4 Plugins to Password Protect Your Entire WordPress Site

Why Would You Need to Password Protect WordPress?

When you are working with WordPress, there will probably be a time that you need to password protect your entire site. Below are a few examples why:

• You offer a private site where only premium users are allowed.
• You put your website in maintenance or under-development mode.
• You intend to create a private website for internal operations and communications.

The built-in WordPress password protection feature only allows you to secure individual pages and posts. Installing a third-party plugin can help you password protect your entire website.

While there are many password protection plugins out there, Password Protect WordPress Pro (PPWP Pro), Password Protected, Hide My Site Premium, and SeedProd Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode are among the most popular.

In this article, we will compare these 4 plugins based on their features, updates, support, and pricing to help you decide which plugin would be best for you. Since the free versions provide restricted features, we will focus on the premium (Pro) versions, except for Password Protected, this plugin only offers a free option.

The Best WordPress Password Protection Plugins

Before going into detail about these plugins, let’s take a quick look at some of their features:

An In-Depth Explanation of These Features

#1 Password protection

Password Protect WordPress (PPWP) Pro, Password Protected, Hide My Site, and SeedProd Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode will all allow you to assign a password to protect your entire WordPress website.

In terms of setting multiple passwords, PPWP Pro is the winner. It enables you to set various passwords to secure the site and then send each user a different password to access the hidden content. Each password is placed in one line in the password box.

It’s possible for you to decide what users will see once they successfully log in to your password-protected website. You can also send different users to a separate landing page.

PPWP Pro does not prevent brute force attacks at the moment. Visitors can try as many passwords as they would like in password forms without any restrictions or blocks.

SeedProd’s Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode lets you show the password form in the coming soon page. You can set only one password to lock your under-development site. It also cannot block password attempts from automatic scripts.

Unlike the other 3 plugins, Hide My Site helps protect login pages from brute force attacks more effectively. If any IP address attempts to log into your site repeatedly but fails, it will be temporarily banned.

#2 Access permissions

Sometimes you might want specific users to view your private content without having to enter a password. You can grant access to selected user roles (admins, editors, authors, etc.) with PPWP Pro and SeepProd plugins while Password Protected and Hide My Site open the door for admins only.

If you want to permit specific users based on their IP addresses, Password Protected, Hide My Site, and SeedProd all support that.

PPWP also gives your users temporary access through bypassed links (access links). Instead of entering passwords, they can click on the access link and directly view the protected site. The same thing goes for SeedProd Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode.

On top of that, it’s possible for you to decide how long a user can re-visit your private site without entering passwords. Just enable the Cookies Expiration feature of PPWP Pro and the Duration option of Hide My Site. Unfortunately, the other 2 plugins do not offer this.

#3 Content restriction

If you want to make certain pages public within a private site, PPWP Pro is the perfect plugin. You can easily exclude pages and posts from within your site-wide protection via a search box:

The same thing goes for SeedProd Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode plugin.

If you don’t want your website indexed, the PPWP Pro plugin can help with that. It blocks search engines (via the “noindex” tag) from indexing and displaying your protected content on search results. This feature is enabled by default so you don’t need to take any action.

SeedProd protects your private site from the search engines in another way. It tells crawlers that your site is down via the 503 header HTTP status.

Unfortunately, none of these plugins are able to secure media types. However, you can integrate PPWP Pro with the Prevent Direct Access Gold plugin to restrict direct access to your images, videos, ebooks, and more.

#4 Login page customization

If you would like to create a better UI and UX for users, customizing the login page should be a priority. You can change the notification messages in password forms with both PPWP Pro and Hide My Site. Password Protected will let you replace WordPress’s logo with your own.

SeedProd is the best plugin when it comes to login page customization. Since this plugin comes primarily as a theme plugin, you can choose gorgeous themes for your login or password page.

Documentation, Support, and Updates

#1 How Good is the Documentation and Support?

Since Password Protected doesn’t have its own business website, there is no documentation provided. You have to look for how to set up and use the plugin via the plugin’s frequently asked questions on the WordPress repository. If there are not any questions related to your problem, you need to figure it out yourself or create new topics in the support section.

PPWP Pro documentation page, on the other hand, lists out everything you need to know about the plugin in a very well-organized way. You can find any information about the plugin there, from how to get started, the way each feature works to its extensions, and more. In addition, the reviews on WordPress repository show that customers are very satisfied with the PPWP’s support team. You can normally receive a response in less than 1 business day.

SeedProd’s documentation also makes it very easy for users to get started with the plugin.

#2 How Often Are These Plugins Updated?

It’s very important for your website security to keep all plugins up to date.

PPWP Pro releases new versions frequently. These frequent updates aim to add new features and fix bugs. SeedProd keeps its plugins up to date regularly as well.

There have been no new releases of Hide My Site and Password Protected for the last 4 months.

How Much do These Plugins Cost?

The costs of these 4 plugins vary widely depending on the package you choose from. Password Protected is freely available on WordPress.org. That partly explains its limitations in features and customer support compared to the others.

Hide My Site offers 2 pricing packages: buy a 1-site license with $20 or an unlimited-sites license with $50. These 2 licenses are valid forever.

SeedProd bills you annually, with 3 types of prices: $29 for 1 year of support and updates for 1 website, $69 for 1 year of support and updates for 3 websites, and $99 for 1 year of support and updates for unlimited websites.

PPWP Pro combines the pricing models of 2 plugins SeedProd and Hide My Site. You can pay annually or one-time. The rates vary from $106 to $168 for annual billing and from $299 to $399, depending on the number of websites you want to install the plugin on.

While considering the price, you should also look at how the plugin solves your problem and the value it can bring to your business.

Which One of These plugins do I Recommend?

Each of the 4 plugins proves effective at password protecting your entire WordPress website.

If you want to set multiple passwords to lock your website, PPWP Pro is the way to go. Users also love this plugin due to its high level of support. If you would like to prevent brute force attackers from repeatedly guessing and trying passwords, Hide My Site is a great solution. SeedProd Coming Soon Page and Maintenance Mode is useful to optimize coming soon pages for search engines. So really it just comes down to what you need the most.

Have you had a chance to use these plugins? Let me know in the comments below what your experiences were and if you enjoyed this review, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.