9 Must Have Free WordPress Plugins (2023) – Essential & Free Plugins

Do you have a WordPress website or are planning to start one? Then this article is for you!

As you know, WordPress has an extensive library of plugins where you can find anything from image galleries, contact forms, social media buttons, and more! These fancy plugins might improve the appearance of your website, but what about its overall performance and security? 

Must Have WordPress Plugins

This article addresses exactly that! Today, I’m going to reveal the Must-have Free WordPress Plugins along with their major features. I have personally been using WordPress for the last 7 years and these recommendations are based on my personal experience.

Doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or experienced WordPress user, these WordPress plugins will definitely benefit your website. So, with no more ado, let us jump straight into our article!

9 Best Must-Have Free WordPress Plugins

1. Security Plugin – iThemes Security

Website security has become an issue of prime importance these days. Where thousands of websites are getting hacked daily, a simple security plugin can safeguard your website from all online threats.

iThemes Security

Introducing iThemes Security, a popular and trusted security plugin by iThemes. It has over a million active installations at the moment! 

Ratings4.6/5
Downloads1+ million
AuthoriThemes
CategoryLogin Security, Malware Scanner

Key Features of iThemes Security

Pre-designed Security Templates

Every website requires a different degree of security. With iThemes Security, you get security templates for different website categories like ecommerce site, portfolio site, non-profit site, brochure, etc.  

Secure Logins

You can enable different layers of security on your WordPress website, including Two Factor Authentication and Password Policy in the free plan.

Passwordless Logins, reCaptcha, and Trusted Devices features are available on its Pro version. 

Local and Network Brute Force Protection

You get Brute Force Protection with this plugin which means you can ban users that are repeatedly trying to access your site.

Website Health Monitoring

With Security Logs, you can keep track of suspicious activity on your site. Advanced features like Site Scanner, User Logging, and Version Management can be availed on the Pro plan.

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • Pro plans start from $80/year.
  • 30-day money-back guarantee on all pro plans.

2. SEO Plugin – RankMath SEO

SEO is an essential factor for ranking your WordPress website on search engines. But manually optimizing every post can be a troublesome process.

The solution is RankMath! It is the first AI-powered SEO plugin, popularly called the ‘Swiss Army Knife of WordPress SEO’.

RankMath Plugin

RankMath is an all-in-one Search Engine Optimization plugin for optimizing your posts and improving your rankings quickly!

RankMath can be a game changer for bloggers, local business, startups, niche sites, ecommerce site owners, vloggers, and more!

Ratings4.9/5
Downloads1+ million
AuthorRank Math
CategoryGoogle Search Console, SEO
Official Websitehttps://rankmath.com/

Key Features of RankMath

Easy to Use

Unlike other SEO plugins, RankMath is friendly and easy-to-use for beginners. It seamlessly integrates with your website and offers a smooth experience. 

Simple On-Page SEO

With RankMath, it is easy to configure on-page SEO settings like adding metadata, schema, redirections, creating XML sitemaps, etc.

Track Keywords

If you wish to track a specific keyword, RankMath can keep a check on its search ranking on Google SERP. (Also check out Frase and MarketMuse for researching keywords, blog ideas, and optimizing your posts!)

Automatic SEO Suggestions

Once you specify the kind of website you have, it automatically detects and configures the best SEO practices for you. 

Create Website Schema

It helps you create schema for your website so your content is easily understood by Google search engine. 

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • Paid plans start from $59/year

Cache Plugins

Does your website take a long time to load? Trust me, I’ve been there too. Slow websites negatively impact your audience and are also bad for SEO! 

A good cache plugin can help you improve the speed and performance of your website to a great extent. However, every caching plugin doesn’t work for every website. It depends on the type of server used by your hosting.

Below, I have discussed a few cache plugins for different types of servers. 

3. WP Rocket Cache Plugin

WP Rocket is a premium plugin for managing cache on your WordPress website. It is one of the most powerful caching tools for all kinds of websites. It is suitable for bloggers, freelancers, agencies, and ecommerce sites!

Wp Rocket

Even I use the same plugin on my blog. In my opinion, if you need a paid cache plugin, WP Rocket would be your best bet!

RatingsN.A.
Downloads2.1M+ websites optimized
AuthorJonathan Buttigieg, Jean-Baptiste, and Marchand-Arvier
CategoryCache Management
Official Websitehttps://wp-rocket.me/

Key Features of WP Rocket

No Configurations Required

You don’t need to make any manual configurations to this plugin. As soon as you install it, it immediately makes over 80% of the optimizations to speed up your site.

Stores Static HTML

WP Rocket stores a static HTML of your content on desktop and mobile devices so it can be accessed faster whenever a user requests for it. 

Compatible With Range of Themes and Plugins

It supports a variety of popular WordPress themes and third party plugins including Elementor, Astra, Beaver Builder, Jetpack, Yoast, WordFence, WPForms, WooCommerce, and many more.

Lazy Loading

You can activate lazy loading for your media files so they only load when in view. This helps improve your page loading speed. 

Optimize Fonts and Databases

With WP Rocket, you can quickly optimize your Google fonts as well as databases to load faster and ultimately improve SEO and conversions! 

Additional Settings

WP Rocket also offers CSS and JavaScript minification. Additionally, you can also enable preloading cache for enhancing the page loading speeds.

It comes with a range of add-ons like Google Analytics, Varnish Cache, Facebook Pixel, Cloudflare, and Sucuri.

Price

  • No free plan. 
  • Pricing plans start from $49/year (for one website).

4. LiteSpeed Cache Plugin

LiteSpeed Cache plugin is an all-in-one cache solution designed by Litespeed Technologies. It has over 3 million active WordPress installations, which makes it a secure and trustworthy tool!

Litespeed Cache plugin

It comes with a variety of optimization features for your website. If your hosting uses LiteSpeed servers, then LiteSpeed Cache plugin would be the best option for you.

Ratings4.8/5
Downloads3M+
AuthorLiteSpeed Technologies
CategoryCache Management
Official Websitehttps://www.litespeedtech.com/products/cache-plugins/wordpress-acceleration

Key Features of LiteSpeed

Server-Level Full Page Caching

It communicates with LiteSpeed Web Server and caches static copies of web pages. This ensures blazing speeds for your visitors. 

Compatible with a Range of Platforms

It is compatible with popular themes, plugins, and page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Contact Form 7, Wordfence Security, Yoast SEO, etc. 

CDN Support 

You don’t need to use a  different plugin for CDN if you have LiteSpeed Cache. It caches content on the server for your visitors and thus speeds up your website.

Minification of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML

It removes all white spaces, comments, etc from your scripts and thus reduces the size of your code so it executes faster.

Image and Database Optimization 

LiteSpeed Cache plugin reduces your image size and also supports WebP format for swift loading speeds. It also keeps your database small and efficient.

Lazy Loading Support

You can enable the lazy loading feature to only download those images visible on the screen. This helps reduce loading speeds. 

Browser Cache Support

It can cache static content on the viewer’s device locally to speed up your website loading time. 

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • No paid plan. However, exclusive features can only be used if you have either Open LiteSpeed, LiteSpeed products, LiteSpeed Hosting, or QUIC.cloud CDN.

5. W3 Total Cache Plugin

W3 Total Cache is a WordPress plugin by BoldGrid that is designed to improve the speed, performance, and the overall user experience of your website. There are over 1 million active installations of the W3 Total Cache plugin as of now!

w3 Total Cache

If your hosting uses the Nginx servers, you can definitely check it out!

Ratings4.4/5
Downloads1+million
AuthorBoldGrid
CategoryCaching, CDN, SEO
Official Websitehttps://www.boldgrid.com/w3-total-cache/

Key Features of W3 Total Cache

  • It is compatible with most shared hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS Hosting services.
  • It brings 10x speed improvement after configuration.
  • You get mobile support so users on their mobile can access your site as swiftly as someone surfing through their desktop!
  • It performs on-disk and CDN caching of compressed pages, posts, and scripts.
  • Minifies HTML, CSS, and JS files to save up to 80% of your bandwidth. 
  • Caches database, objects, and fragments in memory or on disk. 
  • Supports Lazy Loading, WebP images conversion, and Browser caching

Price

  • Free Plan available.
  • Pro plan comes for $99/year for 1 site. 

6. Autoptimize Cache Plugin

Autoptimize is an optimization plugin developed by Frank Goossens for WordPress websites. It has over 1 million active installations and it is frequently updated with bug fixes and performance improvements.

Autoptimize

If your web hosting uses Nginx servers, this plugin would be a good choice for you!

Ratings4.7/5
Downloads1+ million
AuthorFrank Goossens
CategoryCaching, Optimization

Key Features of Autoptimize

  • It is compatible with all web hosting services.
  • It helps in optimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript settings
  • You can quickly aggregate and minify your scripts.
  • Lets you remove white spaces from your code to make it lightweight and efficient. 
  • It can serve images in WebP and AVIF formats for faster speeds. 
  • You also get an inbuilt integration with ShortPixel. 
  • It supports Lazy Loading for images.
  • It optimizes Google fonts to load faster. 

Price

  • It’s a free WordPress plugin. 
  • No paid plan available.

7. Spam Control Plugin – Antispam Bee

As soon as you create your WordPress Blog, Spam bombards your comment box, isn’t it? But here’s an easy way to prevent this situation.

Autoptimize

Antispam Bee is a well-known free plugin that controls spam on your blog posts. With over 700k active installations, you can trust this plugin to take care of your security! 

Ratings4.8/5
Downloads700k+
Authorpluginkollektiv
CategoryAnti-spam
Official Websitehttps://antispambee.pluginkollektiv.org/

Key Features of AntiSpam Bee

GDPR Compliant

It is GDPR Compliant, which means you can request a copy of your personal data possessed by them. 

Anti-Spam Filter

It has a powerful AntiSpam Filter which lets you block or allow comments from specific countries and languages, trust approved comments or comments with Gravatar, validate a commenter’s IP address, etc. 

Manage Spam Comments

It lets you manage, block, or delete unwanted comments on your website and receive email notifications for spam comments. 

Spam Reports

You can get daily reports about spam comments blocked under your WordPress dashboard.   

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • No paid plan.

8. SMTP Plugin – WP Mail SMTP

SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol for all email communications. 

A correct SMTP configuration makes use of authentication to ensure all your mails reach the receiver. Without proper authentication, your emails end up in the Spam folder or don’t get delivered!

WP Mail SMTP

So, if you are troubled with your WordPress website not sending emails, try WP Mail SMTP. 

WP Mail SMTP is an SMTP plugin developed by WPForms and has over 2 million downloads at the moment! 

Ratings4.8/5
Downloads2+ million
AuthorWPForms
CategorySMTP

Key Features of WP Mail SMTP

Easy to  Set Up 

WP Mail SMTP comes with an easy setup wizard and installation process. You don’t need any technical knowledge to get started with this plugin.

This plugin works well with all the popular email services like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.

Integration with SMTP Services

It integrates with a range of SMTP services like Smtp.com, Sendinblue, Mailgun, Gmail, SparkPost, Amazon, Zoho, and more!

Keep Email Logs

The WordPress Email Logs feature of WP Mail SMTP keeps track of all the emails sent from your site and also helps you analyze email engagements. 

Easy Migrations

If you want to migrate from any other SMTP tool, you get easy one-click migrations with this plugin!  

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • Paid plans start from $49/year.

9. Image Optimization Plugin – Smush

Do you know that media files stored on your website can slow down your website speed? In this situation, it becomes essential to use an image optimization plugin!

Smush plugin

Smush is a popular WordPress image optimization plugin, trusted by over 1 million users today!

Unlike other image optimization tools, Smush does not reduce your image quality. It simply strips off bulky and unnecessary information from your images and reduces their size without compromising with their quality. 

Ratings4.8
Downloads1+ million
AuthorWPMU DEV
CategoryImage Compression, Optimization, Lazy Loading

Key Features of Smush

Bulk Image Compression

Smush removes all the unnecessary data from your images and reduces your file size without affecting its quality.  It supports WEBP compressions and lets you compress images stored in other folders as well! 

The free version lets you bulk compress upto 50 images at a time!

Smush integrates with all your favorite WordPress plugins, including WP Media Folder, Envira Gallery, etc, so you can rest assured that your plugins won’t malfunction with Smush installed on your dashboard. 

Incorrect Image Size Detection

It highlights the images with incorrect sizes and offers helpful tips on scaling them. 

Lazy Load Images

If you have lots of images on your web page, you can enable lazy loading so that those images only load when they are visible on the screen. This will help you enhance your page speed. 

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • Paid plans start at $5/month.
  • 21-day free trial provided.

10. Backups Plugin – UpdraftPlus

Just like all other platforms on the Internet, WordPress isn’t safe from online hacks, and security threats either. Thus, it’s always wise to keep your website data protected from unexpected accidents and threats! 

Updraft Plus

UpdraftPlus is one of the best WordPress plugins for taking secure backups of your database and WordPress content. It essentially eases out the process of creating and restoring backups. 

It has over 3 million active installations and lets you easily store your backups on cloud platforms with a single click!

Ratings4.8/5
Downloads3+ million
AuthorDavid Anderson
CategoryDatabase Backup, WordPress Backup, Restore, Cloud Backup
Official Websitehttps://updraftplus.com/

Key Features of UpdraftPlus

Backup to Cloud Services

With UpdraftPlus, you can store your website backups on both paid and free cloud services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Updraft Vault, and more. 

Automatic Backups

You can specify backup schedules for automatically performing your backups at fixed time intervals. 

Fast Backups

Unlike other backup plugins, UpdraftPlus is known for performing quicker backups and consuming lesser server resources

Restore Website

In case your website data is accidentally erased or lost, it lets you effortlessly restore your website to a previous state.

Price

  • Free plan available.
  • Paid plans start from $70.

Which WordPress Plugin Should You Avoid?

If you are a beginner on WordPress and don’t have a consistent audience yet, I would highly recommend you to avoid installing the Forms plugin, for instance, WPForms Lite.

For example, you might want to add a Contact Form plugin on the ‘Contact Us’ page of your website so people can contact you for queries and feedback. But this might lead to a lot of spam comments instead.

Website ss

It is much better to simply mention your email address so only legitimate users can contact you. I have done the same on my personal blog.

Conclusion

So, these were some of the Best Free WordPress Plugins that should be installed on every WordPress site for enhanced security and performance. If you wish to implement additional security on your website, here are a few WordPress Security Tips that you can follow!

Anyway, what are some other useful plugins that you use on your website? Have you used any of the plugins mentioned in this article? How has your experience been with them? Let me know in the comments box below! 

For more such informative content, you can join my weekly newsletter. This is Kripesh signing off. Take care and keep learning. Cheers! 🙂

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Kripesh Adwani

Kripesh Adwani is a digital tool expert who buys, tests, and reviews SAAS tools for small businesses. Based on 10+ years of experience in tech he provides insightful reviews. His content is widely consumed, serving millions of users each month. Kripesh has also been featured in more than 50 publications, including The Economic Times, The Free Press Journal & Cloudways.

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