WordPress is one of the best content management systems that provide endless opportunities for website optimization.
And these optimizations could be easily achieved using WordPress plugins.
The official WordPress directory offers around 60,624 free plugins, catering to almost every feature required for any website.
With such variety, it’s important to choose the best plugins with enhanced security, reputation, speed, and performance.
By assessing these factors, I have created a collection of the best WordPress plugins in 2023 appropriate for various websites, such as blogs, e-commerce shops, portfolio sites, and online business websites.
We also stayed up-to-date on the latest WordPress trends and recommendations, ensuring that our list is comprehensive and reliable.
Most of the WordPress plugins I have mentioned are free and will fulfill all your website customization needs.
Elementor is an amazing WordPress plugin that is widely used by website owners to build visually stunning landing pages and websites without having to write a single line of code.
They offer so many unique features that make it easy to use with a lot of functionalities and creative designs.
Powering over 10 million websites, Elementor’s popularity continues to rise.
Its user-friendliness makes it a top-page builder plugin choice for website creators.
Key Features
Elementor offers the following robust features:
It has a drag-and-drop editor for users to customize pages without coding skills.
Pre-made templates with over 300 options to choose from.
The plugin has 100+ widgets, including integration with popular tools.
Headers & Footers optimization
Woocommerce integration
Available in 50+ languages with RTL integration and multilingual support.
Elementor’s WordPress theme has an optimized speed of under 250ms with a 100% page speed score.
Over 300 million pages have been created by users using Elementor.
Rating
Elementor is a popular and reliable WordPress plugin for page building, with a 4.7/5 official rating, and 10M+ downloads.
Pricing
Elementor offers three premium plans for its plugin along with a free version:
Elementor Free: It also offers a free plan which provides limited access to Elementor features and does not include pro templates, custom CSS, forms, pricing tables, share buttons, and other integrations. (Download Free)
Essential Plan: It is the most basic paid option, offering use on 1 website for $59 per year.
Expert Plan: It’s the most popular plan with an offering for 25 websites for $199 annually.
Agency Plan: This is the plan for digital agencies, offering 1000 websites for $399 annually.
All the premium plans provide access to all Elementor Pro features and it also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
If you have a budget, I strictly recommend you to go with its premium plan with all the features.
RankMath is a highly recommended SEO plugin for WordPress with over 1.8 million active installations in 2023.
This tool makes it easy to customize important SEO settings, control which pages are indexable, and how you want your website to appear in search with Structured data.
RankMath makes it easy for anyone to optimize their content with built-in suggestions based on widely-accepted best practices and also offers a wide range of features, making it a top choice for users who want to improve their website’s SEO.
Key Features
Clean, & simple user interface
Easy to follow Setup Wizard
Offers options for a Personal Content AI Assistant that optimize their content for readability, tone, and more.
Built-In Advanced SEO Analytics Module
Recommended by best SEOs like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Backlinko.
The plugin offers advanced keyword optimization features, including tracking rankings, analyzing keyword density, and suggesting LSI keywords.
RankMath provides users schema markup options to improve their website’s visibility in search engine results pages.
Advanced Image SEO Module
WooCommerce SEO Pro and Complete Easy Digital Downloads SEO incorporations
89+ advanced features in one tool.
24/7 customer support
Rating
RankMath is a highly rated SEO plugin, with a 4.9/5 official rating on WordPress.
Pricing
RankMath offers both a free and a premium version.
Free Version: The free Version provides many SEO features that are required for a beginner website with limitations on tracking keywords, Analytics integration, keyword rank tracker, etc. (Download Free)
The premium versions:
Pro Plan: Perfect For Bloggers, Individuals & Solopreneurs with unlimited personal websites, 15 free Content AI Credits, tracking 500 Keywords, and costs $59 per year with 24/7 support.
Business plan: Perfect For Freelancers, Business, & Agency Owners with additional features supporting 100 client websites, Free 125 Content AI Credits, and tracking 10,000 Keywords costs $199 per year.
Agency plan: Perfect For agency owners costing $499 per year for up to 500 client sites, free 600 content AI credits, and tracking 50,000 Keywords.
Overall, RankMath’s pricing is affordable and competitive compared to other SEO plugins as in the image below.
RankMath also provides a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Akismet is a popular spam protection plugin for WordPress, with over 5 million active installations since 2005.
It protects websites from spam comments, trackbacks, and contact form submissions.
Akismet uses advanced algorithms to analyze incoming data and identify spam, helping users save time and improve website security.
Key Features
Automatically finds all comments and filters out the ones that look like spam.
The plugin maintains a history of all comments identified as spam, allowing users to review and restore any legitimate comments that may have been flagged incorrectly.
Akismet provides detailed statistics on website spam activity, including the number of spam comments blocked and the accuracy of the spam filter.
The plugin offers options for comment moderation, including the ability to blacklist or whitelist certain users or keywords.
Akismet is compatible with a wide range of WordPress themes and plugins, making it a flexible solution for website owners.
Rating
Akismet is a highly rated plugin, with a 4.7/5 official rating on the WordPress plugin repository.
Pricing
There is a wide range of plans to choose from with Akismet.
This plugin is redefined to suit various technical purposes. Here are the four plans available:
Personal Plan: This free Plan is suitable for a personal site or blogs and only offers spam protection for anyone who opt-in. You can also pay for this plan as your wish. (Download Free)
Plus Plan: The most popular premium package offers spam protection for users with 10K to 40K API calls/month and 4 plan levels for unlimited sites with priority support at $8.33/month on yearly payments.
Enterprise Plan: Spam protection for unlimited sites and priority support with 60K API calls/month at $41.67/month when billed yearly.
Enterprise Plus: It’s a customized plan that offers a custom API limit with priority support. The payment is also based on your needs.
OptinMonster is a famous pop-up builder and lead generation plugin for WordPress.
It is designed to help website owners convert visitors into subscribers, customers, and leads through highly targeted and customizable pop-ups, forms, and lead-generation tools.
OptinMonster is trusted by over 1 million users worldwide as of 2023, including some of the world’s leading brands like McAfee, Harvard, and Pinterest.
Key Features
It comes with a drag-and-drop builder for making popups without any coding knowledge and also provides 26+ monster effects like animations and sounds.
It helps to easily create highly targeted and customizable pop-ups, floating bars, slide-ins, and more without coding or design skills.
Multiple campaign triggers including exit-intent, time-based, location-based, and more.
It helps to test different campaigns, messages, and designs to optimize your conversion rates and track your results with real-time analytics.
Integration with popular email marketing and CRM platforms, including Mailchimp, Hubspot, and more.
Advanced features, including countdown timers, dynamic text replacement, and more.
Rating
OptinMonster has an average rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 621 reviews.
Pricing
Optinmonster doesn’t offer a free plan.
OptinMonster offers four pricing plans: Basic, Plus, Pro, and Growth.
Basic Plan: It can be used on 1 site and includes vital features such as unlimited campaigns, unlimited subscribers, and 2,500 page views at $9 per month billed annually.
Plus Plan: includes all features in the basic plan and provides access to 2 sites with 10,000 pageviews, A/B testing, content locking, and advanced analytics at $19 per month when billed annually.
Pro Plan: It provides usage on 3 sites with 25,000 pageviews with countdown timers, lead sharing, and exit intent technology at $29 per month when billed annually.
Growth Plan: Usage for 5 sites with 100,000 Pageviews, custom branding, and javascript at $49 per month when billed annually.
A 14-day refund guarantee is also available for all plans.
UpdraftPlus is a popular WordPress backup plugin allowing website owners to back up, restore, and migrate their WordPress websites easily.
The plugin is trusted by over 3 million users worldwide and is considered one of the best backup solutions for WordPress websites.
Key Features
Back up your entire website, including files, database, themes, and plugins, and restore your website with a single click.
Multiple backup options, including manual and scheduled backups and automatic backups to remote locations such as Dropbox, Microsoft one drive Google Drive, and more.
Migration and cloning: easily migrate or clone your website to a new host or domain name.
Advanced features, including encryption, multisite support, and more.
Rating
UpdraftPlus has an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars, based on 6330 reviews.
Pricing
UpdraftPlus offers users both free and paid versions of the plugin.
Free Version: includes essential features such as manual and scheduled backups and backup to remote locations. (Download Free)
Paid Version
Personal Plan: This is the most basic premium plan starting at $70 per year for 2 sites.
Business Plan: This Plan permits up to 10 sites with all essential features at $95 per year.
Agency Plan: Starting at $145 per year, this package fixes all the backup options for up to 35 sites.
Enterprise Plan: This package supports unlimited websites for all the features at $195 per year.
Gold Plan: It is a 3 in 1 package that combines the three major premium packages, including unlimited Updraft licenses, unlimited Updraft central cloud, and additional 50GB Updraft vault storage at $399 per year.
No refunds or money-back is available on Updraft plans.
Sucuri Security is a powerful and widely-used WordPress plugin that protects website owners against online security threats.
With its advanced features, Sucuri Security is trusted by over 500,000 websites worldwide, including many of the world’s top brands and organizations.
The plugin’s comprehensive security features include malware scanning and removal, firewall protection, blacklist monitoring and removal, and post-hack security and cleanup.
Key Features
Sucuri detects and removes malware and other security threats from your website with regular scanning and monitoring.
With a robust firewall and other security measures, this plugin protects your website against hacking, DDoS attacks, and other security threats.
It also monitors your website’s security status and removes it from blocklists if necessary.
Recover your website after a security breach, and ensure that your website is secure and clean.
Advanced features, including SSL support, two-factor authentication, and more.
24/7 customer support.
Rating
Sucuri Security is highly regarded by users, with a rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars on WordPress.
This rating is based on feedback from over 400 users who have shared their experiences using the plugin.
Pricing
Sucuri doesn’t offer a free version to its users, and all its premium plans cover usage on 1 site and are as follows:
Basic Platform: At $199.99 per year, this offer covers 30 hours of malware removal SLA, advanced security scans every 12 hours, and basic SSL Support & monitoring.
Pro Platform: With advanced support for fast SSL certificate transfers, the plan is an excellent choice for SMBs site with additional features such as advanced security scans every 6 hours and 12 hours Malware Removal SLA for $299.99 per year.
Business Platform: For $499.99 per year, the Sucuri Security plugin provides the fastest response time of 6 hours malware removal SLA and frequent scans every 30 mins to help prevent vulnerabilities.
Multisite & Custom Plans: This platform is designed for web professionals and agencies seeking enterprise-level features and multi-site coverage with pricing available upon request.
All these premium plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Contextual Related Posts is a desired WordPress plugin that allows users to display related content on their websites easily.
With its advanced features, the plugin offers a range of benefits for website owners, including increased user engagement and improved search engine rankings.
Key Features
Customizable display options for related posts.
Options to exclude specific categories and tags.
Automatic placement of associated posts on pages and posts.
Option to display thumbnails for related posts.
Built-in caching to improve site speed and performance.
Compatibility with popular page builders and themes.
Rating
The Contextual Related Posts plugin has an impressive rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on WordPress.
Pricing
The plugin is free on WordPress.org, making it an affordable option for website owners of all sizes. (Download Free)
WPForms is one of the most sought-after and user-friendly WordPress plugins for creating forms on your website.
With its drag-and-drop interface, pre-built templates, and advanced features, WPForms makes it easy for website owners to create professional-looking documents that can help them gather feedback, and much more.
Key Features
Drag-and-drop form builder with pre-built templates.
Customizable form fields and layouts.
Integration with popular email marketing and payment platforms.
Advanced features like conditional logic, file uploads, and surveys.
Mobile responsive forms that work on any device.
Spam protection and security features to keep your data safe.
Rating
WPForms has an impressive rating of 4.9/5 stars on WordPress.org, based on feedback from over 12,725 users.
Pricing
WPForms is available in both free and premium versions.
The free Version is ideal for primary forms and includes essential features such as a drag-and-drop form builder and pre-built templates. (Download Free)
The premium versions include:
Basic Plan: For only $49.50 per year, it provides essential tools for building an online form like form templates, page builder support, and standard support with unlimited forms, submissions, and users for 1 website.
Plus Plan: It’s priced at $99.50 per year for 3 sites and includes additional features like marketing integrations and forms automation.
Pro Plan: For $199.50 per year, the pro plan provides payments integration, 600+ form templates, conversion tools, and priority support on up to 5 sites, along with all the features of the Plus plan.
Elite Plan: The elite solution for business owners includes unlimited usage of WPForms on unlimited sites, premium integrations, and priority support at $299.50 per year.
Broken Link Checker is a prominent WordPress plugin that scans your website for broken links and missing images, helping to improve your site’s user experience and SEO.
Key Features
Detects broken links and missing images in posts, pages, and comments
Notifies you via email or dashboard when broken links are found.
Allows you to edit or unlink broken links directly from the plugin’s interface
Manage external links, including if links are nofollow, open in a new tab, UGC options, etc.
It has the option to prevent search engines from following broken links.
Rating
The plugin has an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on the WordPress.org website.
Pricing
The plugin is free to download and use. (Download Free)
MonsterInsights is a popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that helps website owners track their website traffic and user behavior.
The plugin has over 3 million active installations and is trusted by leading brands and organizations.
Key Features
Quick and easy installation of universal analytics and GA4 for your WordPress site.
Customizable reports and insights on your website traffic, user behavior, and content performance right in your dashboard.
E-commerce tracking to monitor your online store’s performance and revenue
Outbound link tracking, affiliate link tracking, and enhanced link attribution.
Integration with popular marketing and advertising tools like Google Ads, WooCommerce, WP Forms, and Mailchimp.
GDPR and CCPA compliance to ensure the protection of user data and privacy.
Rating
MonsterInsights has an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars, based on over 2,592 reviews on WordPress.
Pricing
It provides both a free version as well as paid plans.
The free plan provides access to the Google Analytics dashboard, real-time tracking, audience report, content report, forms report, site speed report, and more. (Download Free)
The paid versions provide more advanced features and are as follows:
Plus Plan: For $99.50/year it is built for use on 1 site with unlimited pageviews, unlimited users, standard analytics features, standard reports, standard tracking, and growth tools like headline analyzer and smart URL builder.
Pro Plan: For $199.50/year it is designed for use on 5 sites with advanced analytics features, reports tracking, advanced analytics, and advanced growth tools like A/B testing.
Agency Plan: For $399.50/year this package can be used on up to 25 sites with the availability of all features in pro and additional such as WordPress multisite support, client license management, and premium support.
Overall, there is a 100% 14-day money-back guarantee on this plugin.
RafflePress is a popular WordPress giveaway plugin that enables site owners to create effective and engaging giveaways to boost user engagement and grow their email list.
It also has 20,000+ active WordPress installations.
Key Features
Drag and drop giveaway builder with pre-designed templates.
Multiple giveaway actions such as refer-a-friend, social media following, and email subscription.
Integration with popular email marketing services such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and more.
Fraud protection and winner verification tools.
Mobile responsive and optimized for speed.
Rating
RafflePress has a rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars on WordPress.org.
Pricing
RafflePress offers a free plan as well as multiple pricing plans:
Free Plan: The free plan includes basic giveaway solutions to the websites, but if you want greater customization options, I recommend going with the premium plan. (Download Free)
Plus Plan: Use on 1 site at $39.50/year with advanced features like time controls, email verification, design options, and more.
Pro Plan: Use on 3 sites at $99.50/year with additional features like email integrations, polls, surveys, etc.
Growth Plan: Use on 20 sites at $199.50/year with refer a friend feature, entries report, giveaway landing page, and integration with Zapier and Webhooks.
Ultimate Plan: For a one-time payment of $499.50, users can get a lifetime license of RafflePress with unlimited sites, lifetime updates, and support.
It also offers a risk-free 14-day money-back guarantee to its users.
WooCommerce, a plugin for WordPress, is freely available as an open-source solution for e-commerce, powering over 5 million+ active online stores.
It is the most popular e-commerce platform in the world, offering a wide range of features and flexibility to create a customizable online store.
It powers over 27% of the world’s top one million online stores.
Key Features
Customizable store design with hundreds of free and premium themes available.
Product management tools, including inventory management, shipping options, and tax settings.
Payment and shipping integration with major providers such as PayPal, Stripe, and FedEx.
Extensive analytics and reporting with real-time data on sales, customer behavior, and website performance.
Marketing tools such as coupons, discounts, and email campaigns to increase customer engagement and retention.
Robust security features include SSL support, secure payments, and data encryption.
Leverage hooks and filters to modify or create functionality.
Priority support options.
Rating
WooCommerce has an excellent rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on WordPress.org, based on over 4,040 reviews.
Pricing
WooCommerce is free to download and use, but additional costs may include hosting fees, premium themes, and extensions for added functionality. (Download Free)
MemberPress is one of the most popular and powerful WordPress membership plugins that allows you to efficiently create and manage a membership site without any technical skills.
Key Features
Easy setup and customization options.
Restrict access to content based on membership levels.
Multiple membership tiers and pricing options.
Automated membership management and renewals.
Payment gateway integrations.
Drip content and course management.
Affiliate program management.
Rating
MemberPress has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot.
Basic Plan: Can be used on 1 site at $179.50/year with unlimited members and courses, payment integration, email automation, and standard support.
Plus Plan: Can be used on 2 sites at $269.55/year unlimited quizzes and certificates, podcast memberships, advanced integrations, and priority support.
Pro Plan: Can be used on 5 sites at $319.60/year with Authorize.net and TaxJar integration, gifted memberships, premium support, and 3 months of free access to Optinmonster.
All the plans come with a 14-day money-backguarantee.
Best WordPress Plugins In 2023 FAQs
What are the best free plugins for WordPress in 2023?
The best free plugins for WordPress in 2023 include RankMath, Akismet, UpdraftPlus, BrokenLinkChecker, Imagify, Thirsty Affiliates, and Social Snap.
What are the essential WordPress plugins that I Should use?
The essential WordPress plugins you should use are RankMath for SEO, WPRocket for speed, Sucuri for security, Social Snap for sharing buttons, Updraft Plus for backups, and more.
How many plugins should I use in WordPress?
The number of plugins you should use in WordPress depends on your site’s needs. But, don’t install unnecessary plugins which don’t have any use. For a WordPress website with advanced features, the plugin count can even go to 50+ plugins.
Conclusion
There is no one-list-fits-all solution for WordPress plugins, but with the options on this list, your WordPress website will have plenty of useful features with optimization for speed and SEO.
This list of 17 best WordPress plugins for 2023 will help you get the optimal performance for your site.
Not only are these plugins easy to use, but the majority of them are also free.
Try them out today, and take your WordPress website to the next level!
