Choose what is the best for your website’s security
Maintaining website security is crucial for any business, regardless of whether it is built on a CMS platform or a custom framework. However, there are certain checkpoints and costs associated with website security management. In this article, we will focus on WordPress as a CMS and discuss the top recommended security plugins according to experts.
Find below a broad list of the standard WordPress security plugins categorized as per their respective jobs.
Best WordPress security plugins are very essential to keep your site safe from malware, malicious scripts, cyber-attacks, SEO spam and all sorts of security threats. These extensions play a significant role in keeping the business alive, especially when you have an online selling platform or any site that deals with monetary exchange. In addition, these plugins are important to safeguard sensitive customer data. Today, we will help you find some of the best plugins to secure your WordPress website. These may help you block potential intruders from entering your website. Read on to find out more about this.
Always remember – a secure hosting platform will keep your website secure. They are the base on which your site lives so, it is imperative that your website’s foundation is free from any complications and must not compromise essentially required security mechanisms. When there are in-built plugins on the server side, you get a website without many performance roadblocks. Choose hosting plans that take care of a certain level of security threats so, that you need to install only other necessary plugins. You can minimize performance downtimes by lowering the number of third-party plugins, which take extra time to load.
Hosting providers offer plans with the following safety measures:
Therefore, it’s important to choose a hosting service that offers the relevant security to your WordPress website. However, not all hosting service providers will offer the highest level of security to your website. You need to add plugins to make your site fully safe.
Available in both free and paid versions, Sucuri offers firewall, malware scanning, security auditing, file integrity monitoring, security hardening and more. It comes with basic, premium and professional plans. It also offers SSL certificates (paid), customer service options, advanced DDoS protection with certain plans, blocklist monitoring, etc. If you choose the premium plan, you also get the facility of post-cleanup reports, hatch packing and many advanced features.
The free plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The paid versions start from $9.99/month (basic plan) and stretch up to $499.99/month (business platform).
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Once known as Better WP Security, the iThemes Security extension offers 30 kinds of protections including those from hacking, intruders, obsolete software versions, password strength, and more for all kinds of WordPress sites. Available in free and pro versions, with varying degrees of features, these 30 kinds of security parameters are excellent for your website. Some of its most admirable features are file change detection, Google reCAPTCHA, 404 error detection, two-factor authentication, brute force attacks prevention, SSL certificate, partial backups, etc.
Available with a 30-day money-back guarantee, the iThemes Security plugin plans start from $80/year for bloggers to $499/year for the entire plugin suite.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Wordfence comes with some of the sturdiest login security features including monitoring traffic trends, checking hacking attempts, firewall blocks, brute force attack prevention, real-time threat defence, malware scanning, website auditing, Google crawl activity monitoring, comment spam filter, etc.
With free and premium versions, the Wordfence Security plugin is available from $99/year (1 license) and scales up to $74.25/year (15+ site licenses). Most importantly, the plans are available for single to multisite, with multisite getting more discounts than the single one.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
All In One WP Security & Firewall comes with a highly intuitive user interface and good customer support. It explains security strength and other metrics with visual graphs, making it convenient for laymen to understand site safety. The FREE plugin offers three kinds of features – basic, intermediate and advanced. Some of them are the blocklist tool, a temporary lockdown button for emergency situations, login protection, database security, files protection, hiding site details from bots, etc.
The plugin is FREE.
This security plugin offers an array of features like login security, quarantines, anti-spam, database backups, email alerting, auto-restore, malware scanning, hidden plugin folders, security logs, password security, folder locking, encryption solutions, and more.
Available in both free and paid versions, with the one-time payment being $69.95. The best part is the 30-day money-back guarantee. The free version works well in securing an average website.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
SecuPress is famous for offering all-round security, this plugin offers protection against malware, viruses and offers features like anti-brute force login, firewall, bots blocking, two-factor authentication, geolocation blocking, suspicious IP detection, the discovery of malicious code, security reports, etc.
Standard website security can be covered through the free version of SecuPress. The premium version starts at $69.99/site and drops considerably with the increase in the number of sites. It also offers additional products, which are chargeable.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
WPScan is a versatile security plugin that offers solutions for security vulnerabilities detected by the WordPress community. Currently, there are around 21,000 manually detected threats and are updated daily by WordPress experts. So, WPScan actually scans plugins, themes, passwords, debug log files, database files, and the version of your website. You can get reports, risk scores, email notifications, and ways to fix the threat.
As the plugin covers around 25 API requests each day, it proves enough for an average website. The premium plans start with $5/month, professional with $25/month and the enterprise plan comes with custom pricing.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Security Ninja, one of the oldest security plugins, this one can perform more than 50 tests including detecting files with malware, weak passwords, etc. There is an auto hack fix tool and methods to fix issues. It scans the WordPress core, themes, and plugins, blocks suspicious IPs, optimizes the database, improves site performance, debugs and more.
Available as free and paid versions, which start from $49.99/year to $249.99/year. Short-term monthly payments of $8.99/month are also possible. Or, choose lifetime packages at $139.99 for the basic plan.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Primarily works as a malware scanner, this plugin checks your entire website for any and every kind of issue, in the site, plugins, IPs, etc. The cloud-based plugin sends email notifications upon detecting an attack. The lightweight plugin offers bot protection and even blocks them, if necessary. It offers captcha technology, uptime monitoring, Google blocklist hacks, cookie stealing, and more.
There are free and paid plans. The prices are categorized as $99/year for the basic plan, $149/year for Plus, and $299/year for Pro.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
The plugin offered by CleanTalk is a cloud-based malware scanner that scans viruses, IPs and bots. The scanner with a very high efficacy offers features like brute force attacks, two-factor authentication during login, security firewall, email notification on threat detection, etc. When installed, it runs automatic scans on a daily basis, creates an audit log, monitors real-time traffic and delivers daily scan reports.
There is a free version and paid one with a separate price for the number of websites. $49/year for one site, $24/year for 3 sites, and $36/year for 5 sites. $63/year for 10 sites and $117/year for 20 sites.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
The multi-featured plugin developed by WordPress.com offers exceptional things like strengthening social media, improving site speed, and preventing spam and bots. It offers brute force attack protection, automatic detection and deletion of spam comments. The premium plans offer backups, security scans, downtime monitoring, etc. The statistics offered by it can be checked from the admin dashboard.
The basic spam protection is free, but it offers other features through subscription. Features like site backups cost you $9/month, and real-time malware protection costs $24.92/month. Keep watching for the discounts to enjoy an affordable subscription to this plugin.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Astra Security offers protection against 100+ threats including SQLi, malware, brute force, spam & bot protection, SEO spam, etc. It offers bot tracking, stops Code injection, malicious file uploads, and more. It provides complete security audits and daily mail reports with the details of the attacks stopped.
The plugin is not available for free and comes in three price categories – Pro at $19/month, advanced at $39/month and Business at $119/month.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
The WordPress plugins identify and block spam found in plugins, themes, forms, comments, etc. It can be tuned to work in a certain manner and execute specific behaviour based on the needs of the website. It offers a high level of login security. It blocks URL shorteners, places a captcha on the login page, quarantines any threats, notifies the site owner, and detects any vulnerable activity.
There is a free and paid version with varying features. The premium version begins at a $29/year plan and the price increases with the number of licenses you choose.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Another spam detection and reduction tool, this plugin offers features like a firewall, site checker and error log. It gives spam statistics in easy to understand graphical format. It removes spam comments automatically, blocks IP addresses in real time, executes scanning schedules, deletes unwanted files, etc.
The free version offers the blocking of spam comments. Paid versions come in 3 categories – $55/year for a single site, $159/year for 3 sites and $319/year for 6 sites.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Hide My WP plugin hides the very fact that your site is built on WordPress. This reduces the chances of attacks, spam and threats. It blocks risks associated with SQL injection and hides wp-admin, login URL, PHP files, permalinks, etc. It notifies the admin with details of the attacker’s site. Multisite compatible, the plugin also blocks traffic from suspicious sources.
Available at $24 on CodeCanyon, this one charges $17/year for support and updates.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
This security plugin prevents intruders from gauging your website identity by hiding themes, plugins, login pages, and other details. This way, it prevents malicious activities by hiding the critical parts of the website. It also eliminates plugins that dampen your site’s performance. Considered the best plugin for hiding WordPress credentials and default website settings.
There is a free version which suffices the needs of all basic websites. You can upgrade to higher versions by paying $39/year for a single site and $130/year for the developer.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Primarily designed to block brute force attacks, WP fail2ban is more effective than any other plugin, in this department. With it, you can apply soft or hard bans, and even support multisite configurations. It filters login attempts, prevents spam comments, and delivers information about pingbacks, spam, threats, etc.
It is a FREE plugin.
As the name suggests, Google Authenticator specially works on login security. Most hackers attack through the login page so, this plugin plays a vital role in ruling them out. You can make special settings for admins and implement two-factor authentication for other users of the site. You can apply additional security parameters through security questions, and email verification, which are the features available in the premium version.
It also has advanced features like IP blocking, database backups, etc. Primarily, available as a FREE plugin, you can pay for an upgraded plan to get advanced features. The plans include $99/year for Premium Lite, $199/year for Premium and $59/year for the enterprise version.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
This plugin offers all-round security but primarily focuses on login protection. It also offers anti-spam features, malware scanning, registration monitoring, Google reCAPTCHA, custom login URL, scans all files, logs any suspicious activity, generates email notifications for the same, etc.
The FREE version is available. An advanced version for a single site will cost $99/year and $399/year for a value pack.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Vaultpress plugin takes daily backups, real-time backups, and site restores, using a calendar. It backs up everything so, there is no data loss from the site. With it, you can download the backup files and store them at a designated place. Developed by Automattic, this one is powered by Jetpack, so you buy the combo. With an easy-to-use dashboard, this plugin is quite easy to operate.
The paid version offers plans starting from $9.95/month, plans with security packages at $24.95/month and a complete package at $99.95/month. The advanced plans offer backup features like malware scanning, spam protection, etc.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Shield Security reduces the load on the site by activating the hack repair mechanism. It takes relevant action without throwing emails at the site owner. Offers restricted access to users and saves the site from any chances of malicious activities. It guards the site against bots, hacks, intruders, brute force attacks, etc. With restricted admin security access and firewall security in its place, the plugin proves an efficient one.
The core plugin is free, but professional and business versions are available at $12/month to $59/year.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
This security plugin safeguards the site by scanning all kinds of vulnerabilities. The prominent features include safety from SQL injections, backdoor scripts, and repair of issues that damage any of the core files. The plugin applies patches after DDoS and brute force attacks. Advanced patching, solving new threats, and core file monitoring are some of the next-level features offered by the plugin.
The plugin is FREE, however, you can access premium features through an optional donation to the developer.
The plugin specializes in generating logs of all activities on the site. It troubleshoots problems that arise from any hacking activity. Real-time logging helps to monitor all activities like profiles, categories, tags, extensions, etc. on the site. It prevents internal or external users from damaging the website’s functions. Every user activity is logged and monitored by the plugin. This updates the admin about any mischief on the site.
Available in FREE and paid versions. It costs $99/year for the Starter plan and reaches up to $199/year for the enterprise plan.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Really Simple SSL opens the gateway to a single click SSL certificate installer. By connecting the site to an SSL environment and safekeeping any transactional data from threats, the plugin offers a high level of data security. You can also enable HTTP security parameters as well. Essential for eCommerce sites and online selling platforms, this plugin ensures data safety for all kinds of WordPress sites.
The core plugin is available for FREE. It provides tools to establish an SSL environment and create an SSL certificate for sites that don’t have it. The premium plugin is available in three categories – Personal at $29/year, Professional at $69/year and Agency at $169/year.
*Note: Kindly verify the pricing plans.
Now that you know quite a lot of security plugins, it is easier for you to choose from the best ones mentioned above. Also, the choice of plugins depends on the requirements of your website. Many of the above are versatile enough to suffice all safety criteria of an average website. Therefore, you can choose accordingly.
Apart from installing the plugins, ask your WordPress developer team to keep an eye on the support activities as the site may demand them.
KrishaWeb is a WordPress development company with many successful projects in its portfolio. If you are looking for WordPress plugin integration or other WordPress services, feel free to connect!
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