Tools & Resources

Page caching, image optimization, and CSS and JavaScript tuning in one plugin. On a LiteSpeed server it caches at the server level, which no ordinary PHP caching plugin can match. It also connects to QUIC.cloud, a CDN with a free tier.

The catch: its page cache only works on a LiteSpeed server. On any other host, use the caching your host recommends instead. And never run two caching plugins at once — it’s one of the most common causes of a mysteriously broken site.

Cost: free.

Titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, schema markup and search-result previews. We picked it over Yoast because the free version includes a redirect manager and a 404 monitor — both paid features in Yoast — and those two are exactly what you need the first time you rename a post.

Cost: free version.

Scheduled backups of your files and database, stored off your hosting account — ours go to Dropbox. That off-host part matters. Your host’s backups are a useful second layer, but if the problem is your hosting account itself, backups kept inside it can’t help you.

Cost: free version.

Login protection, a firewall, two-factor login and file-change detection. Wordfence is the better-known choice; we went with AIOS because it’s lighter on shared hosting, and because it’s made by the same team as UpdraftPlus — one vendor and one way of doing things across the two plugins you’d least want to go wrong.

Two plugins, two different doors. Antispam Bee filters comment spam without an account and without sending your comments to an outside service to be checked — unlike Akismet, whose free plan is for personal, non-commercial sites. Turnstile guards the contact and newsletter forms using Cloudflare’s CAPTCHA replacement, which usually verifies visitors without making them click on traffic lights.

Cost: both free. Turnstile needs a free Cloudflare account.

WordPress’s built-in email is unreliable — messages go out without the authentication mail servers look for, and quietly land in spam. FluentSMTP routes them through a proper email service instead (we use Brevo) and keeps a log, so you can see whether a message actually left.

If you’ve ever lost a password reset or a contact-form message, switching to SMTP email is the fix, step by step.

Cost: free.

The contact form and newsletter signup. The free version includes conditional logic — showing or hiding fields based on earlier answers — which several competitors keep behind a paywall.

Cost: free version.

The cookie banner, and the more important part you don’t see: it holds back analytics and embedded content until a visitor agrees to them. If you have visitors from the EU, a banner that doesn’t actually block anything is worse than useless.

Cost: free version.

Google’s own plugin. It connects Google Analytics and Search Console and puts the headline numbers in your dashboard. Search Console is the one to care about first: it tells you what people searched to find you, and what Google thinks is wrong with your site.

Cost: free.

SimpleTOC builds the table of contents at the top of long articles automatically, from their headings. TablePress manages the comparison tables — each table is kept in one place, so updating a price means editing it once rather than hunting through every post that shows it. Code Block Pro displays code with syntax highlighting and a copy button.

Cost: all free.

Under the hood

The plugins you may not notice but we couldn’t live without.

• WPCode Lite — adds small pieces of custom code without editing theme files, so a theme update can’t wipe them out. Every custom tweak on this site lives here.
• Pretty Links — turns long, messy links into short, readable ones and counts clicks. It also means that if a destination ever changes, we update the link once instead of in every post.
• Smart Custom 404 Error Page — lets an ordinary page act as the “page not found” screen, so it can be built in the editor like anything else.
• Spectra — extra blocks for the block editor, made by the same company as Astra. Most of the layouts on the home page are Spectra blocks.
• Smash Balloon X (Twitter) Feed — the X feed on the home page. Honestly the most optional thing on this list.
• WP4Newbies Brevo Sync — the one we wrote ourselves. It passes newsletter signups from Fluent Forms to Brevo, with a confirmation email before anyone is added to the list.