The best WordPress Plugins – which I use often

These are WordPress Plugins I use often. Some paid, some free. Some expensive, so cheap. The point of this list is to remind myself these are consistently well coded, performing and stable Plugins, and to record briefly why I like them.

 

Pods

https://wordpress.org/plugins/pods/

To say Pods is just a tool to create and view Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies is selling it short. Yes, it can do that, as good as paid tools, but for free. Have a look around, it is really a Swiss Army knife for codeless WordPress development.

  • Very flexible, can handle almost anything
  • Handles the display of CPTs (Custom Post Types) in various ways; integrate to the theme, use external plugin tools for it, etc
    • Note that most CPT plugins ignore the showing of your CPTs on the Frontend, (as if you wouldn’t want to use the fruit of your labor…), or make it extremely to do so.
    • Pods isn’t ‘dead simple’ in displaying CPTs, but is very complete in its offering to do so.

A good second option: Toolset Types (https://wordpress.org/plugins/types/). But it’s expensive to buy beyond the basic ‘make a CPT’ plugin.

Caldera Forms

https://wordpress.org/plugins/caldera-forms/

  • From the most basic to the most advanced forms.
  • Easy to use, pleasant GUI interface
  • Works with Custom Post Types, -Taxonomies and -Fields, including Pods (and many other Custom Post Type Plugins)
  • Wide variety of plugins (e.g. MailChimp)
    • Free plugins: https://calderaforms.com/caldera-forms-add-ons/#/free

Shield WordPress Security

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-simple-firewall/

  • One of the few plugins that give you a sense of security as it’s easy to overview what you have set up
  • Advanced (dangerous) options deactivated by default, yet easy to set up
  • Gives granular control over WordPress auto-updates for Plugins, Themes and WP Core.

WPDataTables

http://wpdatatables.com/

  • Easy to set up tables
  • Can import/export from Excel
    • Tip: Make some fields in the plugin, export to Excel, then build your table in Excel, then re-import. Saves time not having to figure out the heading structure in the plugin (which is easy, but still..).
  • Tables are always responsive and look good

Yoast SEO

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo

  • Consistently performing plugin
  • Improves by making things simpler to use

White Label Plugins

White Label plugins turn the admin pages of WordPress into something you control; how it looks, who can reach them, change text used, etc.

The free plugins I found so far are not giving sufficient options or are inconsistant in performance or feature functionality.

There are two paid plugins I’ve used to date. They differ in some detailed specs, but basically do the same:

https://codecanyon.net/item/white-label-branding-for-wordpress/125617

https://codecanyon.net/item/white-label-wordpress-plugin-alter/17567303#video-container

 

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