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Best Free WordPress Plugins for Htaccess

15 plugins compared · Updated August 2026 · Htaccess

All 15 Free only Premium only

Choosing a WordPress plugin for htaccess 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. Redirection Best overall 88/100
  2. 2. Htaccess File Editor 88/100
  3. 3. Leverage Browser Caching 81/100
  4. 4. Speed Up 80/100
  5. 5. Htaccess File Editor 77/100
  6. 6. Url Rewrite Analyzer 77/100
  7. 7. Apache Status & Info 76/100
  8. 8. Custom PHP Settings 74/100
  9. 9. Search URL Beautifier 66/100
  10. 10. SAR One Click Security 65/100
  11. 11. Canonical Attachments 64/100
  12. 12. Spider Blocker 60/100
  13. 13. HTACCESS IP Blocker 51/100
  14. 14. .htaccess Site Access Control 49/100
  15. 15. htaccess protect 48/100
1 Redirection
Best overall Free by John Godley

Redirection

Manage 301 redirects, track 404 errors, and improve your site. No knowledge of Apache or Nginx required.

4.4★
from 703 ratings
2M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
88

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
2 Htaccess File Editor
Free by WebFactory

Htaccess File Editor

A safe & simple htaccess file editor with automatic htaccess backups & htaccess file syntax testing.

5★
from 102 ratings
40k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
88

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
3 Leverage Browser Caching
Free by Rinku Y

Leverage Browser Caching

Speed up WordPress with browser caching. Automatically adds expiry headers for images, CSS, JS & fonts via .htaccess Zero config (Apache only)

4.1★
from 42 ratings
9k+
active installs
Updated
Jul 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
81

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
4 Speed Up
Free by nigro.simone

Speed Up

Help browser to cache a local copy of static files and improve page load times.

5★
from 7 ratings
700+
active installs
Updated
Jul 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
80

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
11 Canonical Attachments
Free by hivedigital

Canonical Attachments

Get more information from analytics and higher rankings by utilizing canonical http headers in htaccess for non image media attachments like pdfs.

3.7★
from 3 ratings
300+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2025
Tested to
WP 6.8.8
64

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
12 Spider Blocker
Free by Niteo

Spider Blocker

SpiderBlocker will block most common bots that consume bandwidth and slow down your blog.

4★
from 5 ratings
20k+
active installs
Updated
May 2024
Tested to
WP 6.5.10
60

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
14 .htaccess Site Access Control
Free by Miina Sikk

.htaccess Site Access Control

Using the password protection will give you extra security layer of protection from brute force hacking attacks. Additionally, it's also an easy …

4★
from 3 ratings
800+
active installs
Updated
May 2016
Tested to
WP 4.4.34
49

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
15 htaccess protect
Free by zoltanlaczko

htaccess protect

htaccess protect - Protect your wordpress login or admin pages with password.

3.7★
from 6 ratings
800+
active installs
Updated
Jan 2022
Tested to
WP 5.9.16
48

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org