress website secure, we still suggest you have your website audited by a professional security expert to remain as safe as possible. 

Again, it’s up to you to identify your website security needs and decide which security plugins can be most suitable for your website.

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washer
Hafsina Sheherin Rimi
Written by

Hafsina Sheherin Rimi

Sheherin Rimi is a content writer of ThemeDev who prefers to write about tech products, travelling, health, food, lifestyle, marketing, technology etc. She also works for creating video. She has completed her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Her hobbies include blogging, reading, cooking etc.

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