WP Secure Maintenance

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

Directory searches this plugin turns up in, and which way each one is moving. WordPress.org publishes no history of search positions, so this starts the day we first tracked a keyword and never backfills.

Not enough tracked days yet to call a direction. Momentum needs at least three keywords measured a week or more apart.

wp.org is where the directory puts the plugin for that search. On merit is where it would sit if results were ranked on rating, support and updates, without the install boost. The last column is how far the wp.org position moved, from our first reading in the last 90 days to the latest.

1 search this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 0 listed. 1 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words). 4 of its tags aren't in the top 24 for their own search.

Directory rank vs rivals

wp.org popularity rank over time · higher is better · when a rival's line climbs above yours, they've overtaken you

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 77% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

Crossed into this band 9 months ago and the previous band took 3.3 years to cross, so the real count is still just under 2K.

1. ★★★★★ Joshua Gerrity

   5.8y ago

   This plugin works great. It’s simple, and does what it says. By removing all page content besides this plugin’s, it prevents bots from being able to see what other plugins you have activated (which could be a security issue). Of course, don’t expect your website to be impervious to outside visitors guessing your password. There is no brute-force protection in place. Instead, just consider it, as someone else commented in their review, a simple WordPress replacement of HTAccess site locking functionality. No one should expect the things we put on the Internet to remain private, anyway.

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ moddo

   7.2y ago

   I was looking for exactly this type and found. But to perfection is missing one big and fundamental thing. If password maintenance is active. So virtually the entire WordPress is closed and WPbackup and other plugins that communicate in the background do not work. Solve a site blocking without the other and it’s an amazing tool to restrict access to test unfinished sites.

   Read on wp.org ↗
3. ★★★★★ sketchhog

   8.7y ago

   Looks like it was built as a high school project. Text is all cut off, fields are unclear, logo area is rounded off, and there’s hokey glow effects everywhere. I seriously have no idea what they were thinking here. This topic was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by sketchhog.

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ Michael Samson

   9.3y ago

   I wanted to leave a review here for this little plugin because it is great for a single reason… (I’m also leaving some recommendations for the plugin author below) This may be the only plugin of it’s kind that emulates htaccess authentication without actually using htaccess. Most plugins created to lock websites while they’re in development (maintenance mode plugins) either completely block access to the website, or allow an admin to login using a login form on the maintenance screen. The problem with that approach is that if you happen to be doing development on a site with custom login/register screens, you will not be able to see those screens once logging in on the maintenance screen (because you will then be logged into the site, and won’t obviously see the login screen you’re developing). In the past I would have simply used htaccess authentication (with htpasswd files) to restrict access to the site so only developers could see it. However, I happen to be developing a website right now on Amazon Web Services (AWS) with CloudFront (their CDN). I found that CloudFront is not compatible with htaccess authentication at all. This left me in a real conundrum, as I needed to access restrict our site to developers while still being able to see and work on the website’s login/register page. That’s where this amazing little plugin came in. This plugin is very simple, but it does what so many other maintenance mode plugins do not. It simply acts as a secondary front door to a website, without interfering with the main front door. When you enter your password into this plugin, it then releases you into the site without actually logging you into WordPress, thus making it possible to do development work on login/register screens. These are a few recommendations and things of note for the plugin author: 1. I recommend adding a lot more settings to control the look and feel, as I had to re-write all of the css in this plugin to get it to look the way I wanted. 2. Add the ability to input your logo from a local URL in the website’s file system, and not just from the Media Library. We’re not keeping our website’s official images in the media library. I had to edit the plugin to work around this limitation. 3. Introduce a true username/password system that is completely separate from the WordPress users. In other words, provide the ability to create users, each with their own custom password. This would work the same way the plugin works now, by not using the WordPress login functionality. We don’t want to use the WordPress logins for the reasons I recommended this plugin above. Right now the login is limited to a single password. Imagine how flexible this would be if you could create multiple usernames and passwords for developers. This would then be a complete replacement for htaccess authentication. 4. The logo width and height settings are backwards in the settings, in terms of what they actually control. 5. You should correct the spelling of “Maintenance” in the plugin folder name, plugin title, and description. I noticed it was misspelled everywhere as “Maintainance.” ….. To anyone thinking of using this plugin, I do highly recommend it if you need a convenient replacement for htaccess authentication. For this purpose, it is the perfect solution! All my best, ~ Michael

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ WPExperts.io

   10.1y ago

   Hi There! We have developed simple and easy plugin for WordPress community with which you can lock your whole site with single PIN code. Its pretty handy to use at the time of WordPress based website development or maintenance. Happy WordPressing! 🙂

   Read on wp.org ↗

The 1 disclosed vulnerability is patched in the current version (1.7). Sites still on an older version should update.

1. Patched Medium · 4.4 WP Secure Maintenance <= 1.6 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting ↗
   2024-06-21 CVE-2024-4753 Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation Affects <= 1.6 Patched in 1.7

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 8.1.12 · WP 6.5.4

Translated into 1 language, 1 at 90% or more

Whether ChatGPT and Claude name this plugin when asked the category question, and whether the readme gives them something to quote.

Not measured yet for this plugin’s topics. Its tracked searches are not among the measured topics. See the topics measured so far.

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

1. 2026-01-24 2K+ → 1K+ down after 1208 days in tier
2. 2022-10-04 500+ → 2K+ up

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

Embed this report card

Drop a live Pulse card for WP Secure Maintenance into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

WP Secure Maintenance: 1K+ active installs, 3.6★ (5 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/wp-secure-maintainance