{"id":3387,"date":"2025-03-20T18:54:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T18:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudzat.org\/?p=3387"},"modified":"2025-03-20T18:54:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T18:54:33","slug":"wordfence-security-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svglogomaker.org\/blog\/wordfence-security-review\/","title":{"rendered":"WordFence Security Plugin Review: The Best WordPress Security?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Millions of sites are hacked daily. It doesn\u2019t matter what type of content management system or custom setup you are using; you still need to protect it the right <\/em><\/strong>way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to WordPress, you will get plenty of options for protecting your site. But, one that caught my attention early as WordFence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started using WordPress from 2014, and WordFence is the first security plugin that I used on my site. In the coming years, I tried multiple security plugins, including Sucuri. In this review, I will do an in-depth review of the WordFence plugin and services so that you can decide if it is a good fit for your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, if you are in a hurry, then check out the table for WordFence Complete Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WordFence in a Nutshell<\/td>A WordPress Security Service Provider<\/td><\/tr>
What services WordFence offers<\/td>WordPress Plugin + WordPress Site Clean Services<\/td><\/tr>
What is the WordPress Site Clean Service?<\/td>It is the service that you can use when you need to remove malware from your site.<\/td><\/tr>
Steps to clean your site<\/td>\n
    \n
  1. Clean the infection<\/li>\n
  2. Learn how the attackers gained access to the site<\/li>\n
  3. Remove malicious links and code from your site<\/li>\n
  4. Provide an in-depth report<\/li>\n
  5. Remove any search engine black-list for your site<\/li>\n
  6. Give you the checklist on how to protect yourself from hackers in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/td><\/tr>
Price of WordPress Site Clean Service<\/td>$179 per site<\/td><\/tr>
Is there any page limit to the WordPress Site Clean Service<\/td>No<\/td><\/tr>
Money-back guarantee for the WordPress Site Clean Service<\/td>90-days if you follow their post-service recommendation<\/td><\/tr>
What does the WordFence plugin do?<\/td>A plugin that protects your site form malware using scanning and firewall<\/td><\/tr>
Is WordFence plugin free?<\/td>Yes, it can be used for free.<\/td><\/tr>
Is there any paid option for the WordFence plugin?<\/td>Yes, $99 per year, gives you access to advanced features.<\/td><\/tr>
Is it easy to setup?<\/td>Yes<\/td><\/tr>
Is the free WordFence plugin enough for your site?<\/td>Yes!<\/td><\/tr>
Ideal For<\/td>Businesses, Freelancers, Startups<\/td><\/tr>
What are alternatives to WordFence<\/td>Sucuri, Malcare<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>WordFence Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before we get started, let\u2019s look into what actually WordFence is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I am trying to say is that WordFence is more than just their plugin. They are a security service provider that protects millions of WordPress site owners from hacks and also helps them resolve issues when they are either hacked or compromised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, if you go to their site, you can get access to their WordPress Site Cleaning Service<\/a> which starts from $179 per site<\/em><\/strong>. However, most of the time, the prices are increased due to demand. The highest I have seen the prices to be is 2.7 x<\/em><\/strong>. And that\u2019s a lot. The only good thing about the service is that they provide a one-year premium subscription for their WordPress plugin that is normally priced at $99 per year.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It can take anywhere between 24 hours to 72 hours for them to fix. However, they do not have any turnoarund time mentioned which means that it can take few hours to few days before you get your site back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of Course, they are not alone in the market. Almost every security service provider, including MalCare and Sucuri, provides similar services for their customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help you in the process, I have made a short but sweet comparison of the services offered by other security plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plugin<\/strong><\/td>Time<\/strong><\/td>Pricing<\/strong><\/td>Money-back guarantee<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
WordFence<\/strong><\/td>No time is given<\/td>$179 per site, no page limit<\/td>90-days money-back guarantee if you follow their post-hack recommendations<\/td><\/tr>
MalCare<\/strong><\/td>12 hours<\/td>$99 per year<\/td>Yes<\/td><\/tr>
Sucuri<\/strong><\/td>6 hours guaranteed response<\/td>$199 per year<\/td>30-days money-back guarantee<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now that I have talked briefly about their malware cleaning service and compared them briefly with other similar service providers, it is time to look at their plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WordFence is popular not for their Malware cleaning services but also for their plugin. So, let\u2019s cover it below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plugin lets you secure your WordPress site. Their plugin is free to use, <\/em><\/strong>and it is trendy. Right now, it has more than 3+ million installations. That\u2019s impressive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"WordFence\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The WordFence security plugin offers a malware scan and firewall for your site. You can also use it to harden your WordPress site. By hardening, I mean making your site more secure than before. Making your site secure requires many other steps, but installing a security plugin gives you a head start to the whole process. I will not be covering the entire process of hardening your WordPress site, but I will cover the WordFence plugin in such a way that you will get the basics of hardening your WordPress site and secure it against malicious actors and hackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Getting Started With WordFence Plugin<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To get started with WordFence, you need to install their free plugin from their repository. You can do it in two ways. You can either go to their official WordFence listing<\/a> on the WordPress plugin repository or download and install it directly from your WordPress site dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s install it from our site\u2019s dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get started, go to your WordPress website\u2019s dashboard. Once there, you now need to click on Plugins > Add New<\/strong> from the main menu. Not sure how to do it? Check out the image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once you click \u201cAdd New,\u201d you will be redirected to the plugins page. There you need to search for WordFence by typing in the search plugins <\/strong>textbox. If you did it right, you would see the WordFence plugin. Now, we need to click on \u201cInstall<\/strong>\u201d for the installation to get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Install Now Button will now change to \u201cActivate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start using the plugin, all you need to do is click on the \u201cActivate\u201d button as shown below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Setting Up WordFence For the First Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Setting up your WordFence plugin is very important. If you do everything right, you will make your site secure. That\u2019s why we will go through the whole process of setting it up so that you do not miss anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To access WordFence for the first time, you need to click on WordFence in your main menu and then click on Dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once there, you will be greeted by their \u201cRecommended Settings Change.\u201d It is a handy option to get started. It will ask you to change the settings so that it can track all traffic. It is recommended that you do enable it by clicking on \u201cYes Please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next, it will ask you to review their Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. These are important for businesses that work with critical data. So, take your time and review them before proceeding. I did go through it briefly and found no alarming issues that can be of any concern for sites using it. However, if you are a business that works with critical data, you might want to check out their terms and privacy policy deeply to see if there is any sort of thing that bothers you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, let\u2019s see how the WordPress dashboard looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s a lot of things on the dashboard. It gives you an eagle-eye view of what\u2019s happening on your site and also gives you access to quick options to work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first thing to notice here is the upper section, where it lets you know about current WordPress protection. As we just installed the plugin, it is taking its time to adjust itself to the site. At the time of writing, it is still currently learning about the traffic and scanning the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It also tells you about the premium protection status. If you are using the free version, then it will show as disabled. The premium version offers better protection. We will discuss more the premium version and what it has to offer later on. For now, let\u2019s stick to setting up WordFence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Scan Your Website<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is easy to get lost in the plethora of WordFence options. Before you fiddle with them, it is good to do a preliminary scan on your site. This will help you figure out if your site is compromised or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scan is also the most important part of the WordFence security plugin. To access it, you need to go to WordFence > Scan.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, you can run a scan and also find all the scan options, including scheduling and other scans activity-related information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how the scan page looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pretty descriptive! Here, we click on the \u201cStart New Scan.\u201d This will start the scan, and you can see the window update with the progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u201cStart New Scan\u201d button will now change to \u201cStop Scan.\u201d You can also see the steps that it will take during the scanning process. The box marked with (1)<\/strong> showcases the steps that are locked as we are using the free version. It will skip it and then start checking out the following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n