Basic WordPress + Elementor plug-ins

In this article

All of these plugins are free ro have a free version and I use them on a regular basis on my own and client sites. 

If you find a plugin useful I encourage you to leave a great rating on the plugin page, make a donation to the author (where requested) or buy the premium version.  The plugins on this page are the result of many hundreds or thousands of hours of work in coding, maintenance and customer support.  Remember that the author needs to feed themselves and their families and feel that what they have produced is valued by their users.

Minimal Security

First things first!  These are the minimal plug-ins I use to make the site more secure.  Installed at the very beginning for a project.

Loginizer

The free version implements Brute Force protection.

Loginizer

Disable WP REST API

Disable the public WP REST API, preventing public enumeration of all your user names.  The REST API is untouched for authenticated users.

Test this in case any aspect of your site requires access to the unauthenticated REST API.

Compatibility:

  • Contact Form 7 ajax requests rejected – Dave McHales plugin has specific exclusion for CF7.

Disable WP REST API

If you need certain REST endpoints, or need to authorise access for specific users, you could try this plug-in which provides detailed config by user and endpoint. 

Disable REST API

Disable XML-RPC

This can be disabled on many simple WP installations.  See the notes in the following article to see if it’s appropriate for your WP install.  This tells you how to disable using a plugin, .htaccess or using a WP filter in code.

How to Enable and Disable XMLRPC.PHP in WordPress and Why

Disable User Login

Disable User Login

Extra Tools

Extra tools to help your WordPress workflow.

Default featured image

Default featured image

Admin Menu Editor

Admin Menu Editor

Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR

Cookie Notice & Compliance for GDPR / CCPA

Import and export users and customers

Import and export users and customers

Import any XML or CSV File to WordPress

Import any XML or CSV File to WordPress

Imsanity

Imsanity

Redirection

Redirection

WP Crontrol

WP Crontrol

Yoast Duplicate Post

Yoast Duplicate Post

 

 

Elementor Extras

Extra addon’s to help your Elementor workflow and page building.

Elementor Custom Skin

Create and edit your own loop templates.

Elementor Custom Skin

Flexible Elementor Panel

Flexible Elementor Panel

Lazy Load Elementor Background Images

Not maintained but still works for sub-set of cases – see support threads.

Lazy Load Elementor Background Images

OoohBoi Steroids for Elementor

OoohBoi Steroids for Elementor

Page scroll to id

Page scroll to id

 

WooCommerce Extras

Extra plugins to help your WooCommerce workflow.

Disable Bloat for WordPress & WooCommerce

Disable Bloat for WordPress & WooCommerce

Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer

Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer

Woo Store Vacation

Close the Woo store so no orders can be placed and display message on product pages.

Woo Store Vacation

 

Talking to the outside world

Tools to improve the way WP talks to the outside world.

Speeding Thing Up

Last, but not least, and avoiding the premature optimisation anti-pattern, some tools to help speed up the site.  As for all performance improving strategies, you need to measure the performance then run experiments.  Some things are no brainers, but experience has tought me that more complex optimisations can be infrastructure dependant, so you need to test these against your hositng provider (hardware/webserver/etc).

PHP Version

Always run the latest recommended PHP version.  I usually avoid the first major version increment, e.g. v7.x -> v8.0 for a while as early adoption can often lead to problems with plugins.  However, once WP core supports a PHP version the plugins will follow.  Always test your site after a PHP upgrade and know how to roll back the change.

WP Super Cache

The fastest and easiest way to speed things up.  Many WP optimisation plugins include page caching, but if you want to keep it simple and free.

WP Super Cache

Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

Remove cruft from the pages, minify and combine CSS/JS + more.

Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster

Disable Comments

If you don’t want comments on your site or on specific post types you can disable comments globally or per post type using this plug-in.  This will mean comment related scripts and code will not be loaded got those post types.

Disable Comments – Remove Comments & Stop Spam [Multi-Site Support]