A complete guide to choosing the best WordPress security plugin
WordPress should be considered the most popular content management system because more than a quarter of the internet websites are based on this system! And that’s why hackers are very interested in this system. Knowing the best WordPress security plugin will help you minimize your website’s security risks.
So, if the security of your business, which is your website, is important to you, be sure to stay with us until the end of this article to learn about the best WordPress security plugins and the importance of using them.
What is WordPress?
Matt Mullenweg officially released WordPress in 2003 with the goal of launching a blogging system. Many bloggers around the world initially acclaimed WordPress. WordPress has had a lot of updates since then. Over time, this CMS Has evolved a lot and has now become the largest content management system in the world.
WordPress is a free, open source, web-based software based on PHP and the MySQL database. If we want to introduce this tool in simple language, we must say that WordPress is a site building system that various websites can use it. such as online stores, personal system reservation systems and … in the shortest time. According to statistics, more 32% of all websites in the world have been launched using WordPress. But what make this system so popular?
Why we should use WordPress?
Now that we understand what WordPress is, we want to examine why we should use WordPress. As Mentioned, the WordPress system is completely free and the installation process is very easy. That is, it is enough to build a site, after downloading WordPress from its official site, we will go through the installation steps. The process of downloading this system will take less than 5 minutes, after which you will have a site. Next, to personalize your WordPress site, just change the appearance of the site and its content to suit your needs.
By default, WordPress meets most of the needs of users. But if users have specific needs and goals for their sites, they can easily use the thousands of plugins are easy to install with one click. These plugins provide users with a lot of features and it can almost can be acclaimed that many plugins have been developed so far more than 90% of the different needs of users.
WordPress for everyone
Therefore, users will not need any special coding and technical knowledge. However, if users do not want to use these plugins and need a special tool to personalize their site. they will need experts to do so. Of course, if they have programming knowledge themselves, they can easily write plugins and build WordPress themes.
As mentioned WordPress is open source. This means that you will not need to spend any money and get a license to develop and use it. Also, one of the important things in suing WordPress is benefiting from strong support and an active community in all around the world. For this reason, many sufficient and specialized resources are in many languages for this content management system. Therefore, access to its educational resource is easily possible and by using them, users can meet their needs in the field.
- Being free and open source
- Extensive developer community
- Continuous updates
- Easy to work with its management system
- High flexibility for personalization.
- WordPress sites are very suitable for SEO and are better SEO friendly terms.
- Have a rich repository of free and non-free special plugins and templates
- Benefit from many sources
- various languages support
The most important benefits of WordPress
WordPress is the most popular system when it comes to content management systems. Of course, in addition to its many fans, has also had critics. Many of these critics believe that it is not the best option for designing any site. To see if this system is right for us, we need to be aware of its features, advantages and disadvantages.
In the following, we want to examine why millions of users trust WordPress to launch their website?
- Easy installation
- Flexibility
- Store site design
- Large and active community
- Updates and Security
- Easy management
- Build various Websites
Some of the sites that WordPress can Design:
- Blogs or personal sites
- News and information sites
- Photography sites and portfolio introduction
- Job Search and automation sites Online Stores
- Social Sites and forums
- Educational sites
- And dozens of other types of sites
Introducing the best WordPress security plugins
Below is a list of 5 of the best WordPress security plugins. Using these plugins along with updating the WordPress core, theme and plugins can be a good guarantee to secure your website.
1. Wordfence
Another of the best WordPress security plugins is Wordfence, which has over 4 million active installs so far! This plugin regularly and automatically detects the main files, plugin files, posts and user comments and warns you if a threat, vulnerability or corrupt file is detected.
Also, this plugin provides you with a complete report of the list of changes that occur in your files. In this way, no changes on the site will be far from your eyes!
Unlike most security plugins that only offer a firewall in their premium version, the free version of this plugin includes a firewall that is used to keep DDOS attacks and malicious traffic away from your website.
This version also has the ability to track users (including humans, good bots or bad bots) and monitor live website traffic.
Among the other advantages of this plugin, it can be mentioned that in case of any problem to set it up, quick support is provided. You can also get up to 25% discount by adding more than 15 websites to your premium version.
2. security plugin iThemes Security
Another one of the best WordPress security plugins is iThemes Security, which is currently used by more than 1 million websites for their security! This plugin is provided for free but you have to pay some money to use some of its advanced services.
In the free version of this option, features such as malware scanning, providing tips to fix website vulnerabilities, creating various requirements to increase website security such as creating a strong password are provided. But for some other services such as online file comparison, you need to get the premium version of this plugin. The cost of this version starts from 80 dollars per year. Other features include:
Two-step authentication, automatic daily malware scanning and password expiration and Google Captcha code generation.
In general, the free version of this plugin is a good choice for beginners. But its real services appear in the professional version.
Also, this plugin is very easy to install and setup, so even if you have no background in this field, you can easily install it.
3. WordPress security plugin Sucuri
Sucuri plugin is a leading option in the market which is included in the list of best plugins. The plugin initially offers a free version called Sucuri Security, which allows you to control some aspects related to the security of your website. But to get the original version and use its advanced features, you have to spend a relatively large amount (about 10 dollars) per month.
In this version, your WordPress is protected by a firewall. This firewall prevents hackers from accessing WordPress and malicious attacks, filters bad traffic even before it reaches your server, and increases the speed of your website to some extent.
Also, this firewall is used for DDoS protection, CDN performance optimization, signature detection and bot blocking.
The interesting thing about this plugin is that if your website is affected by malware, this plugin will clean it without any charge.
In addition to all the features, Sucuri has scanners that detect malware, bugs, outdated code, and blacklist status. This feature is also available for the free version.
4. Defender
By offering a set of user-friendly features, Defender has become one of the best WordPress security plugins. The range of features that are offered in the free version of this plugin is very impressive. For example, this option provides a firewall with IP blocking for free. Also, this version includes malware scanning capabilities, insecure login protection, threat notifications, and two-factor authentication via Google.
But you can pay $49 per month and upgrade to Defender Pro to get advanced services such as the ability to schedule automatic scans, more in-depth reporting of security issues, and advanced support.
The price of this version varies according to the number of websites you have. Also, this version provides an audit report where the performance of all users is tracked.
In addition to all the mentioned features, no matter which version you get, this plugin also includes instant email notifications about security issues on your WordPress website.
5. All In One WP Security and Firewall
But another option to choose for the best WordPress security plugin is All in One WordPress Security, which allows you to easily apply WordPress security best practices to your website.
The interesting thing about this versatile plugin is that all its services are provided for free. Some of these services include:
- Malware and website vulnerability scanning
- Login protection
- Comment spam protection
- Monitor users
- Database support
- Firewall
- Backup htaccess and wp-config files
And many other services that are very useful for increasing the security of your website.
Choosing the best WordPress security plugin
Among the options introduced in this article, iThemes Security and Wordfence are two of the most reliable and popular options. But the features of these two are very similar to each other, so they confuse the users to choose the best WordPress security plugin.
If we want to choose a winner among these two, we have to say that WordPress is the winner of this competition. Compared to the competing option, this plugin is more comprehensive in terms of web security and includes features such as a firewall, free solutions, and a malware scanner.
Of course, although WordPress is known as the most powerful WordPress security plugin, you should note that this plugin is a commercial (paid) plugin. While in All in one security plugin provides all services for free, although this plugin is not as powerful as WordPress.
All in all, if you are looking for a free security plugin, All In One WP Security & Firewall, Sucuri Security (free version) or Wordfence Security are the best options available. Otherwise, be aware that the paid versions of Sucuri Security and iThemes Security plugins are the most expensive
