So, I’m yet another blogger who has joined the WordPress club. I migrated from the free Blogger platform to the self-hosted WordPress platform, and I’m quite happy with it. The reason for my happiness is obvious. WordPress saves my time as it offers well-developed interfaces and high-quality plugins (unfortunately the blogger platform lacks them).
WordPresss security plugins ensure that your blog or WP website is safe from all types of hacking attacks that may take your precious website away from you. If you search on Google for the best internet for WP security tips, then don’t be surprised to find blog posts that recommend you to install either WP better Ithemes Security or Wordfence plugins.
You’ll also find blog posts asking you to add some security rules to the Htaccess file. Webmasters without knowledge of Htaccess or mod rewrite rules should go with the easiest method to secure their site i.e. install a security plugin. The two best security plugins are Better WP Security and Wordfence plugin.
Having used these two plugins, I know that these two plugins share a similar set of features, and there are some differences between them. My today’s post would highlight these differences and similarities between Wordfence and Better WP Security. This comparison would help you to choose and download the best WordPress security plugin for your site.
Wordfence review
In Wordfence, you’ll find the below features:
Live Traffic: – This module shows all hits to the blog in a real time (Hits by Crawlers, Visitors, etc.).
Humans: – This module displays all human traffic (direct, referral or organic traffic).
Pages Not Found: – This module shows the errors encountered by the visitors/search engines when they attempted to visit a particular page. This is the most important module of the Wordfence WordPress security plugin as it shows the data in real time. You should check this tab often to find out the pages that caused 404 errors in an attempt to visit the page by the visitor or a Crawler.
If you have deleted a page or post from your blog, then make sure that you remove the URL too from the search index of Google/Bing. If you have changed the URL of the page, make sure that is redirected (with HTTP status 301) to the updated URL.
Login and Logout:- This is a very important module as it shows the login attempts by a user. If you find a visitor trying to enter into your WordPress account (as an attempt to take over your website), you can block him or her easily through the block IP’s module of the Wordfence Security system. If you have already installed this plugin, then you should keep an eye on this tab.
Top 404’s: –This is one of the most important modules as it shows all the top 404 error encountered by a bots/users when they tried to access a page.
Country Blocking: – Available in the premium version, this module can be used to block traffic from a particular country.
Login Limiter: – This module of Wordfence makes sure that no one is able to exceed the number of login tries you’ve set. If a user reaches the number of login tries you’ve set, he or she will be automatically banned from accessing the login page, This is the most important feature of this plugin as it prevents brute force attacks.
File checks: – Wordfence has the capability to detect and remove any malicious code inserted into your theme files. You can either schedule theme file scans or manually run the Wordfence file scanner.
Click here to install Wordfence.
Better WP Security review
Along with the login limiter, 404 error detection, and file scans, better WP security plugin comes with the below set of features:-
Htacess, wp-config security: –This plugin has the ability to make these 2 files read only.
Change DB prefix: – This module would add a prefix to your WordPress DB tables. If you change the DB prefix of your WordPress database tables, SQL injection attacks would be difficult to execute as the hacker/intruder won’t have the actual name of your DB tables.
Backups: – Better WP Security plugin has an inbuilt backup module which can be used to create or schedule database backups. Thus, when the WP-Better security is installed on your site, you don’t have to install any other backup plugin.
Hide backend: – With this feature, you can protect wp-login and wp-admin pages from strangers.
+ lot more interesting and important features.
Click here to install better wp security.
Wordfence vs Better WP Security (IThemes security)
From the above features of these 2 plugins, you can see that WP Better security has more features than Wordfence. But Wordfence has the live mode feature which displays the information of real time visitors (including bots, humans, etc.), 404 errors, real-time intruders trying to log into your server. Thus, it’s very difficult for me to pick the best plugin out of the 2. I leave it up you to decide the best WordPress security plugin
So, what do you think of this WordPress Security plugin?. Have you used the Wordfence security or the Better WP Security plugin before? If not, then by this time you might be impressed with their features and you might be thinking to install one of these 2 on your blog. So what are you waiting for?
Pramod,
I'm a little late to the party but I do like how you've put your information together. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said what could be easier than installing one of these two plugins.
Personally, I believe that of the two, Wordfence Security is the better option for the newest web masters out there. Many new website owners would be hard pressed to fully understand some of the settings in Better WP Security, especially with the changes it needs to make to the database, .htaccess file, wp-config etc.
So ultimately, in my mind, a website owner should not only understand what these two plugins do, but also understand their own strengths and limitations.
You can't go wrong with either and you should definitely install one or the other. However, since Better WP Security has a much steeper learning curve, I always recommend Wordfence.
Thanks for the article. I'll be recommending my podcast listeners to check it out.
Yes Chris, both these plugins are excellent. I have used both of them on my site and hence' i've shared these 2 awesome free plugins to my readers. Thanks for stopping by Chris !
Hi Pramod,
Well, here I am on your site. What can I say? You worked hard and wrote a lot of articles. I know these kind of articles because at some point in time I wrote for an Indian client myself (about cars). Full of technical specifications (it is a technical site, after all) and a lot of catchy phrases destined to impress the visitor. This is a part of the classical Indian style you can see in the press and online.
The result of this huge amount of work and research started to reflect in the blogosphere hierarchy. You global rank in Alexa is now 101 K.
Congratulations. You are now entering the bloggers elite.
Also, it seems that you are commenting a lot. Good strategy. It definitely helps.
There is one thing I cannot see tough. A lot of comments and engagement on your blog.
Honestly, it is difficult to make comments on technical posts full of data, numbers, features and prices. You can write something, of course, you can make price comparisons, feature comparisons, results comparisons etc. However, it is difficult. People need something to relate to.
This is why I am very happy that you chose to write articles like this one. It is an excellent idea. It solves a problem, and it is not so full of technical specifications so people may find something to say.
I believe that alternating article like this with your normal product reviews articles is a better strategy that will help you more.
Have a wonderful day
Hi Silviu !
Welcome to my blog , Yes i’ve been working hard to share the latest smartphones details with the visitors .I love reading the technical details of computing devices and when i discover some latest gadget (through news channels) worth to be shared ..i convert it into my blog’s next post by writing a simple article on it. I have migrated from blogger to the WordPress platform just a week ago and during migration i lost many of the comments. Anyways , thanks for stopping by and keep visiting !