Many users believe that WordPress experts rely heavily on custom code to build their websites. But in our experience, this is not the case.
Professional WordPress developers prefer to use existing tools rather than reinvent the wheel. Most of them have a WordPress toolkit (a collection of software and plugins) that they use to build a solid foundation for their website.
At WPBeginner and our partner brands, we use a set of tried-and-tested tools on all of our websites. These tools help us quickly lay the foundation for a successful website, whether it’s for a client or for testing and research. They also allow us to continually improve and create pages on our own blog and product sites.
First, we use Duplicator for backups, Cloudflare for security, and SeedProd to build landing pages. We also use MonsterInsights for analytics needs and All in One SEO to improve search results. In addition, we have many other excellent tools that we trust for a long time!
In this article, we’ll share with you our WordPress Toolkit. It contains 59+ essential tools to help you build and run WordPress sites like a pro.
How we test and review WordPress Toolkit tools
When choosing tools for our ultimate WordPress toolkit, we kept the following factors in mind:
- We use these tools on our site: We only include tools that we have personally tested and used. We also review user feedback to make sure that other users strongly recommend these tools.
- Ease of use: We prioritized tools that are user-friendly, especially for beginners. Clean interfaces, comprehensive documentation, and a quick onboarding process were key factors in our selection.
- Different use cases: Not all tools are suitable for all situations. Therefore, we provide tools for various needs, such as backup, security, SEO, and performance optimization.
With that said, let’s dive into the ultimate toolkit of must-have WordPress tools to help you build and manage your WordPress website like a pro.
In this article, we have shared useful tools for WordPress professionals in various categories. If you want to know the list of must-have tools, check out our picks. We have picked out the best WordPress toolkit plugins based on different categories.
| # | Tool | Best for | Pricing | Free Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Duplicator | Backups and Migration | $49.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🥈 | Cloudflare | Security and Performance | $20/month | ✅ |
| 🥉 | All in One SEO | THIS | $49.60/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | WPForms | Form Builder | $49.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | OptinMonster | Lead Generation | $8/month | ❌ |
| 🎖️ | SeedProd | Landing Page Builder | $39.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | MonsterInsights | Analytics | $99.60/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | PushEngage | Push Notifications | $9/month | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | WooCommerce | eCommerce | Free | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | BuddyBoss | Courses & Community | $299/yr | ❌ |
| 🎖️ | WPCode | Code Management | $49/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | Envira Gallery | Photo Galleries | $39.50/yr | ✅ |
| 🎖️ | UserFeedback | Visitor Feedback | $49.50/yr | ❌ |
The list is organized by category to help you quickly find the tools you need. Each category covers a specific aspect of WordPress website management, such as backups, security, SEO, and more.
For selected tools, we provide detailed reviews that explain why they stand out, and for the others, we provide concise descriptions that give you an idea of their benefits and offer alternatives.
Below is a list of categories we use to organize all of our tools. You can jump to a specific category if you want:
- Backup
- Safety
- marketing
- E-commerce
- social contact
- Database Management
- Photos and Media
- Customer Satisfaction
- Forms and Automation
- WordPress Services
- Training and Resources
- Frequently Asked Questions about WordPress Toolkit
Backup
Backups are vital for any WordPress website. Backups ensure that you can quickly restore your website in the event of data loss, hacker attacks, or other emergencies.
Regular backups can give you peace of mind knowing that your content, settings, and customizations are safe and can be restored with minimal downtime.
1. Photocopier
We consider Duplicator to be the best WordPress backup and migration plugin. We use it on the WPBeginner blog and have had a very positive experience with it. Over 1.5 million website owners use it too.
What we like about Duplicator is that it is a super user-friendly backup solution that allows users to easily create on-demand backups or schedule automatic backups.
Duplicator is also compatible with all top remote storage services, allowing you to store your backups in the cloud. That way, you can rest assured that your backups are safe and available when you need them.
In our experience, a backup solution is useless if you can’t restore your backed-up website files. Duplicator’s one-click restore feature has proven to be the most convenient way to restore your website from backup.
We use Duplicator extensively for website backups and migrations. Overall, it’s a very useful tool that allows you to quickly clone a WordPress site and then migrate it to another host.
Why we recommend Duplicator : Duplicator always works reliably, even for complex migration tasks. It offers extensive cloud backup options for extra peace of mind. Also, its one-click restore feature puts it far ahead of other WordPress backup solutions.
Pricing : Starting at $49.50 per year, with a free version available .
Other backup tools:
- UpdraftPlus : A reliable and easy-to-use backup plugin that allows you to schedule regular backups and store them in multiple remote locations.
- BlogVault : A comprehensive backup solution that provides real-time backups, site migration, and security features to keep your site safe. For more information, see our BlogVault review .
Safety
With the growing number of online threats, it’s critical to protect your website from hackers, malware, and other malicious activity. Using effective security tools can help keep your data safe, prevent data breaches, and create a safe browsing experience for your visitors.
4.Cloudflare
Cloudflare is one of the world's largest internet security and performance companies, dedicated to protecting and accelerating websites and online services.
We use Cloudflare on SidelinePlay and several other sites . It provides us with excellent DDoS protection, better site performance, and a user-friendly interface.
After switching to Cloudflare, we noticed that its powerful CDN and caching capabilities significantly increased our site speed, thereby enhancing the overall user experience.
In general, you can think of Cloudflare as a protective shield for your website. It works simply by routing your website traffic through its network. These web servers filter out spam and malicious traffic and direct only genuine users to your website.
It even protects against advanced threats like DDoS attacks, malicious bots, and other intrusions. This way, your website is protected from common Internet vulnerabilities.
In terms of performance, Cloudflare uses a vast global network of data centers to cache content close to users, significantly reducing loading times. It also provides features such as content delivery network (CDN), caching, and image optimization to further help speed up your site.
Why we recommend Cloudflare: Cloudflare combines strong security with efficient performance improvements. Its firewall protects WordPress sites from common threats, while its CDN significantly increases site speed. Overall, we think Cloudflare is a reliable security platform that is easy to set up and use.
Pricing: It offers a comprehensive free plan that’s suitable for most small businesses and new blogs. Paid plans start at $25 per month.
Other options:
- Sucuri: This is an effective security plugin that provides a cloud-based website firewall. We used Sucuri before, but later switched to Cloudflare for more comprehensive coverage. Even so, Sucuri is a good choice for small websites. But it should be noted that this firewall requires a paid plan to use.
- Wordfence : A powerful WordPress security plugin. The downside is that it runs on the website rather than in the cloud, so performance is poor.
Other security tools:
- WP-2FA: A plugin that adds two-factor authentication (2FA) to your WordPress login page for added security. We use 2FA on all our sites and recommend all WordPress users set up two-factor authentication as well.
- WP Activity Log: A comprehensive activity log plugin that helps you monitor and track all changes on your WordPress website.
marketing
Marketing tools are designed to help you promote your website, attract new visitors, and convert users into loyal customers. Our suggestions in the next section can help you with email marketing, social media integration, lead generation, and more. These tools are essential to building your brand, increasing awareness, and driving sustainable growth.
9. All-in-one SEO for WordPress
Looking for a tool to optimize your website’s SEO? We use All in One SEO (AIOSEO) for all our websites (including WPBeginner) , so it’s our top recommendation.
We found AIOSEO to be much more powerful than any other WordPress SEO tool. The great thing about it is that it allows you to optimize your website like a pro and it doesn’t require any special skills to use.
The plugin includes a simple setup wizard that automatically configures the best SEO settings for your online business. It also features TruSEO page analysis and comes with checklists to help you optimize your posts and pages. Plus, it supports WooCommerce SEO out of the box and is compatible with other top e-commerce platforms.
One of the highlights of All in One SEO is Author SEO, which we really like. It allows you to expand your author profile to demonstrate experience, expertise, and authority, and it complies with Google’s EEAT guidelines. This helps search engines more easily trust your content.
The plugin includes features like rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps, SEO health check, etc. to improve your search engine visibility. It also has a powerful schema builder to help you get star ratings and other rich snippets in Google search results.
For advanced users, AIOSEO offers full control over RSS feeds, robots.txt editor, local SEO, breadcrumbs, AI SEO tools, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, advanced redirect manager, 404 tracking, IndexNow integration, and more.
Features like Link Helper and On-Page SEO Tools have been very helpful to our overall SEO strategy.
Why we recommend AIOSEO: We found All in One SEO to be the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress sites. It covers all the features you need, is very simple to use, and is constantly improving to keep up with the latest SEO changes.
Price: Starting from $49.50 per year. All in One SEO offers a free version with limited features. But we recommend upgrading to the paid version to use its full potential.
10. WPForms
Forms are extremely powerful marketing tools. They allow users to communicate directly with you, helping you generate leads, collect feedback, and segment your audience for personalized marketing.
We recommend you use WPForms for all your form needs. It’s one of the most popular WordPress form builder plugins and we use it for all our contact forms and surveys.
We like WPForms because its drag-and-drop builder is designed to be very user-friendly. It allows you to create contact forms, payment forms, surveys, and more without writing any code. It also includes over 2,000 pre-built form templates so you can get started faster.
Another reason we love WPForms so much is that it offers tons of seamless integrations to make your life easier. For example, you can connect it with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools. This way, you can use your forms to grow your email list, collect payments, and more.
WPForms also includes advanced features like conditional logic, multi-page forms, file uploads, and spam protection, making it suitable for more complex form needs.
In addition, the plugin offers powerful entry management features. This allows you to view, manage, and analyze form submissions directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Whether we need a simple contact form or a more complex solution, WPForms is our go-to tool.
Why we recommend WPForms: Unlike many other contact form plugins, WPForms is easy to use. Users can choose a template or use the drag-and-drop form builder to create any type of form. Its integrations with payment services, email marketing providers, and other growth tools make it even more powerful.
Pricing: It has a free version with limited features called WPForms Lite , and paid versions start at $49.50. If you just need a few contact forms, then the free version is enough. However, we recommend that you upgrade to the paid version to unlock more features.
11. SeedProd
We often need to create landing pages for marketing campaigns or product launches. Whenever this happens, we always turn to SeedProd .
SeedProd is the best no-code page builder for WordPress, trusted by over 1 million websites. It helps you create high-converting landing pages quickly without any code.
Whether you’re building a sales page, coming soon page, maintenance mode page, or any other type of landing page, SeedProd has you covered.
The best thing about SeedProd? Its drag and drop builder makes it super easy to design professional-looking pages.
You can edit any item on the screen by pointing and clicking on it. You can also add new design elements by dragging and dropping them onto the page.
We have used SeedProd to create landing pages for multiple websites and found its pre-built templates very useful. We also experienced its custom theme feature, which helped us design an entire product website. Using SeedProd shortened development time and created a highly polished website.
If you run an online store, you'll love SeedProd's built-in WooCommerce support. It includes some useful modules that you can add to create a custom checkout, product pages, or storefront pages.
SeedProd offers integrations with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, allowing you to grow your email list and increase conversions.
Why we recommend SeedProd : We like SeedProd because it is beginner-friendly and offers an intuitive drag-and-drop design tool. It includes dozens of pre-built templates, and seamless integration makes it suitable for a variety of marketing needs.
Pricing: Paid plans start at $39.50 per year. SeedProd also offers a free version .
Alternatives:
- Thrive Architect : A visual page builder for WordPress that helps you create beautiful and engaging content.
13. OptinMonster
Driving traffic to your website is great, but it means nothing unless you can convert those visitors into subscribers or customers.
In our experience, OptinMonster is the best conversion optimization software for this purpose. Designed to help you grow your email list, increase page views, and boost sales, it offers a wealth of features that make it easy to create high-converting opt-in forms.
At WPBeginner, we have been using OptinMonster on various websites to grow our email lists. We leverage its exit-intent technology to engage visitors who are about to leave the site and convert them into subscribers.
We also found its MonsterLinks feature very useful. This feature allows users to see a pop-up after clicking on an offer. In our A/B testing, these pop-ups performed well with users.
One of the main advantages of OptinMonster is its drag-and-drop campaign builder, which allows you to create visually appealing popups, floating bars, slide-ins, and other types of opt-in forms.
You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates to get started easily. The software integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, CRM platforms, and other tools, allowing you to manage leads effectively.
What sets OptinMonster apart is its advanced targeting and segmentation capabilities. You can display personalized messages to your audience based on their behavior, location, device, and more. This ensures that the right message reaches the right person at the right time, significantly increasing conversions.
Why we recommend OptinMonster : This tool is user-friendly and powerful. It allows you to easily create professional opt-in forms without any code. Advanced targeting options ensure that your forms reach the most relevant audience to maximize conversions.
Pricing: Starts at $8 per month, billed annually. No free version. OptinMonster offers a 14-day 100% risk-free money-back guarantee.
14.MonsterInsights
We believe that understanding how visitors interact with our website is key to making informed decisions and driving growth. To this end, we use MonsterInsights , a tool that draws on the power of Google Analytics, to track and monitor website traffic and user behavior.
We always recommend MonsterInsights to our readers because it consistently delivers excellent results.
The great thing about MonsterInsights is that you can connect your WordPress site to Google Analytics in just a few clicks. You can then immediately start tracking visitor interactions, understanding user behavior, and making data-driven decisions to optimize your site.
We love its user-friendly statistics dashboard, which connects all the necessary metrics directly to your WordPress admin panel. You can quickly get reports without having to visit the Google Analytics website separately.
We particularly appreciate MonsterInsights’ real-time analytics feature. It provides you with real-time data on which users are visiting your site, what they are doing, and which content is performing best. This feature is especially useful for monitoring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in real time.
MonsterInsights also offers advanced features like eCommerce tracking that helps you measure sales, revenue, and conversion rates for your online store.
You can also track affiliate links, banner ads, outbound links, and more, giving you a comprehensive view of how visitors engage with your content.
As we mentioned, we use MonsterInsights on all of our sites to track user engagement and optimize our content strategy.
The detailed reporting on user behavior, traffic sources, and conversion tracking that the plugin provides is invaluable. It enables us to make data-driven decisions that improve user experience and drive business growth.
Why we recommend MonsterInsights: This incredibly easy-to-use plugin makes Google Analytics accessible to everyone, even beginners. Even better, you can do it all without leaving WordPress. Its advanced tracking features provide deep insights to help you better understand your audience and optimize your site to increase engagement and conversions. Real-time analytics and eCommerce tracking are powerful tools for monitoring and improving performance.
Pricing : Starts at $99.60 per year. MonsterInsights also offers a free version , but with fewer features.
Other Marketing and SEO Tools:
- PushEngage : A push notification service that helps you send targeted messages to your subscribers on mobile and desktop. We use PushEngage on all our websites and have found it to be very effective in boosting conversions and sales.
- Thrive Leads : This helps you acquire more leads and convert users into email subscribers and customers. We really like its ease of use and performance.
- Thrive Quiz Builder : A WordPress quiz builder plugin that allows you to create engaging quizzes that increase user engagement and collect leads.
- SEOBoost : A powerful SEO content optimization software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help you write content and improve rankings. We use it to optimize the content of our website. This toolintegrates seamlessly with All in One SEO .
- Thrive Optimize : It allows you to easily run A/B tests in WordPress, helping you optimize your landing pages to increase conversions. You can also purchase it as part of the Thrive Themes package.
- WP Mail SMTP : Fix WordPress email deliverability issues with an SMTP service. We use WP Mail SMTP on our own site to ensure our users never miss any emails. "WP Mail SMTP Review")
- SendLayer : A reliable WordPress email delivery service. We use SendLayer on some of our sites and we trust its ease of use and reliability.
- LowFruits : An SEO tool that helps you find low-competition keywords to target with your content. Our team uses it to optimize content and perform keyword research.
- Thrive Ultimatum : A scarcity marketing tool that helps you create and manage marketing campaigns with countdown timers. We use countdown timers in our marketing campaigns on our website with great results. This tool is also part of the Thrive Themes Suite.
- Pretty Links : The best WordPress plugin for managing and tracking affiliate links. We like Pretty Links because it’s simple and easy to use.
- RafflePress : A giveaway plugin that helps you grow your email list, website traffic, and social media followers through viral contests and giveaways. We use RafflePress to run giveaways on WPBeginner. ("RafflePress Review")
- Beacon : A lead generation plugin that allows you to create and manage lead magnet links. We use lead magnet links at WPBeginner to grow our email list.
E-commerce
E-commerce tools are essential for businesses that sell products or services online. They provide the functionality you need to manage your products, process payments, handle shipping, and more. These tools help create a smooth and secure shopping experience, which can increase sales and customer satisfaction.
27. WooCommerce
When it comes to building an online store with WordPress, WooCommerce is the go-to solution for millions of users around the world. As the world’s most popular e-commerce platform, it powers more than 6 million online stores.
The great thing about WooCommerce is that it can be used by both small and large businesses. The plugin is highly customizable and extensible to suit the specific needs of your business.
We personally don’t use WooCommerce on our own sites. This is simply because we only sell digital products on partner sites, so most of the plugin’s features aren’t necessary for us.
Nonetheless, we have extensive experience testing the tool and have even used it to help clients build their own online stores.
WooCommerce allows you to easily manage products, payments, and shipping. It is also compatible with many payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe , making it convenient for customers to purchase your products.
The best part is that it also supports numerous regional payment services. This means that in countries where PayPal and Stripe are not available, users can use alternative payment services. WooCommerce makes e-commerce easy for everyone.
In addition, we compared WooCommerce , Shopify , and other sales platforms. The study found that WooCommerce is far ahead of its competitors in terms of customization.
It supports thousands of plugins (many of which are free). These WooCommerce plugins are like apps for your eCommerce store, allowing you to add features like advanced shipping options, memberships, and bookings.
This scalability makes WooCommerce suitable for any eCommerce business, no matter how complex your needs.
Why we recommend WooCommerce: This plugin is the most flexible and powerful e-commerce solution for WordPress. Not only is it easy to use for beginners, but it also offers advanced features for more complex stores. It has a huge library of add-ons. It also supports more payment services and third-party software than other e-commerce platforms.
Pricing: WooCommerce itself is free to use, but premium extensions and payment gateways cost separately.
28.Memberpress
MemberPress is a full-featured WordPress membership plugin that lets you control who has access to your content. We love it so much that we even use it to offer free WordPress courses.
With MemberPress, you can offer digital products and subscription services, sell online courses, and build a community around your content.
One of the best things about MemberPress is that it is easy to use. You don’t need any programming skills to build a membership website.
The plugin’s clean interface makes it easy to create different membership tiers, set up payment options, and protect your content. You can also offer free trials, discount coupons, and various pricing options to attract new members.
In addition, MemberPress also has powerful access control features. You can restrict access to specific posts, pages, videos, categories, tags, and even files based on membership levels. This ensures that only paying members can view your premium content.
MemberPress also makes it easy to create courses and courseware, upload media, and restrict access to members only.
We especially like its membership management features, which are very simple to use. The plugin even supports automatic billing, sending reminders, and pausing or canceling memberships. This makes it easier for you to manage your members and ensure ongoing income.
The plugin integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services. This allows you to send targeted emails to your members. It also works perfectly with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe to easily collect payments.
Why we recommend MemberPress: MemberPress is easy to set up even if you’re new to WordPress. It offers powerful membership management tools, including access controls and subscription management. The plugin integrates beautifully with other tools, making it a complete solution for building and managing a membership site.
Pricing: Starts at $179.50 per year.
29. Easydigitaldownloads
We use Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) to sell products on multiple partner sites. It is the best plugin for selling digital downloads using WordPress and is used by thousands of website owners to sell eBooks, software, music, and more.
One of the best things about EDD is that it’s easy to use. You don’t need any technical skills to get started. The plugin has a simple setup wizard that helps you add products, set prices, and connect payment options. EDD supports payments via PayPal, Stripe, and credit cards.
It comes with a powerful download management area where you can upload digital products. Using the built-in access control feature, you can ensure that customers can only access the products they have paid for.
We love the flexibility of Easy Digital Downloads. With extensions, you can add even more functionality to your store.
For example, you can set up recurring payments, offer discounts, or manage software licenses. This flexibility is the biggest reason we use EDD to sell digital products for other businesses.
We also appreciate that EDD always performs optimally on our site. Thanks to its lightweight design, it won’t slow down your site. This is very important because customers expect fast downloads.
EDD also plays well with other WordPress plugins, which means you can easily add more features like email marketing or analytics.
Why we recommend Easy Digital Downloads: Easy Digital Downloads is simple and flexible, perfect for selling digital products and supporting multiple payment methods. The plugin is light on resources, so your site will run fast. Plus, it plays well with other tools, so you can easily add more features as your business grows.
Pricing: The core plugin is free, but you can purchase premium features. Paid plans start at $99.50 per year, depending on your needs.
30. WP Simple Pay
WP Simple Pay is a user-friendly WordPress Stripe payment plugin that’s ideal if you want to accept payments online without building a full e-commerce store.
We think WP Simple Pay is a great fit for businesses, nonprofits, and anyone who wants to quickly accept payments without the added functionality of a shopping cart. We’ve used it on a few sites that didn’t need a shopping cart but needed a convenient way to accept payments.
We love how simple and easy WP Simple Pay is to use. Instead of dealing with a complicated eCommerce setup, you can create a customizable payment form right in WordPress.
Additionally, WP Simple Pay comes with a drag-and-drop form builder that makes designing custom forms simple even for complete beginners. The plugin also includes multiple templates to quickly create payment forms for different use cases.
The plugin allows you to accept payments, calculate taxes, and pass on Stripe fees to your customers. You can also customize payment confirmation and receipt information to reflect your brand image.
We were also impressed with the payment landing page. The plugin makes it easy to create a highly optimized payment form landing page that increases conversion rates.
WP Simple Pay also integrates seamlessly with Stripe, allowing you to accept credit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.
You can create one-time or recurring payments, and even offer subscription or installment plans. The plugin also supports coupon codes, so you can easily offer discounts and promotions to your customers.
Why we recommend WP Simple Pay: We found WP Simple Pay to be very easy to use, even if you have no technical experience. All in all, its simplicity makes it ideal if you need to accept payments but don't need more advanced shopping cart and checkout features. In addition, its integration with Stripe allows you to securely accept a variety of payment methods. It also offers a wide range of payment options, including one-time payments, subscriptions, and installments.
**Pricing: Starts at $49.50 per year. A free version, **WP Simple Pay Lite , is also available with basic features .
Other eCommerce tools:
- AffiliateWP : An affiliate marketing plugin that helps you manage and grow your affiliate program. Read more in our AffiliateWP review .
- Charitable : A WordPress fundraising plugin that helps you create and manage donation campaigns. We use Charitable to collect donations on the Balkhi Foundation (non-profit organization) website.
- Thrive Apprentice : A learning management system (LMS) plugin that helps you create and sell online courses.
- FunnelKit : A plugin that helps you create sales funnels to increase conversions. We have used FunnelKit for several businesses.
- Advanced Coupons : A plugin that enhances the default WooCommerce coupon functionality and provides more features.
- WC Vendors : A marketplace plugin that lets you create a multi-vendor store using WooCommerce ("WC Vendors")
- AdTribes : A plugin that helps you manage and optimize the flow of product information in your marketing channels.
- Sugar Calendar : A simple WordPress event management plugin. We really like Sugar Calendar's easy Stripe integration, handy ticketing features, and Zapier integration. ("Sugar Calendar Review")
- Business Directory Plugin: A plugin that helps you create and manage business directories on your WordPress website. (Business Directory Plugin)
social contact
Social media integration tools allow you to connect your website with various social media platforms. This integration helps you easily share content, engage with your audience, and enhance your online presence. In short, social media tools are essential for increasing traffic, building a community, and enhancing marketing effectiveness.
40. BuddyBoss
Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit are easy to use, but we don’t like how they limit your influence. Wouldn’t it be great if you could control and own your own online community without having to rely on big tech companies?
BuddyBoss is the best platform for building online communities, membership sites, and social networks using WordPress.
We recommend it to anyone who wants to create an online community platform like Facebook but wants full control over the content and audience.
We like that BuddyBoss allows you to create custom member profiles, social groups, and online forums. Members can send private messages, participate in group discussions, and share photos or videos. The platform supports gamification, allowing you to add points, badges, and levels to boost engagement.
We found its mobile app integration very exciting. You can create a branded mobile app for your community that is compatible with both iOS and Android.
This means your members can stay connected anytime, anywhere. The mobile app is built with React Native, the same technology used by major platforms like Facebook and Airbnb, ensuring a smooth user experience.
The platform’s integrations with WooCommerce and LearnDash make it perfect for selling courses or memberships while keeping your community engaged through forums and social groups.
Why we like BuddyBoss: We like this plugin because it gives you full control over your content and the community you create. It doesn’t require any special skills and is compatible with existing WordPress sites. All in all, it’s ideal for anyone who wants to create a social network or online community but doesn’t want the restrictions of a large enterprise.
Price: Starts at $299/year. Premium plans with additional features available.
41. Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a social media feed plugin for WordPress. It’s perfect if you want to display content from your social accounts directly on your website.
Whether you want to showcase your Instagram photos, display Facebook posts, showcase customer reviews, share your Twitter feed, or highlight your YouTube and TikTok videos, Smash Balloon makes it easy and customizable.
It allows you to customize your social media feeds to match your website’s design, with the option to change colors, fonts, and layout without writing any code.
You can also use its Social Wall plugin to combine different platforms and create one feed for all your social content.
One thing we like about this plugin is that all of its layouts are fully responsive to mobile devices. So, they will look equally good regardless of the screen size.
Now, when you embed media from third-party sites, speed should be your primary concern. We are very happy with Smash Balloon's page speed performance.
Each plugin in the Smash Balloon suite loads social media information quickly without slowing down your site. Plus, it supports advanced features like filtering content by hashtags, merging feeds from multiple accounts, and even displaying likes, comments, and shares directly on your site.
The Reviews Feed plugin even lets you display customer reviews from Trustpilot, Google, Yelp, Facebook, Tripadvisor, etc. This way, you can easily add social proof to your website and trigger the fear of missing out (FOMO), thereby increasing conversions.
Why we recommend Smash Balloon: All of Smash Balloon's plugins are super fast and user-friendly. They make it easy to display social media content on your WordPress website. What's more, each type of social media feed offers multiple layouts, beautiful designs, and rich customization options. This way, you can create a look and feel that matches the style of your website. Whether you're a blogger, business owner, or social media influencer, Smash Balloon can help your audience stay connected and engaged across platforms.
Pricing: Each plugin (Instagram Feed, Facebook Feed, Twitter Feed, TikTok Feed, Comments Feed, and YouTube Feed) costs $49 per year. The full-featured plan, which includes the entire suite, costs $299 per year.
- Thrive Comments : A comment plugin that enhances the default WordPress comment system with additional functionality. You can also get it as part of the Thrive Suite.
- Thrive Ovation : A plugin that helps you collect and display user testimonials on your website. Check out our Thrive Ovation review to learn more. You can purchase the plugin individually or as part of Thrive Suite.
Database Management
Database management software is essential to maintaining the integrity, performance, and security of your WordPress database. It can help you optimize, clean, and back up your database to ensure your website runs smoothly and efficiently.
In the next section, we’ll share some of our favorite tools for improving database management.
44. Search and Replace Everything by WPCode
When it comes to building and managing websites with WordPress, we love no-code solutions. That’s why we use the Search and Replace All Content plugin from WPCode. This powerful WordPress plugin makes bulk editing tasks quick and easy.
Instead of writing complex SQL queries, you can use a simple interface to search and replace anything in your database.
It can help you update old URLs, correct typos across multiple articles, or make site-wide changes. It’s designed to streamline the process, allowing you to make large-scale edits with precision and efficiency.
In addition, the “Search and Replace Everything” feature is designed to handle various types of content on your WordPress website. You can use it to search and replace text in posts, pages, custom post types, widgets, and even database fields.
The plugin also supports easy replacement of images. Simply find the image you want to replace and click "Replace" to upload a new image.
One of the highlights of this plugin is its Preview mode, which allows you to see your changes before applying them. This ensures that you check your edits and avoid any accidental changes.
Additionally, the plugin provides a detailed log of all search and replace operations, giving you a clear picture of what was changed and where.
We use WPCode's Search and Replace All Content for a variety of tasks, such as updating links after a site migration, correcting errors, or updating bulk content.
Overall, this plugin allows you to perform bulk tasks quickly and safely. This can have a huge impact on your workflow, especially when managing large, content-rich websites.
Why we recommend WPCode's Search and Replace All plugin: This is a must-have tool for any WordPress user who needs to make bulk edits. It's easy to use and powerful, making it a solid solution for beginners and advanced users alike. Whether you manage a large site or just need to make a quick edit, this plugin will save time and reduce the risk of errors.
Pricing: Starts at $29/year. A free version with limited functionality is also available . WPCode Bundle "Search and Replace Everything" can be used as a standalone tool, but it is also included in the WPCode Bundle.
45. WPCode
WPCode allows you to easily add custom code snippets in WordPress without having to edit your theme functions.phpfiles. We use it to manage custom code for all our sites and have a very positive experience with it.
Whether we need to add tracking code, customize WordPress functionality, or implement custom styles, WPCode allows us to do it easily without affecting the stability of the website.
We believe that WPCode is a must-have tool for developers and non-developers alike who want to customize the functionality of their site while keeping everything organized and secure.
WPCode provides an intuitive interface to add and manage custom code snippets such as PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and more.
The plugin also comes with a built-in library of pre-made code snippets, making it easy to add commonly used codes to your website in just a few clicks.
One of the highlights of WPCode is its smart conditional logic. We found this feature very useful as it allows users to control where and when each code snippet runs on their website. You can target specific pages, posts, or user roles, giving you precise control over your custom code.
Don’t know how to code? WPCode has an AI code generator built in. Just describe what you want to do and it will generate the code using artificial intelligence.
Why we recommend WPCode: This plugin is very user-friendly and easy to use for both developers and non-developers. It provides powerful features such as conditional logic, error handling, and code version control to ensure that your custom code is safe and efficient.
**Pricing: WPCode offers **a free version with basic functionality , while the premium version starts at $49.50/year and offers advanced features like conditional logic and premium support.
- WP Optimize: A plugin that helps you clean and optimize your WordPress database.
- Transients Manager : A free plugin that helps you manage and clean up transients in your WordPress database.
- SearchWP : A plugin that enhances the default search functionality of WordPress.
Photos and Media
Photo and media plugins help you manage and optimize the visual content on your WordPress website. These tools ensure your images and videos load quickly and look great, improving the overall user experience.
49. EnviraGallery
Envira Gallery is designed to help you easily create beautiful, responsive image galleries. Whether you are a photographer, blogger, or business owner, Envira Gallery provides a powerful and user-friendly solution to display your images in a beautiful and organized way.
The plugin allows you to create stunning photo galleries using a drag and drop builder that’s easy to use even for beginners.
You can choose from a variety of pre-built templates to customize the look of your galleries, ensuring they fit seamlessly with your website’s design.
One of the great things about Envira Gallery is its speed and responsiveness. The gallery is optimized to load extremely quickly, which is essential for maintaining a good user experience and boosting your site’s SEO.
The plugin also ensures that your gallery looks great on all devices, from desktops to mobile phones.
In addition, Envira Gallery offers advanced features such as social media integration, allowing visitors to share images directly from the gallery. It also supports watermarking and image protection to help you protect your work.
For those who need more functionality, the plugin includes add-ons for features like video galleries, image tagging, pagination, and WooCommerce integration for selling your photos online.
Why we recommend Envira Gallery: This powerful tool is the best WordPress gallery plugin on the market. It allows you to create fast, responsive, and visually appealing photo galleries. Moreover, it is easy to use and powerful enough to satisfy the needs of professionals. All in all, the plugin's flexibility, performance, and rich add-ons make it a valuable addition to any WordPress website.
Pricing: Envira Gallery’s basic plan starts at $39.50 per year, with premium plans available that include more features. A free version with limited features is also available .
- Soliloquy : A responsive slider plugin for WordPress that allows you to easily create engaging slideshows. ("Monologue Review")
- Smash Balloon : A plugin that helps you display social media feeds on your WordPress site. (We like this tool so much that we’ve included it on this list twice.)
- WP Tasty : A set of plugins designed specifically for food bloggers.
- Nutrifox : A nutrition label generator for WordPress.
Customer Satisfaction
Excellent communication and customer support tools are essential to engage with your audience and meet their needs. These tools include live chat, ticketing systems, contact forms, and more. They help you provide timely assistance, increase customer satisfaction, and build strong relationships with your users.
54. UserFeedback
User feedback is essential if you want to improve your products and build a loyal customer base. The UserFeedback plugin can help you collect information directly from your website visitors.
We have tested and tried this tool extensively. We found it to be very beginner-friendly and feature-rich.
It allows you to easily create and manage custom feedback forms, questionnaires, and polls, making it an effective tool for improving user experience and customer satisfaction. You can place these forms anywhere on your website.
To get specific feedback, you can choose from a variety of question types, including multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, and rating scales.
One of the highlights of UserFeedback is its real-time reporting. You can view feedback in real time, allowing you to quickly identify trends, issues, or areas for improvement.
The plugin also integrates with popular email marketing services and CRM tools, allowing you to follow up with users based on their feedback or segment your audience to run targeted campaigns.
Another handy feature is conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide questions based on previous answers. This ensures you collect the most relevant information from your users without overwhelming them with unnecessary questions.
Additionally, the plugin now includes powerful heatmap tracking capabilities, allowing you to see exactly how visitors interact with your pages. You can easily monitor click patterns, scroll depth, and engagement hotspots right from your WordPress dashboard.
With its flexibility, UserFeedback can help you gather valuable insights from your customers. This way, you can make informed decisions about your strategy.
Why we recommend UserFeedback: UserFeedback is an essential tool if you want to better understand your audience. It’s easy to set up and doesn’t interfere with user experience. The plugin’s advanced features, such as real-time reporting and conditional logic, provide deep insights to help you improve your site and increase user satisfaction.
Pricing: UserFeedback plans start at $49.50 per year. Free plugin also available .
- TrustPulse: A social proof plugin that helps you increase conversions by displaying recent customer activity on your website.
- HeroThemes : A plugin suite designed to help you create and manage a knowledge base on your WordPress website.
Forms and Automation
Forms and automation tools make it easier for you to collect information and automate tasks on your website. These tools help you create and manage forms, automate workflows, and enhance user interactions to improve website efficiency and user experience.
57. Formidable
Formidable Forms is one of the most advanced WordPress form builder plugins available. We really like how it simplifies the creation of complex forms, making it ideal for developers, businesses, and anyone who needs more than a basic contact form.
Formidable Forms offers a drag and drop form builder that allows you to create everything from simple contact forms to complex multi-page forms, surveys, and quizzes.
The plugin stands out for its advanced features, such as conditional logic, which allows you to show or hide form fields based on user input. This makes your forms more dynamic and customizable based on each user's response.
One of the most powerful features of Formidable Forms is its ability to create data-driven web applications. The plugin can collect data through forms and then display it in the form of charts, graphs, and directories.
This is particularly useful for businesses that need to manage and display large amounts of data, such as directories, listings, or even job boards.
Another feature we found very useful is the templates. It offers a large number of templates for different types of online calculators, payment, and WooCommerce forms, allowing you to quickly customize them to your needs.
Formidable Forms also integrates seamlessly with popular email marketing services, payment gateways, and other tools, allowing you to extend the functionality of your forms.
Why we recommend Formidable Forms: This form plugin is perfect for those who need more functionality than just a simple form builder. It has advanced features such as conditional logic, data management, dynamic fields, and calculations, making it a versatile tool for creating complex forms and applications.
Pricing: Formidable Forms starts at $39.50 per year for the Basic plan. Higher-level plans with additional features are also available.
58. Automator
Whenever possible, we try to automate manual website tasks to save time and increase productivity. Uncanny Automator is a powerful WordPress website automation plugin that can help us do just that.
This powerful tool allows you to create automated workflows across different plugins, apps, and services without writing a single line of code. It promises to be a game-changer for large businesses and online stores.
This is because many routine WordPress website management tasks are repetitive and require no user input. Automating these tasks can save a lot of time and reduce human error.
Uncanny Automator creates automated workflows called “Recipes” by connecting different WordPress plugins and third-party applications.
For example, you can set up a recipe to automatically add users to a specific email list when they shop on your WooCommerce store, or send a Slack notification when a new form submission is received.
We like its recipe builder, which has a simple, user-friendly interface where you select a trigger (the event that starts the workflow) and an action (what happens when the trigger is activated).
Uncanny Automator offers an impressive number of integrations. It supports over 80 plugins and apps, including WooCommerce, WPForms, MemberPress, BuddyBoss, Slack, Google Sheets, and many more.
With Uncanny Automator, you can automate almost any process on your WordPress website, from e-commerce to e-learning, without having to switch between multiple tools or hire a developer.
We find it very helpful in our day-to-day work on many of our sites. It saves time, reduces the potential for errors, and eases the workload.
The plugin also offers advanced options such as conditional logic, which allows you to add conditions to your recipes. This means you can create highly targeted and customized workflows based on specific conditions. All in all, this ensures that your automation is as efficient as possible.
Why we recommend Uncanny Automator: This tool brings powerful automation capabilities to WordPress. With its wide range of integrations and the ability to create complex workflows without writing code, it’s an invaluable tool for any website owner.
Pricing: Starts at $149 per year for a single website. There’s also a free version of the plugin.
WordPress Services
WordPress has a slightly higher learning curve, and website owners need to manage the software on an ongoing basis. If you’re a small business with a limited budget, then you can take the time to manage it yourself. However, if you manage multiple websites or need additional help, these services can help you.
59. WPBeginner Professional Services
One of the requests we often receive in our annual WPBeginner reader survey is for affordable WordPress development and website management services. WPBeginner Professional Services aims to bridge the gap between DIY solutions and professional custom support.
It’s perfect for small businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs who don’t have the time or technical expertise to manage every part of a WordPress website. It’s also perfect for those who want to easily take their website to the next level without going through a steep learning curve.
By hiring WPBeginner professional services, you will be working with a team that has been deeply involved in the WordPress community for many years. Our experts know the WordPress platform inside and out, and we have helped millions of users with our tutorials and tools.
Services provided:
WPBeginner Pro Services include a range of products designed to meet the specific needs of WordPress users:
- WordPress Maintenance Services: Let professionals manage your WordPress updates and cloud backups and monitor your website 24/7.
- WordPress Website Design: Get a professionally designed WordPress website customized to your requirements.
- WordPress Speed Optimization : Optimize the performance and speed of your WordPress website.
- Hacked Site Restoration: Professional WordPress security experts will clean your website and restore it in the event of a cyber attack or data breach.
- Emergency WordPress Support: Get fast WordPress help in times of crisis or hire a professional WordPress developer for a custom solution.
Every service is delivered with the same attention to detail and quality that WPBeginner is known for. Whether you need a one-time fix or ongoing support, our team is here to help.
Why we recommend WPBeginner Professional Services : Hire professionals to help with behind-the-scenes and technical tasks, allowing you to focus on growing your business. WPBeginner offers affordable options, and you only pay for the services you need.
Pricing: WPBeginner Pro Services offers customized pricing based on your specific needs. This ensures that you get the right support at no extra cost.
Frequently Asked Questions about WordPress Toolkit
Here are answers to some of the questions our readers frequently ask about WordPress Toolkit.
What is a WordPress Toolkit? Why do I need one as a professional?
The WordPress Toolkit is a collection of essential tools, plugins, and services that can improve your website’s functionality, security, performance, and design. As a professional, having the right toolkit can save you time, increase your productivity, and ensure that you can handle every aspect of running a WordPress website more effectively.
Are these WordPress tools suitable for beginners too?
Yes, many of the WordPress tools we mentioned, while primarily geared toward professionals, are also suitable for beginners. Some offer beginner-friendly interfaces and tutorials to help you get started quickly, while advanced users will find extra features that can make their workflow more efficient.
How do I choose the right tool for my WordPress site from this list?
Choosing the right tools depends on the specific needs of your WordPress site. Focus on the problem you want to solve—whether it’s improving SEO, site speed, or enhancing security. Start with the essential tools that meet your goals, then expand as your site grows.
Are these tools free or do you need to pay for them?
Our list of WordPress toolkit plugins and software includes both free and paid tools. Some offer a free version with limited functionality (freemium), while others are fully paid. It’s best to assess your needs and budget before investing in a paid tool, but many free versions will suffice for the most basic requirements.
Can I use multiple tools from this WordPress toolkit at the same time without conflicts?
Yes, most of the tools in this toolkit are designed to work smoothly together. However, be sure to test any new tool you add to your site as sometimes conflicts can occur with your specific theme or existing plugins. Keeping your plugins updated can help avoid compatibility issues.
Managing a WordPress website can be difficult if you don’t know the right tools to use. We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress toolkit plugins in each category.
You may also want to check out our pick of the most popular WordPress themes and refer to our article on the cost of building a WordPress website for practical tips on keeping your website on budget .
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