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Best Free WordPress Plugins for Front End

15 plugins compared · Updated August 2026 · Front End

All 15 Free only Premium only

Choosing a WordPress plugin for front end comes down to a few things: whether it is still actively maintained, whether real users rate it well, and whether it does the specific job you need without dragging the rest of the site down.

We ranked 15 plugins using our WPScore, which weighs the user rating (adjusted for how many people actually rated it), how many sites run it, how recently it was updated, and which WordPress version it is tested against. 15 of them have enough public data to be scored; the rest are listed below the ranked block, clearly marked, rather than being given a number we cannot justify.

How this list is funded. Some links here earn us a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not move anything up the list — the order comes from the WPScore, which is calculated from public ratings, install counts and update history. See the method.

At a glance

  1. 1. User Submitted Posts Best overall 85/100
  2. 2. JCH Optimize 81/100
  3. 3. WP Frontend Admin 80/100
  4. 4. Jamie's Front-End Editor for Content Teams 77/100
  5. 5. Front End Users 70/100
  6. 6. Front End PM 67/100
  7. 7. Prevent Landscape Rotation 67/100
  8. 8. ACF Nav Menu Field 66/100
  9. 9. Hide Front End WP Admin Bar 64/100
  10. 10. Headless Mode 57/100
  11. 11. Exclude Pages From Menu 50/100
  12. 12. What Template File Am I Viewing? 50/100
  13. 13. Remove/Hide Admin Toolbar 50/100
  14. 14. Hide Admin Bar From Front End 49/100
  15. 15. Hide Google reCAPTCHA Logo 49/100
1 User Submitted Posts
Best overall Free by Jeff Starr

User Submitted Posts

Enable visitors to submit posts and images from the front-end of your site. Many features including anti-spam security, content restriction, and more.

4.8★
from 911 ratings
10k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
85

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
2 JCH Optimize
Free by codealfa

JCH Optimize

This plugin automatically performs several front end optimizations to your site to boost performance and increase PageSpeed scores.

4.4★
from 69 ratings
4k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
81

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
3 WP Frontend Admin
Free by Jose Vega

WP Frontend Admin

Show Gutenberg Editor in the Frontend. Display WP Admin Pages in the Frontend. Create custom dashboards in the front end, Allow to Edit in the Fronten …

4.9★
from 54 ratings
400+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
80

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
5 Front End Users
Free by Rustaurius

Front End Users

A customizable front end user management plugin for membership sites. Use shortcodes for registration, login, restricting access, membership fees, etc

4.1★
from 56 ratings
400+
active installs
Updated
Dec 2025
Tested to
WP 6.9.7
70

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
6 Front End PM
Free by Shamim Hasan

Front End PM

Front End PM is a Private Messaging system and a secure contact form to your WordPress site.This is full functioning messaging system from front end.

4.8★
from 219 ratings
4k+
active installs
Updated
Feb 2025
Tested to
WP 6.7.7
67

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
8 ACF Nav Menu Field
Free by Galaxy Weblinks

ACF Nav Menu Field

ACF Nav Menu field plugin provides an option to show a menu in the front end similar to other ACF fields (Text, Textarea, Number, Range etc.)

2.6★
from 5 ratings
3k+
active installs
Updated
Apr 2025
Tested to
WP 6.8.8
66

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
10 Headless Mode
Free by Ben Meredith

Headless Mode

Once you take the head off of WordPress, nobody needs to see it. This plugin hides the front end by redirecting to the shiny static (etc) site.

5★
from 6 ratings
2k+
active installs
Updated
Jul 2024
Tested to
WP 6.6.7
57

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
11 Exclude Pages From Menu
Free by Vinod Dalvi

Exclude Pages From Menu

The plugin provides option in the page edit screen to remove page from navigation menu in the front end of site.

3.5★
from 19 ratings
8k+
active installs
Updated
Mar 2021
Tested to
WP 5.7.17
50

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org