Best plugins and extensions for WordPress 2021

 

There are over 58,000 plugins in WordPress official add-on libraries. With so many extensions to choose from, it can be difficult to find extensions that are worth installing on your website.

In order for you to avoid searching around the web for the best WordPress extensions, we have compiled a list below, where we present the 25 best WordPress extensions that are suitable for your website.

Note that we can help you with the development of the WordPress plugin, if you want extensions that are tailored specifically for your WordPress website.

 

The 25 best add-ons for WordPress 2021

1. Yoast SEO, which helps you with search engine optimization.
2. Akismet, which protects your site from spam.
3. WP Rocket, which makes your website load faster.
4. Imagify, which reduces the image size of your uploaded images.
5. Social Warfare, lets visitors share posts on social media sites.
6. Rank Math, like Yoast but you get more free features.
7. TablePress, allows you to create beautiful tables.
8. Duplicator, with which you can clone your entire web page.
9. Elements, a page builder that allows you to change the design of the page.
10. iThemes Security, which protects your site from malware and viruses.
11. UpdraftPlus, with which you can back up your site.
12. Monster Insights, lets you see how many people have visited your site.
13. Yoast Duplicate Post, with which you can clone posts.
14. Mailchimp, which helps you with email marketing.
15. Regenerate Thumbnails, which resize your images.
16. Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg, gives you more building blocks.
17. Really Simple SSL, makes your website more secure.
18. Jetpack, which is a good all in all supplement.
19. LiteSpeed, which makes your page load faster.
20. WordFence, an antivirus program for your WordPress site.
21. WooCommerce, with great features for e-shops.
22. BBPress, helps you create a WordPress forum.
23. Smush, which compresses your uploaded images.
24. Contact form 7, perfect for creating contact forms.
25. GOTMLS, which protects your web page from viruses.

 

Below we talk more about the extensions just mentioned in greater detail.

 

1. Yoast SEO – perfect for search engine optimization

 

Yoast SEO is the world’s most popular search engine optimization extension for WordPress. With this extension, you can, among other things, create a sitemap that makes Google find your page more easily. You can also change meta descriptions, and see how often you should use a specific in current text.

 

It is free to download Yoast SEO, but if you want access to all the features, you have to buy the premium version for around EUR 65.

 

2. Akismet – makes your website more secure

 

If you do not have a good security program for WordPress, the comment section of the posts and your inbox will quickly be filled with junk comments from bots. Akismet filters out all junk comments without you having to do anything, and this add-on is free for private use.

 

If you have a company and want to use Akismet, it costs around EUR 35 / year.

 

3. WP Rocket – makes your website look better

 

It’s free to download WP Rocket, which minifies HTML, CSS and JavaScript, among other things. More specifically, this add-on ensures that your web page loads faster, without you having to spend more than about 5 minutes configuring the settings. The premium version of WP Rocket, with more advanced functionality costs from around EUR 38 / year.

 

4. Imagify – compresses images

 

Imagify is a free add-on for WordPress that ensures that the images you upload take up less space and thus load faster. With Imagify, you do not have to use Photoshop and that program’s “Save for web” function, as all images you upload are compressed automatically.

 

As the additional creators themselves write on their website, you have to pay around EUR 80 / month to be able to compress as many images as you want.

 

5. Social Warfare – connects your site with social networks

 

Social Warfare is a WordPress extension that adds share buttons, so that visitors can share your posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others.

With the free version of Social Warfare, you can connect your website with five social media services, but if you want more features and the opportunity to connect more social media networks, you have to pay around EUR 25 / year.

 

6. Rank Math – a perfect plugin for search engine optimization

 

Rank Math works much like Yoast, except that more features are included right from the start in the free version of the program.

Among other things, you can make changes to the htaccess file and add alt texts (descriptive texts) automatically for the images uploaded with this extension. When you are not the greatest, you must be the best, Rank Math’s motto seems to be.

 

7. TablePress – create tables via a nice interface

 

With TablePress, you can create tables without having to encode, in an interface reminiscent of Microsoft Excel. It is also easy to add pictures to the tables, and so are links. Getting TablePress tables responsive for mobile and tablet is a bit of a challenge, but with the right knowledge you can solve it with.

We are happy to help you if you need assistance in creating responsive tables, or if you need more general help with WordPress.

8. Duplicator – clones your web page

 

Duplicator copies your WordPress website’s database and all other files with one click. Once you have a copy of your entire web page, it is easy to either move it to another web host, or keep all the files on your computer as an external backup of your web page.

Note that you have to pay around EUR 50 for the premium version if you have a website with many files (e.g. images) and a large database.

Many people think that Duplicator is worth the money, as it is hard to move web pages or back up web pages manually, for example via an FTP client.

 

9. Elements – the world’s best page builder

 

It is quite possible to make a page you are happy with via Elementor, but a lot of practice is required before you master all the important building blocks. With Elementor you can, among other things, create the website’s header (menu at the top) and footer (menu at the bottom), as well as buttons, tables and advanced slide shows.

 

Buying a website developed in Elementor is also a good idea, because then you do not have to design yourself while you can easily make changes to the design afterwards.

 

10. iThemes Security – keeps viruses and malware away

 

With iThemes Security you get good protection against hackers, viruses, malware and nasty bots. The free version includes a large database that protects you from malicious code, but to get more advanced functionality, you need to pay around EUR 65 per year.

 

11. UpDraft Plus – backs up your entire site

 

UpDraft Plus allows you to back up your entire web page automatically, so if something goes wrong, you just press a button to restore the entire web page to an earlier stage. There are web hosts that offer this functionality, but it is always a good idea to back up your pages yourself.

 

The basic version of UpDraft Plus is free, but if you want the opportunity to, for example, be able to back up the entire server environment with many web pages, you have to pay around EUR 38 / year.

 

12. Monster Insights – gives you valuable statistics

 

You can easily link your Google Analytics account to Monster Insights, and then get visitor statistics directly in the WordPress interface. With the free version of Monster Insights, you can see how many people have chosen to visit your website, both right now and historically.

 

To be able to get more advanced statistics about, for example, which subpages are most popular, and where the traffic comes from (eg from Google / from a link to another website), you must pay an annual fee of around EUR 75.

 

13. Yoast Duplicate Post – clones pages on your site

 

With Yoast Duplicate Post, you can clone both posts and pages with a simple click of a button. Although you probably do not need to use this supplement daily, it is good to have when you have, for example, ordered a nice website design and need to have the same design in several places.

 

A perfect product page can thus be cloned, and become another perfect product page. All you need to change is the text, as the design becomes identical thanks to this extension.

 

14. Mailchimp for WordPress – Free Email Marketing

 

Mailchimp for WordPress is a perfect application for anyone who wants to get started with email marketing in a risk-free way. With the free version of the extension, you can add a box asking your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter.

It is free to send out e-mail marketing to up to 2,000 people, but then a Mailchimp logo will also appear which you cannot delete in all e-mails.

To be able to reach more people and avoid the sponsor logo, you must pay for the premium version, which costs from around EUR 60 / year.

 

Read more: Learn more about how WordPress works in our WordPress guide.

 

15. Regenerate Thumbnails – recreates images

 

When you change the design of your WordPress website, your featured images may need to be recreated in a new format. Images that have not been recreated in the correct format cannot be displayed on the category pages, and then visitors can kindly look at an empty box instead of a thumbnail image that shows what the article is about.

 

With Regenerate Thumbnails, you can recreate all images automatically. If you have many selected images on your web page, it takes about 30 minutes before the extension creates new thumbnails. You only need to press a button, then the extension takes care of the rest as it knows which new image resolutions are needed.

 

Regenerate Thumbnails is free and has no premium version.

 

16. Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg – gives you free building blocks

 

The standard Gutenberg editor for WordPress includes 60 free building blocks, which includes a block for slideshows and a block for creating extra space on a page.

With Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg, you get 26 additional blocks, which are more technically advanced than the building blocks that WordPress includes from the start.

 

17. Really simple SSL – makes sure your page encrypted

 

Websites that do not have a valid SSL certificate are classified as insecure by Google, and as a result, those pages become less visible among search engine results pages. Simple SSL ensures that all visitors always visit the HTTPS version of your website, and not the HTTP version which in turn is not encrypted.

 

Note that you cannot install an SSL certificate using this extension, as you will need to do it through your web hosting provider.

 

18. Jetpack – many add-ons gathered in one package

 

Jetpack is a gathering extension where you can, among other things, activate share buttons for social media services, and a nice comment field that replaces the somewhat simple comment field that all WordPress websites have from the start. But there is a big downside. This extension requires a lot of resources, which means that your web page does not load as fast as before.

Add-ons that disable some of the functionality that Jetpack offers are available, but they are rarely updated, leading to security issues. If you have strong resources, meaning fast web hosting that is able to carry such a heavy supplement, Jetpack is a good choice.

 

19. LiteSpeed ​​- optimizes your website for free

 

LiteSpeed ​​is a free WordPress plugin that handles all optimization for you. To name a few examples, the extension optimizes your images, and it also streamlines the code for your web page to reduce loading time. Note that you need to run your website on a server with LiteSpeed ​​support for the extension to work optimally.

 

Inleed and Hostinger are two web hosting providers that offer free support for LiteSpeed.

 

20. WordFence – an antivirus program for WordPress

 

With WordFence, you protect your website against viruses, bots and malware, among other things. The plugin automatically searches for malicious code, and also monitors all measured values ​​so you will be warned in good time if something is not right.

 

The premium version of WordFence costs around EUR 75 / year, but many people think that the free version is good enough.

 

21. WooCommerce – a powerful add-on for e-shops

 

About 30% of all online stores are powered by WooCommerce, which is a beginner-friendly add-on that is easy to install and configure. In addition to this, WooCommerce is a free WordPress extension, although more niche sub-extensions with more advanced functionality cost money.

 

Note that it can be difficult to customize WooCommerce in a nice and efficient way, so we are happy to help you with that task.

 

22. BBPress – allows you to create a user forum on your website

 

With BBPress you can create a user forum, where your visitors can help each other and discuss with each other. The supplement is free, but you need advanced knowledge in web design to make the forum look nice and user-friendly.

 

23. Smush – which compresses your images

 

The Smush plugin is a powerful optimization add-on that ensures that your images load faster on your website. Smush can compress all your images as soon as they are uploaded, but you can also choose that the extension itself handles that task within an interval that you decide.

 

The supplement optimizes your images in an efficient way, but to get the best compression, you must pay an annual fee of approximately EUR 45. If you run your website on a server that supports LiteSpeed, it is better that you use that extension for this task.

 

24. Contact form 7 – create a contact form in 5 minutes

 

With Contact form 7, it is easy to create a contact form. You specify which e-mail address the message should be sent to, and add fields where the visitor can enter their name, e-mail address and can write a message. Then it’s done. Also note that it is very easy to translate all important fields into the right language.

 

25. GOTMLS – a free antivirus plugin

 

iThemes Security and WordFence charge for their premium versions. GOTMLS does the same, but here free users get basically the same good protection as users who pay. Get Off Those Maliciously Loaded Scripts, as the extension is called when you bone out the abbreviation, provide you with a free license key that you can use to remove malicious code from your web page.

 

The premium version is yours for a one-time cost of EUR 25, and with this you do not have to update the virus and script database manually. Buying the premium version is far from necessary, but we recommend that you do so to support the developer.

 

Frequently asked questions

 

What does a good image compression plugin cost in WordPress?

An add-on that compresses the images you upload to your WordPress website usually costs between EUR 40 and 60 per year. However, you do not need to purchase the premium version of the compression plugin if you have a smaller website, with relatively few images to compress.

 

Note that the LiteSpeed ​​extension compresses your images for free, if the server environment in which you run your website supports that extension.

 

How many WordPress extensions do I need?

Smaller websites usually have about 5 to 10 extensions, while larger websites with advanced features often have over 15 extensions. Keep in mind that you only need an add-on for one function, an antivirus add-on, and a compression add-on for images, and so on.

 

What does a good email marketing supplement cost?

Mailchimp, which is a good supplement for e-mail marketing, costs EUR 60 per year. You can choose to use the free version of Mailchimp, but then you will lose features such as pre-configured templates and the ability to send out emails to as many subscribers as you want.