Twenty years of WordPress and roughly a thousand sites in. There are plugins we will not install. Each has a clean replacement we use instead. This list is not “these are bad plugins” — it is “this is the tradeoff we made and why”.
1. Heavy “all-in-one SEO” plugins on small sites
If the site does not need every SEO feature, Yoast or RankMath is overhead. What we use: SEOPress Free or Slim SEO for sites where 90 percent of the SEO settings will never be touched.
2. Slider Revolution
Powerful, heavy, security history. What we use: a Swiper.js implementation in 200 lines of theme code, or Elementor’s slider if Elementor is already loaded.
3. “Cleanup” plugins that delete revisions and transients
These run on a cron and frequently delete things you wanted. What we use: a small mu-plugin that prunes old revisions on a schedule with a configurable retention window.
4. WP Statistics / WP Slimstat
Self-hosted analytics that bloats the database fast. What we use: Plausible or Fathom on a separate domain.
5. Generic anti-spam plugins on production sites
Akismet alone misses realistic AI-written spam; honeypot-only plugins miss the headless cases; CAPTCHA-only plugins hurt conversions. What we use: QWeb Spam Shield. Reads the submission with AI, layers honeypot + timing underneath, and includes a Mail Guard for outbound reputation protection. It is the one we install on every production site we touch.
6. Page-builder add-on bundles
“Ultimate addons for X” packages that ship 40 widgets we use 3 of. What we use: the specific widget plugin from the original author, or a custom block.
7. WP File Manager / “FTP in admin” plugins
Convenience that is also an attack surface. What we use: SSH for staff, SFTP for clients who need it. Never an admin-side file manager.
The pattern
Every plugin on this list shares a property: it does more than it needs to, and the “more” is what causes the problems. Smaller, more focused plugins age better. We never regret installing fewer plugins, and we usually regret the all-in-one bundle.
None of these are bad plugins. They are just not the right fit for the way we work. Your list will be different. The exercise of writing yours is worth an afternoon.