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Best WordPress Plugins – UPDATED 2025

WordPress plugins Jun 20, 2020 by Johnny 82 Comments

My favorite WordPress plugins (and also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by experienced WordPress developers). All these plugins are clean-coded, super-fast, and best in class. I’ve also included thoughts on others that I don’t like…just so you have some context.

Last updated APRIL 24, 2025

Gutenberg blocks:

  • See my review on Gutenberg block libraries and Gutenberg pagebuilders.
  • Kadence Blocks – my favorite medium-size one.
  • GenerateBlocks – my favorite minimal one.
  • Stackable – my favorite fancy ones.

Content:

  • WP Show Posts – allows you to show posts anywhere. You can choose filters to decide which posts are shown, and then also options on how they are displayed. Very lean and when combined with other plugins, are great for getting rid of pagebuilder reliance. 🙂
  • Lightweight Grid Columns – let’s you create columns, however many you want, whichever size you want. So that you can push your page layout around without having to use a pagebuilder! Genius!
  • Smart Content Filter – great way for users to filters posts on busy pages.

Caching (detailed review):

  1. WP Performance (FREE) – awesome free cache plugin. Solid, reliable, many features, amazing UI, and super unique simple way of granularly excluding/disabling optimizations.
  2. SWIFT Performance (FREE / PRO)- Lite version is best free cache plugin, paid version is the fastest full-featured cache plugin out there.
  3. LiteSpeed Cache (FREE) – incredible free cache plugin with many features, but only works on LiteSpeed servers. This is actually the best cache plugin if you have thousands of pages or many MANY visits (like millions).
  4. FlyingPress (PRO) – amazing premium cache plugin made by infamous speed-expert Gijo Varghese. All the top features but super simple UI.
  5. WP Rocket (PRO) – another fast (premium) cache plugin. easy to use, not recommended for NGINX.
  6. Simple Cache – fastest plugin for my VPS with REDIS object cache enabled. This is recommended if you’ve done all manual optimizations possible.
  7. Breeze or Cache Enabler – highly recommended for NGINX servers.
  8. Comet Cache – fast and nice but SWIFT (free) and WP Rocket (paid) are better.
  9. Borlabs Cache or WP Speed of Light – other good premium cache plugins.
  10. WP Fastest Cache – it’s a nice one, too, but not the fastest from my testing. Many do like it.
  11. W3TC – I hate it. Way too bloated and technical. Incompatible with many plugins and not the fastest even when it does work!
  12. WP Super Cache or WPMU Hummingbird – absolute garbage. Bloated and slow.

Read my: Best WordPress Cache Plugins Review

Asset optimization:

  • Nowadays, most cache plugins already come with full-featured asset optimization so these plugins are almost not necessary anymore except for specific granular functions.
  • Autoptimize – helpful but not necessary if your theme and plugins are already optimized. (This is like a band-aid.)
  • WP Gonzalez – amazing, useful, costs money.
  • Plugin load filter – asset organizer plugin but simple-enough to use.
  • Plugin Organiser – full asset organizer plugin but UI can get complicated.
  • WordPress Asset CleanUp – supposedly WP Gonzalez but free. I like this one.
  • PerfMatters – nice one by Brian Jackson.

Image compression (detailed reviews):

  • ShortPixel – SP has best compression and GLOSSY formats.
  • LiteSpeed Cache – can do tons of images, FREE! Great for huge sites and you don’t want to pay anything.
  • WP Compress – another great compression service, perfect for sharp details. Lower price than SP. (Can also try my LIFETIME link.)
  • Imagify – is 3rd place for me (in terms of quality). But I wouldn’t even use this.
  • Swift Performance PRO – this paid cache plugin has image compression feature in it.
  • TinyPNG/JPG – can be good sometimes but ShortPixel is definitely better!
  • WP Smush/EWWW – horrible compression quality/file-size ratio.

Image, gallery, slideshow:

  • Quick Featured Images – best plugin for managing/automating your featured images. Pro version is so worth the price!
  • Enable Media Replace – replace media files without having to dig through FTP folders.
  • reGenerate Thumbnails advanced – best IMO, easy-to-use with great filtering options.
  • Metaslider (free/paid) or Smart Slider 3 (free/paid) – are the best. Metaslider is good for super simply minimal sliders. SS can do fancier things like dynamic height or showing different sliders on mobile, also more features (embedding video, changing button images, etc). Soliloquy used to be great/lightweight but has now been surpassed. Whatever you do, avoid Slider Revolution (REV Slider).
  • WP Featherlight – simple jquery for lightbox. I use this (and ONLY THIS) along with default Gutenberg for building image galleries.
  • WP Featherlight Disabled – my even more lightweight fork of the original WP Featherlight. (Only loads featherlight CSS/JS on pages you allow.)
  • Meow Gallery – if you want a full-featured gallery, use this instead of the bloated NextGEN, FooGallery, Envira, etc.
  • WP Offload Media – beautiful plugin by the respected Delicious Brains. Offloads your media files elsewhere so you can save space on your web server.

Database tools & optimization:

  • Advanced Database Cleaner – incredible for tidying up your DB. (I like this much better than WP Optimize.)
  • editor – great for editing your database from WordPress instead of via cPanel/phpmyadmin (BE CAREFUL!)
  • WP Migrate Lite (FREE) – easiest way to move databases and also does string rewrites really well (better than Better Search Replace). Pro version has more useful dev features.
    • Better Search Replace – (formerly) my favorite database editor by Delicious Brains. Has a great “test run” feature. I use it to fix URL’s for migration or https purposes. I love that you can specify which tables. But I now do all this with WP Migrate plugin.

Backup (detailed reviews):

  • BackWPup – awesome free plugin that does FULL backups and even remote to S3! Yes, FREE! (my favorite)
  • WPVivid – another awesome FREE full-featured backup plugin. Has extra convenient clone/staging features that BackWPup doesn’t have but can be buggy for larger sites.
  • UpDraft – very popular, get it for offsite backup feature. I hate the free version but the pro version is nicer, comprehensive.
  • BackUpWordPress – my favorite free backup plugin for local backups. Works well, clean/quiet interface.
  • BackupBuddy – other people like it. I think it’s really annoying with many distracting screens.

Forms:

  • Fluent Forms – my #1 favorite form plugin for both FREE and PAID. Easy to use, nice design and extra features. See my review.
  • Gravity Forms, Happy Forms, Piotnet Forms – all great premium forms plugins. Mostly same features but different workflow, UI, and pricing.
  • Contact Form 7 – I hate how it loads on every page.
  • Caldera – my former default. Free and works great. No bloat. I hate that it picks up a lot of spam. But it’s already abandoned now, and the team is focusing on their main commercial offering Ninja Forms.

Migration:

Use these for moving sites or pushing from live to staging environment and vice versa.

  • All-in-One WP Migration – my favorite, popular and works. Free version has 500MB limit and won’t export/import from remote destinations (S3/Gdrive/etc). TIP: you can circumvent size limit by excluding “wp-content” directory during export; then manually compress and move it..
  • Duplicator – great for migrating/clone sites but also works for backups. Popular among developers. May feel too technical for newbies.
  • Migrate Guru – easy to use and free…can move huge sites and handle URL rewrite for you. Only issue is it misses non-WP directories and doesn’t always work. If you’re not a pro and need something that’s ALWAYS 100% reliable, stick to AIO Migration or do things manually.

SEO:

  • SEO Framework – my favorite. Clean and bloat-free. Most simple and doesn’t try to do everything for your site. SEO only!
  • ALL-IN-ONE SEO (pro version) – my 2nd favorite. High quality, and fast.
  • Yoast SEO – they responded to complaints and improved UI, faster, cleaner, and less bloat. Still annoying nag screens and I still prefer the others.

Redirection:

  • Htaccess – not a plugin but is the most recommended method!
  • Safe Redirect Manager – the best one! Enterprise grade, high quality code, super fast redirects with the least speed impact.
  • Redirection – hell no! Drives me crazy that many people use this. It slows your website down by 1-3 seconds. You’re better off just copying the redirects to your htaccess! (But indeed it gives report functions and that can be useful for diagnosing things, but don’t leave it on all year long.)
  • Using SEO redirect function – also a “no” for me.

Membership:

  • MemberPress – best membership plugin out there. I’ve tried many and this one has all the features I needed, easy and fun to use. Also great pricing that doesn’t overcharge you for necessary add-ons. See my review. I’ve also made MemberPress add-on plugins.
    • WPJ Reports for MemberPress – my own add-on plugin that creates more detailed reports, with many more helpful features and information. FREE & PRO versions available.
  • Restrict Content Pro (RCP) – also good membership plugin depending on your use case. See my review.
  • WooMemberships/WooSubscriptions – great if you want to integrate with WooCommerce. Overkill if you don’t.
  • Easy Digital Downloads – great plugin and very friendly (industry standard for selling digital products), but a little pricey. Many basic features are add-ons cost $$$.
  • MemberMouse – I hate it. Expensive and hard to work with (design & coding), also loads many scripts and slows down your site.
  • DigitalAccessPass (DAP) – terrible, outdated in many ways.

LMS (learning management systems):

  • LifterCMS
  • LearnDash

Shopping Stores:

  • Shopify – works great, looks great. Totally worth the monthly price so you don’t spend thousands developing on WordPress/WooCommerce. Cheapest plan is $9 or $15 if you want to use it with WordPress.

Email:

  • FluentSMTP – great free email plugin with more features (one of them being multiple SMTP senders).
  • WP Mail SMTP – better than my old favorite “Post SMTP Mailer”. Hate that it’s run by Awesome Motive.
  • Comment Reply Email – my simple plugin that sends comment replies to commenters.

Email lead generation & popup:

  • MailOptin – lean, simple, fast. Limited design options but still my favorite.
  • OptinMonster – the gold standard but pricey! Lots of options.
  • Convert Pro – common alternative to OM, cheaper but not as many features.
  • Thrive Leads – I hate it, bloated and laggy as hell if you have many pages and lots of traffic.

Social Plugins:

  • Shared Counts – great for putting social networking share counts on your sites.
  • Social Warfare – handles shared counts and also controlling how shared content is displayed.
  • Social Pug – same as Social Warfare and good reviews but I haven’t tried it yet.
  • Scriptless Social Share – simple clean way to get shared boxes, but loads faster because it doesn’t do any counts.
  • Novashare – new share plugin by the respected Brian Jackson.

Development:

  • FakerPress – creates fake random content over dozens of different post types. Great for testing things, or showcasing designs and features.
  • WP Reset
  • Query Monitor
  • FluentSnippets – best code snippets plugin. Also fast and secure since it stores the code in the file system rather than in the database (negating extra DB queries).
  • Multiple Themes – enable multiple themes on different pages. Useful for having different themes on different site areas, or developing new theme side-by-side with old one.j

Site Management:

  • MainWP – site manager tool that is free and open-source, pro version is sold with lifetime license.
  • ManageWP is expensive but prettier mainstream option.
  • InfiniteWP is open-source version as well but addon prices are high, also more difficult to use and fewer features.
  • JetPack Manage (only basic features), I didn’t consider.
  • iThemes Sync – seems like good alternative but have to install more plugins. I wouldn’t use it unless it already came free with their whole bundle package.

User Management:

  • DoLogin – provide easy WP-admin login link for other contractors and support staff.
  • Adminimize – control what different users can see once logged in.
  • User Role Editor – edit what different user roles can do once logged in.
  • User Switching – test how things look/function from another user’s POV. Login as User is another alternative.

Server Management:

  • PHP Compatibility Checker – great to know if your WordPress themes and plugins are ready for a higher (faster) version of php.
  • WP Server Stats – server stats plugin with nice info.

Affiliate management:

  • AffiliateWP – is the best! Don’t use anything else. See my review.
  • AffiliateRoyale – no! Don’t use it. It’s abandoned. I built an AffiliateRoyale to AffiliateWP migration script if you’d like to use.

Search:

  • Relevannsi – I’ve had it forever and love it.
  • SearchWP – probably the most “official” search plugin for WP.
  • Algolia – good if you want something more robust and scalable for giant sites.

Security:

  • Wordfence – full security plugin, malware scan, firewall, login protection, attack reports.
  • Bulk Delete Users by Keyword – fast removal of spam user registrations from your WP site.
  • FluentAuth – login authorization plugin to improve your website login process. 2-factor, social login, captcha, access restrictions, etc.

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Read all my posts on WordPress plugins Recommended

About Johnny

Right on the edge of WordPress development! 10+ years of WordPress design, development, hosting, speed optimization, product advisor, marketing, monetization. I do all that.

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Reader Interactions

82 Comments

  1. Philip Churchill

    April 23, 2018 at 1:42 pm

    Hi,
    Any recommendations for a Calendar Plugin for WordPress as there are loads.

    Reply
  2. sdw

    May 1, 2018 at 5:06 am

    Give Akeeba Backup a try. rock solid.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      May 1, 2018 at 10:19 am

      Hey thanks for reminding me about this one. I’ve used it before even since my Joomla days! It works, too.

      Reply
  3. Rainer Brainer

    August 6, 2018 at 1:08 pm

    I tried to use SWIFT Performance, but it did not work very well, I was using WP Rocket, but after reading some things here, I ended up switching to the breezer because I use NGINX. I am a layman on the subject, to use SWIFT Performance I must do some NGINX configuration, because as I infomed it did not work on my site :(, but other than that I loved his tips, delete to Jetpack, he really tied my site, thanks for the tips and continue so if you can give more tips on compatible plugins with NGINX would be great!

    Reply
    • Johnny

      August 6, 2018 at 10:49 pm

      Hey Rainer, I can probably able to get it to work on NGINX for you. Can you get me access?

      Reply
  4. Danial Wilson

    September 6, 2018 at 10:55 pm

    Great list of plugins! Thank you for sharing.
    You can also try a more SEO linked WordPress plugin called Trash Duplicate And 301 Redirect. It helps to find and remove duplicates and also protect you from being penalized by Google for duplicate content.

    Reply
  5. Alexey

    December 6, 2018 at 2:14 pm

    Thank you for great article.

    John, can you recommend the plugin for spam detection?

    Akismet is a good solution?

    Reply
  6. Victor

    May 2, 2019 at 1:36 pm

    nice article but both SWIFT Performance and Breeze broke my site after installation. some code on the first page.
    Autoptimze works fine.

    Reply
  7. Regev

    June 3, 2019 at 11:40 pm

    Do you recommend Subscribe to Comments Reloded? If not, why not and why alternative would you recommend?
    Thank you

    Reply
    • Johnny

      June 4, 2019 at 11:01 am

      I use that one and happy with it! I’ve also written our own comments notification plugin before as well.

      Reply
  8. Rookie

    June 4, 2019 at 11:35 pm

    “Redirection – hell no! Drives me crazy that so many people use this. It slows your website down by 1-3 seconds. You’re better off just copying the redirects to your htaccess!”

    Why? You can write to the htaccess, safer and easier UI than directly operate in htaccess. to make sure the htaccess never flushes from plugin bugs.

    Reply
  9. Mustapha

    June 10, 2019 at 3:16 pm

    Hi Johnny, I don’t see Rank Math here! it’s a rock-solid SEO plugin with a brilliant future. I love the import feature from Yoast and a few other plugins, give it a try.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      June 12, 2019 at 12:49 pm

      I’ve heard good things about that one, too! Will add after I check it out for a bit.

      Reply
  10. ALex

    August 1, 2019 at 9:52 am

    Hi. Quick question about the caching plugins you listed. I’m debating right now whether I should purchase the Swift Performance or not. I did see a not on Breeze that works well with Nginx servers. How about Swift? Are you aware of any issues with Swift & Nginx, or Breeze is just performing better?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      August 1, 2019 at 10:24 am

      Swift is superior to Breeze in every way. Swift works fine on NGINX. I would consider either Swift or WP Rocket for you. WPR is great if you want to just set it and forget it. Swift allows more advanced/granular controls which is nice if you have the curiosity/passion to tweak things to the max. You can find out which you prefer by trying out Swift Lite.

      Reply
  11. Bob

    November 3, 2019 at 4:01 am

    What is your opinion about Rank Math Seo Plugin at https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-by-rank-math/?

    Its got 456 5* reviews at the moment.

    It is totally free too which makes me a tad suspicious.

    Have you had a chance to check it out? Is it really better than SEO Framework? Or do you stand by SEO Framework as the best Johnny?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      November 4, 2019 at 10:33 am

      Oh boy, semi-controversial thought (coming up at the end). I personally don’t use Rankmath but have heard great things about it from people I respect. The claims about it being #1 do have merit, yes possibly better than SEO Framework.

      But what does “#1” or being “better” actually mean for SEO plugins varies from person to person. For some people, #1 means having the most SEO features. For others, #1 means having the most control (which could mean have fewer features). I personally like having ULTIMATE control. I don’t use any SEO plugins at all whatsoever and my sites (in my other niches, not WP) dominate Google search rankings just fine.

      I’m a bit of the backwards mentality of Chris Pearson (Thesis guy who got crucified for saying this) that says SEO is best handled by the theme [rather than by plugin]. I don’t totally agree with it but see lots of clean-code benefit in using your theme to do most of your SEO dirtywork rather than to rely on a 3rd-party plugin. But having a really clean/thorough developer available to manually adjust with SEO trends is not feasible for many people.

      Reply
  12. Rafael

    November 30, 2019 at 2:59 pm

    So much information in one place! Can’t thank you enough. Found your work (recently btw) with this website extremely helpful now that I’m beginning to make a wake up and really choose good tools for the job.

    I’m building a site with Genesis and a Studiopress child theme with some minor changes, but one thing that always lacks is search. Dou you have ant suggestions on plugins to implement search forms to a website? This site is all about products, so people are constantly looking for a specific one and this is a must have, but I don’t want to ruin all the improvements I’ve been making.

    Again, thank you for such great content.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      December 1, 2019 at 12:56 pm

      Hi Rafael, thanks for the kind words.

      When you say “search” is lacking…do you mean a visual searchbox? Or the actual function itself? The best search plugins for most sites are probably Relevanssi and SearchWP. And if your store is much much bigger than that, you can maybe consider Elastisearch/Algolia.

      In terms of UX, I don’t believe in searching. The most successful site designs promote random content discovery rather than by searching. Look at Amazon, Youtube, Facebook. Most of what you find isn’t by searching, it’s just randomly stumbled upon. Another thing, too….many ecommerce sites rely on filtering more than searching since users often don’t know what they want/need. They just like to explore…very similar in how we browse physical B&M’s. Sorry if this answer goes in circles. Hahaha.

      Reply
      • Rafael

        December 2, 2019 at 4:21 am

        Sometimes I have some trouble explaining what I need because I’m learning as I go. But clearing things up, what I need is in fact a search function and your suggestion of Relevanssi and SearchWP is exactly what I’m looking for. Just something more powerful than the standard WordPress native search.

        To give you more context, the site has a similar proposition as Wirecutter. We just recommend products with guides and reviews, we don’t actually sell them.

        I’ve read some of your articles regarding search and UX, but the problem is that for now, I can’t really do some heavy CSS by myself. I really agree that a well-thought menu and related content suggestions are much more powerful. Take me for example, just breezing through pages and pages of your site with just that (and some search to be honest haha).

        Maybe I’ll give a more refined touch to these areas of our site and hold the search function to see what happens.

        Thank you for the quick reply and sorry about any confusion. English is not my native language. Not even WordPress haha

        Reply
        • Johnny

          December 2, 2019 at 1:37 pm

          Ahhh, ok….then I think you might do well with SearchWP and maybe some kind of live/ajax search plugin to go along with it. Welcome to the endless maze of WordPress. 🙂

          Reply
  13. VK

    July 17, 2020 at 10:07 pm

    Hi,
    If my server is Litespeed, then which one is better – Litespeed cache or swift performance?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      July 18, 2020 at 3:46 am

      Read my speed optimization and caching guides, please.

      Reply
      • VK

        July 18, 2020 at 4:11 am

        I’m a hardcore follower of you. I read all your content including speed optimization and caching guides. But still, I’m curious about this.

        Reply
        • Johnny

          July 20, 2020 at 3:24 pm

          There is no better. I switch around depending on the site.

          Reply
  14. Regev

    July 22, 2020 at 4:18 am

    Johnny my man thank you for continuing the WPJohnny Saga
    Every time I see your last name it reminds me of delicious Pho Ga
    Your suggestions and generosity will forever be in our hearts
    Unlike the other gurus your site is full of No Bullshit advice and charts
    May the world keep benefiting from your genius brain, dear Johnny
    I hope one day we can spar even tho I’ve lately got scrawny

    With deep love and appreciation,
    Your readers.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      July 22, 2020 at 8:09 pm

      Hey thank you, Regev! Your challenge is accepted. 😉

      Reply
  15. Martin

    August 13, 2020 at 12:27 pm

    I read somewhere that Relevansi can bloat the WP database. Is this true? I would like to test the lite version.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      August 13, 2020 at 12:37 pm

      I love Relevanssi…but using it like almost 10 years now. It’s great for me. No bloat. Very active development.

      Reply
  16. aaynaic

    August 27, 2020 at 6:48 am

    Any opinions on RankMath? Seems promising

    Reply
    • Johnny

      August 27, 2020 at 9:44 am

      I’ve never tried it so no opinions for now. But my clients who use it seem happy with it.

      Reply
  17. Yvette

    September 9, 2020 at 4:18 am

    Hi Johnny,
    Thanks for another very helpful article.

    I am testing removing plugins to get a better and faster site. Earlier I have installed the Akismet because I found articles on the Internet (not yours) that this plugin is good. I have a webpage where one, at least not for the moment, is not allowed to make comments.

    Does it still make sense to have it, or should I just remove it or have another solution?

    If I start having comments, should I then get this plugin?

    Thanks,
    Yvette

    Reply
    • Yvette

      September 11, 2020 at 2:15 am

      FYI:
      After thinking a little bit I thought it made sense to delete it since I do not use commenting. Can not see any changes neither in speed nor in content.

      Stay safe,
      Yvette

      Reply
  18. Raul

    October 9, 2020 at 1:59 pm

    Is there a plugin that you would recommend for managing a number of WordPress sites? I know of InfiniteWP and WPManage. Wondering if either are good.

    Reply
    • Johnny

      October 9, 2020 at 7:43 pm

      You’ll have to try them all yourself and see which one fits your workflow best.

      Reply
  19. Julian Song

    October 19, 2020 at 7:52 pm

    For gallery, HappyFiles Pro have the function of create gallery from folder, super nice.

    Organize the images to specify folder, and add HappyFiles gallery block.

    Reply
  20. Ray

    November 3, 2020 at 5:47 pm

    Hi, what plugin do you recommend for a comments section?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      November 3, 2020 at 6:19 pm

      I prefer the native WordPress comments system.

      Reply
  21. Ryan

    November 17, 2020 at 9:00 pm

    Hey do you have a suggestion for an Ad manager plugin? I’m using Advanced Ads right now. Also do you have any best practices for ads?

    Reply
  22. Theresa

    November 23, 2020 at 8:08 pm

    Thanks for this post! Is there a plugin you’d recommend to prevent spam user registrations?

    Reply
  23. Neha

    December 3, 2020 at 3:05 am

    Great post!
    For auction plugin would you recommend – https://wordpress.org/plugins/auction-software/
    I would like to know your thoughts. Thanks

    Reply
  24. Bill A

    December 8, 2020 at 9:08 pm

    Any thoughts on best Security plugin for 2020/2021?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      December 8, 2020 at 9:59 pm

      If I use any, it’s always going to be WordFence.

      Reply
  25. Reuben

    January 3, 2021 at 5:40 pm

    Any suggestion for tracking script managers like the Intelly Tracking Code Manager Pro?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      January 3, 2021 at 8:10 pm

      Not really because I don’t use them.

      Reply
  26. Md Kamruzzaman

    January 27, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    Hello bro, great staff here. I want a quick suggestions, I have cloudways DO server, redis with elementor page builder. I am not getting a good result with breeze caching plugin on mobile device, what should I do ?? 🙁

    Reply
    • Johnny

      January 28, 2021 at 8:13 am

      Try WP Performance. It’s simple but much more performant than Breeze. You can share your URL on my Facebook group if you want more accurate tips. Otherwise, nobody can help you blindly like this.

      Reply
  27. Reed Sutton

    January 29, 2021 at 11:32 pm

    Any recommendation for Table plugins?

    Reply
    • Reuben

      September 28, 2021 at 8:07 am

      Also curious about a recommendation for a table plugin.

      Reply
      • Johnny

        September 29, 2021 at 4:27 am

        Ninja Tables. I really like the company behind it.

        Reply
        • Reed Taylor Sutton

          December 27, 2022 at 11:20 am

          Unfortunately the support team and devs who work with NinjaTables are rather below par compared to other Fluent products (namely CRM and Forms).

          Reply
  28. Joeb

    February 23, 2021 at 4:36 pm

    This list needs a refresh! Some of the recommended plugins have not been tested with 3+ major core updates.

    Reply
  29. Roger Marquez

    March 24, 2021 at 4:29 pm

    When it comes to optimizing CSS and JS what is better? autoptimize or Asset Cleanup? I am looking for a free option to let me unload some of the unused CSS and JS loading on my sites.
    And, I love how Asset Cleanup allows you to manually unload the stylesheets and scripts individually from each page but, I don´t know if their modification feature is better than autoptimize or if I can use them together (is it recommended?).
    Cheers!

    Reply
    • Johnny

      March 26, 2021 at 9:41 am

      I don’t like optimizing CSS/JS with a plugin. If I do any at all I prefer to do it manually.

      Reply
  30. Balint Perjesi

    April 14, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    It’s great to learn new things every day… I will definitely give Swift Performance a try. Until now I was using W3TC, somehow by default. Thank you Johnny for all the useful information!

    Reply
  31. Herbert

    April 18, 2021 at 4:32 am

    From what I see, Kioken seems to be discontinued, they had a promising start long ago with some unique features, so it is a bit a pity

    Reply
    • Johnny

      April 24, 2021 at 9:27 am

      Really? Where did you hear that?

      Reply
  32. herbert

    April 24, 2021 at 9:49 am

    I just had a look at their support forum, and it seems that the author of that plugin is acting again, and downloads also have increased too. So I have to correct myself on my statement!

    Before that there has been nearly half a year no response on support issues, so that was what made me think the plugin was probably dead.

    Reply
  33. drew

    June 26, 2021 at 7:15 pm

    Hey Johnny,

    Nice list!

    Curious why ElasticPress didn’t make it to the recommended search plugins..

    Reply
  34. Soumya

    July 8, 2021 at 5:54 am

    Hi Johnny, How you fetch users profile pictures automatically, Like without login my profile picture was showing in comment section

    Reply
    • Johnny

      July 8, 2021 at 11:11 am

      Register with Gravatar.

      Reply
  35. John @ S4

    August 13, 2021 at 10:27 pm

    Curious to see if Yoast changes much in the near future following the fact that it’s just been bought by NewFold (EIG).

    Reply
  36. Ash

    October 2, 2021 at 11:46 am

    Not for opt-in, just for popup but I came across a lightweight plugin.
    Advanced Popups
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-popups/

    Reply
  37. Reuben

    November 18, 2021 at 6:53 am

    Any thoughts on a custom field plugin of choice? ACF Pro vs Meta Box Pro?

    Reply
    • Johnny

      November 18, 2021 at 7:01 am

      I’m a diehard ACF PRO till I die. Buttttt….MetaBox’s ease-of-use and pricing make it more appealing every time I hear about it. Really active development and friendly community, too.

      Reply
      • Reuben

        November 18, 2021 at 8:54 am

        Good to know.

        Reply
      • BJ

        September 5, 2023 at 8:57 pm

        What do you think about JetEngine/Crocoblock?
        I think its much easier to use than ACF. And you dont need different plugins from different companies. So it should be more compatible. But I dont know what is better for page speed…

        Reply
  38. Sudhir

    December 20, 2021 at 11:05 am

    Hey Jonny, Thanks for such a wonderful piece of quality info.

    I am using Newspaper11 WordPress theme along with WPX hosting + W3Total Cache Plugin

    Pls share your views on these?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Johnny

      December 20, 2021 at 11:40 am

      You can read my other guides to know how I feel about them. (Basically, NO & NO.)

      Reply
  39. Jacob

    March 13, 2022 at 11:43 am

    Hello Johnny,
    Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with all of us.

    I am curious which ajax dukter toy would use for a Woocommerce store?

    You said BeRocket is not a good choice. But what is then? FacetWP or GrisbuilderWP for instance?

    Thanks
    Jacob

    Reply
  40. Pintu

    April 30, 2022 at 5:45 am

    What is the best security plugin one should use to tackle bots or spam? Any recommendations?

    Reply
    • JetGuy

      October 16, 2022 at 7:52 am

      By far, Wordfence (in combination with Cloudflare) — both the free or premium options work well. We’ve tried SG Security and iThemes Security, but did not perform as expected.

      Reply
  41. Raul

    June 27, 2022 at 1:18 pm

    Thanks for the great list of plugins. Some I already use, some I’ll have to take for a test run.

    Reply
  42. JetGuy

    October 16, 2022 at 7:56 am

    Great article. Thank you!

    If I may, Perfmatters deserves a lot more credit than noted. Both Brian Jackson and Brett Jackson (brothers) – the plugin developers – provide excellent support. Their plugin is impeccable and gets the job done all the time.

    Cheerio!

    Reply
    • Dieter

      March 20, 2024 at 3:20 am

      I agree! Perfmatters is an amazing plugin. Highly recommended.

      Reply
  43. Reed Sutton

    March 2, 2023 at 12:01 am

    Thoughts on ElasticPress / Elasticsearch?

    Reply
  44. VK

    March 9, 2023 at 10:56 am

    I’m getting good result using these plugins:

    1. Super Page Cache for Cloudflare
    2. WP Meteor
    3. WP-DBManager
    4. PhastPress

    Reply
  45. Ngọc Nguyễn

    May 4, 2023 at 6:55 pm

    Dạ, Anh đánh giá sao về Rank Math Pro so với The Seo Framework Free/Pro ạ?

    Reply
  46. Brandon

    December 23, 2024 at 3:17 pm

    I like to use Disable Generate Thumbnails to try and stop WordPress or WooCommerce from creating too many thumbnail sizes. WP seems to still try its best to hog disk space even with this plugin, but its the best one I found and its free.

    Reply
  47. Sascha

    January 28, 2025 at 10:57 am

    🔥 Bookmark-worthy for WordPress lovers! Here’s a breakdown of must-have plugins that are clean, fast, and developer-approved. 🙌 From Gutenberg magic to caching wizards and image optimizers, this list has it all.

    Some quick takeaways:
    ✔️ *Kadence Blocks* for versatility in design.
    ✔️ *WP Show Posts* to ditch clunky pagebuilders.
    ✔️ *LiteSpeed Cache* if you’ve got traffic for days.
    ✔️ *ShortPixel* for crispy, compressed images.
    ✔️ *Advanced Database Cleaner* to tidy up like a pro.

    🚫 Skip the bloated ones like W3TC and WP Smush unless you love headaches. 😅

    P.S. Did anyone else feel the shade towards Slider Revolution? 😂 #WordPressDoneRight #PluginPerfection

    Reply
  48. Pawel

    April 24, 2025 at 4:15 am

    Hi Johnny. Great review! But It seems PHP Compatibility Checker is outdated. Any suggestions on replacement plugin here? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Johnny

      April 28, 2025 at 9:31 am

      Hey Pawel, I’ve looked around and haven’t found any. I’m afraid it’s not an easy thing to do.

      Reply

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