As a website owner, you should always be prepared for all kinds of challenges and situations. Including security breaches and hacker attacks.
Just recently, a massive hack attack on 10,000 WordPress websites turned blogs and websites powered by the popular CMS into sites full of crypto-miners, ransomware, and banking trojans to infest millions of visitors around the world.
This kind of attacks and campaigns aren’t news anymore. With the advancements in technology, hackers now find new ways to detect vulnerabilities and hack into systems. This is especially the case for WordPress since it’s an easier target being the world’s most popular CMS.
To protect your own website, you should periodically perform malware scans, limit login attempts, and setup DDoS protection to keep hackers away from your business websites and blogs. Thankfully, you can take all of these security measures and more with a WordPress plugin.
We wanted to help you find the best security plugin to protect your WordPress website. So we made this comparison of the best WordPress security plugins to make sure that you compare the pros and cons of each security plugin before installing one on your site. Keep reading to find out which plugin is best for your website.
- Price: Free
- Best For: Small websites and blogs
Sucuri is one of the well-known leaders in the cybersecurity industry. This is the WordPress plugin the company developed for CMS users and they made the plugin free for all users. It currently has over 400,000 active users and gets updated fairly regularly as well.
Main Features
Sucuri Security is not an all-in-one security plugin. It focuses on the basics like scanning and monitoring for malicious activity but does those jobs really well.
The plugin comes with file integrity monitoring for checking to see if any of the core files are affected or have vulnerabilities. It also includes malware scanning and blacklist monitoring. Although, the best feature of the plugin is post-hack security actions, which basically gives you advice on what to do if or when your site gets hacked or affected by a malware.
Benefits Of Using Sucuri Security
- Developed by a trustworthy company and it’s regularly updated
- Effective malware scanning detects unusual activity
- Security notifications and auditing will notify you of unusual behavior
- Ability to monitor file integrity
Downsides To Using Sucuri Security
- Outdated user interface is not beginner-friendly
- Website firewall only included in the premium plan
- Price: Free
- Best For: Small websites and blogs
Wordfence is a leading expert in WordPress security. The company managed to make a name for itself by being the first to uncover WordPress and plugin vulnerabilities. Thanks to its research team, Wordfence is always the first to roll-out plugin updates to protect sites against new WordPress vulnerabilities as well. The plugin has more than 2 million active installs.
Main Features
One of the biggest benefits of using Wordfence is that it comes with a website firewall, which is also offered to its free users. It also has a powerful malware scanner with the ability to repair infected files. In addition, it also lets you protect your site against brute force attacks by limiting login attempts.
All of those features are included in the free plan. The premium plan gives you access to two-factor authentication, country blocking, and real-time threat defense feed.
Benefits Of Using Wordfence
- Easy to use and beginner-friendly interface
- Built-in website firewall and malware scanner
- Ability to limit login attempts to prevent brute force attacks
- Monitor Google crawlers, bots, and human visitors to detect unusual behavior
- View and monitor login activity to detect hackers
- Ability to repair damaged files
Downsides To Using Wordfence
- Could have a small impact on website performance
- Price: $80 per year
- Best For: Large websites and magazine blogs
iThemes Security is the premium alternative that comes packed with a lot of features for providing better and hardened security for larger and content-heavy websites. While the plugin offers a free plan, it’s not powerful enough to protect even a small website. Use this plugin only if you plan on buying a premium package.
Main Features
iThemes Security comes with a sleek interface where users get to choose which options they can turn on or off to activate the defenses that are most important to the website.
It not only includes brute force protection and malware scanning but also includes 404 detection and basic database backups to keep your site secure and safe.
The company has adjusted their pricing plans to match different types of users. For $80 per year, you get to protect one website. It’s $127 for 10 websites and $197 for unlimited sites.
Benefits Of Using iThemes Security
- Powerful malware scanning
- Protection against brute force attacks with limit login attempts
- File change detection lets you know if someone changes or alters any important files
- Ability to hide your login and admin URLs
- Built-in Two-Factor Authentication for password security
- Get instant email notifications
Downsides To Using iThemes Security
- Doesn’t include a website firewall
- The free version lacks useful security features
- Slightly expensive pricing plans
- Price: Free / $1 per month
- Best For: Small websites and blogs
Shield Security is a new and one of the lesser-known plugins in the WordPress security market. Although, the plugin offers quite an amazing set of features for protecting your website in every way possible. Plus, the Pro version of the plugin only costs $1 per month. The plugin has more than 80,000 active installs.
Main Features
Even though Shield Security is a new player, the company has done a pretty incredible job developing it to provide a better user experience to complete beginners. The plugin comes with guided Wizards to teach beginners how to configure the plugin step-by-step to get the most out of the plugin features.
It comes with all the important features that you’d expect in a security plugin, including a website firewall, file scanners, and even other additional features like Google reCaptcha and blocking comment spam.
The Pro version of the plugin, which only costs $1 per month, also includes useful features like plugin and theme vulnerability scanning and a hack detection scanner.
Benefits Of Using Shield Security
- Includes a sleek interface and beginner-friendly features
- Limit login attempts to prevent brute force attacks
- 2-Factor Authentication and reCaptcha protection for password security
- Built-in website firewall
- Scan and detect malicious files
- Scan plugin and themes for vulnerabilities (pro)
- Scan and detect hacking attacks (pro)
Downsides To Using Shield Security
- Reliability is questionable since the plugin is new and comes from an independent developer.
- Lacks a malware scanner
- Price: Free / $59 per year
- Best For: Small websites and blogs
SecuPress is another new WordPress security plugin that currently only has a little over 10,000 active installs. Although, the plugin comes with a great system that automates your scans so that you don’t have to manually run scans all by yourself every week.
Main Features
The free version of SecuPress comes with all the basic features, including a website firewall, brute force protection, and ability to hide the login page.
However, the Pro plan is worth considering if you have a larger website since it comes with automated scans, database backups, instant notifications, Two-Factor Authentication, and plugin and theme vulnerability detection.
Benefits Of Using SecuPress
- Malware scanning and website firewall for scanning website for malicious files
- Limit login attempts to prevent brute force attacks
- Two-Factor Authentication and ability to hide the login page (pro)
- Ability to block visitors from specific countries based on geolocation (pro)
- Detect vulnerabilities in themes and plugins (pro)
- PHP malware scanning (pro)
- Detect and block bad bots (pro)
- Automated scanning (pro)
Downsides To Using SecuPress
- Expensive premium plans
- The free version includes limited features
- Reliability is questionable since the plugin is new.
Which Security Plugin Is Right For You?
Coming from one of the biggest authorities in cybersecurity, no plugin can beat the power and protection offered by Sururi Security. As a bonus, you get the plugin for free as well.
However, Sururi plugin also lacks some of the important features, like website firewall and limiting login attempts, which comes built-in with other security plugins like Wordfence. Depending on the type and the size of the website you have, it’s worth testing different security plugins to find the right match for you.
When talking about website security, web hosting is another important aspect that you shouldn’t ignore. Use a secure and managed WordPress hosting provider to avoid being a victim of common hacker attacks.
Platforms like Kinsta and FlyWheel have special security systems in place that makes your sites more secure. In fact, you won’t even need a security plugin to protect your site when hosting with such a secure platform.
