Ever wondered what plugins other WordPress developers use? While not all of these are used on every site, here is my current list of “Go To” plugins and a little about them:
- Advanced Custom Fields – We usually only need for ecommerce sites but comes in handy quite a bit and allows you to introduce logic ranging from simple to very complex
- Classic Editor – Anyone who uses WPBakery (either standalone or bundled with a theme) should install this and set their default editor to Classic Editor
- Custom Post Type UI – If you don’t know what register_post_type() does, this is for you
- Duplicate Page – A real time saver if you need to make several copies of a certain post type
- Gravity Forms (Paid) – In my opinion the best form creator for WordPress. There are also several add-ons that allow all sorts of very robust integrations. The ability to save form submissions to the database and Twilio integrations are almost always a must have for my clients
- Imagify – My pick for image compression
- Templatera (Paid) – Want reusable code? Again, totally worth it instead of updating any number of posts or pages that may have a banner or some common component
- WooCommerce – Used any time a client wants to sell anything online
- Wordfence Security – A software firewall to protect against spammers and hackers. 2FA is my favorite feature
- WP Mail SMTP (Paid) – For clients who are serious about email marketing and want analytics, history, etc.
- WP Rocket – Caching plugin with other upgrade options available like CDN
- Yoast SEO – An excellent plugin that makes SEO super simple
[Developers Only]
I usually only activate these plugins as they are needed
- Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode & Landing Pages by SeedProd – Obviously only necessary if you are working on a new site and don’t want prying eyes but still need it publicly available for users with logins
- Debug Bar – Debugging tool from WordPress.org. Add-ons listed below
- Debug Bar Extender
- Debug Bar Console
- Debug Bar Cron
- Debug Bar Post Meta
- Debug Bar Post Types
- Debug Bar Super Globals
- Query Monitor
- Query Monitor Extend
- Query Monitor: Included files
- User Role Editor – Useful when working with 3rd party plugins
- User Switching – Does what the name implies
- WordPress Admin Style – Helps you design admin pages that look right at home
- WP Activity Log – SEE EVERYTHING that happens on your site. Not recommended on a production site due to the overhead but very helpful when developing/troubleshooting
- WP Activity Log for WooCommerce – See previous comment, but for WooCommerce
- WP Console – Execute code right in the browser. And another personal favorite, view the log file!
- WP Crontrol
