Article Summary

This article is meant to keep track of what I feel to be the best in WordPress plugins. These are my top recommendations for the general needs of a WordPress site.

CRON Plugin

WP Crontrol

Pros

In an age where every plugin has a premium version, WP Crontrol is a standout. They do not ask for any money. It is a truly free, full-featured plugin.

One detail that I particularly enjoy is that WP Crontrol shows all of your current CRONs and their repeat times, with a next run event count down.

Another feature worth mentioning is that WP Crontrol gives uninhabited access to scheduling types, which correlates with scheduling CRONs on different time interval variations. For example, the “Every 5 Minutes” and “Every 10 Minutes” selections are a couple of examples of the default scheduling types. You can add as many custom scheduling types as you want.

Cons

Its interface is dated by today\’s standards. Who cares though? Its server CRON control from your WordPress dashboard!

Summary

There aren\’t many plugins that offer something for nothing, but WP Control is one of them. It is reliable, sturdy and best of all, it does the job that it says it does.

SSL Plugin

Really Simple SSL

Pros

What\’s in a name? In this case, everything. Really Simple SSL exhibits exactly what this plugin is all about. Once you\’re sure that your site supports SSL a.k.a HTTPS, feel free to turn it on and go. It\’s really just that easy.

They have excellent documentation for all their features plus even tidbits on what to do when things go wrong. Their Deactivate (revert to HTTP) button can be found right from the main WP plugins page, or of course from within the settings of the plugin.

Cons

It is a freemium plugin but it\’s one of the best I\’ve ever encountered. There are features that I\’ve see it not exhibit and I\’d assume that\’s because I\’ve never paid for it. I\’ve had a site that did Ajax API calls and the free version didn\’t handle ensuring all the incoming HTML was SSL secured.

Summary

Want ensured SSL / HTTPS and settings the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) aren\’t cutting it, or perhaps it works on one page but not another or not in the admin panel? That\’s what Really Simple SSL is for. It converts the whole site to SSL / HTTPS which is great for a lot of things including SEO.