NinjaFirewall (WP Edition) – Advanced Security Plugin and Firewall vs BotBlocker Security – Complete security platform

BotBlocker Security is a complete security platform that blocks 99% of attacks before WordPress loads. Firewall, bot detection, rate limiting, CAPTCHA, 2FA, analytics, notifications, tools – one plugin replaces your entire security stack: no need for separate firewall, CAPTCHA, 2FA, and anti-spam plugins. No bloat, no monthly fees for core protection. If your site is hit by login brute force, spam comments, fake Googlebots, content scrapers, or XML-RPC floods, you are not alone: bots generate over 47% of all web traffic. Most security plugins react after WordPress boots, wasting CPU and memory on every bad request. BotBlocker stops them at the door – then gives you the analytics, alerts, and tools to understand exactly what it blocked and why. Because BotBlocker intercepts traffic before themes and plugins run, it also shields vulnerabilities in your entire plugin and theme stack. Zero-days in contact form plugins, unpatched slider code, outdated e-commerce extensions – attackers never reach the vulnerable code. BotBlocker is your first and last line of defense, every day. Why site owners switch to BotBlocker Faster than the competition. Runs on early init through three interception layers, before themes and plugins load. Server load drops during attacks instead of spiking. Zero database queries for returning visitors – 11 pre-generated PHP files with SHA-256 integrity, loaded via native include. One plugin, full security stack. Firewall, CAPTCHA, 2FA, anti-spam, rate limiting, bot detection – BotBlocker covers virtually every security need a WordPress site has. Most users uninstall 2-3 separate plugins after switching. PRO adds malware scanning, security headers, speed optimization, and behavioral analysis – still one plugin. Smarter bot detection. 2,899 User-Agent signatures – largest blacklist among WordPress plugins – plus 2,800+ additional bot signatures. 13 header checks including AdBlock detection, incognito mode detection, Canvas/WebGL fingerprinting, and device API verification. Anti-detect scoring with 9 weighted signals catches headless Chrome, Puppeteer, Selenium, and PhantomJS even when they spoof user-agent strings. Smarter CAPTCHA. 9 modes including Silent Auto-Verify – zero clicks for humans, hard wall for bots. Proprietary CAPTCHAs defeat AI-based solvers that crack reCAPTCHA for $2-3 per 1,000. Honest free version. Full firewall, all 9 CAPTCHA modes, full 2FA, full logging, full Multisite, Redis/Memcached, shortcodes, command palette, Telegram alerts, visual analytics, 15 diagnostic tools. No nag screens, no crippled features. Privacy-first. No visitor data leaves your server. GDPR and CCPA compliant out of the box. Works with everything. Cloudflare, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, WooCommerce, Elementor, multisite, IPv6, PHP 7.4 to 8.5. 🛡️ Core Firewall (Free) Three-Layer Architecture – intercepts traffic at wp-config.php (before WordPress), MU-plugin phase, and main shield. Known threats are blocked before WordPress, plugins, or themes load – saving 30-100ms and 5-20MB RAM per blocked request. Zero-day attacks on other plugins never reach the vulnerable code. Web Application Firewall (WAF) with real-time rule updates via the BotBlocker Threat Defense Feed 2,899 User-Agent + 2,800+ bot signatures – largest blacklist among WordPress plugins, covering Scrapy, Selenium, Puppeteer, PhantomJS, curl, wget, Python, Java, Perl, SQL injection tools Brute force protection with progressive lockouts – 5 attempts per 15 minutes, escalating bans Rate Limiting – sliding window velocity per IP. 30 req/min triggers CAPTCHA; 50/min blocks IP for 10 min. Subnet aggregation catches distributed attacks. Floor protection prevents false positives. Anti-spam for comments, registration, contact forms XML-RPC and REST API locked down by default with allowlist for trusted services HTTP method-level hardening – CONNECT and TRACE blocked (XST attack prevention). OPTIONS handled for CORS preflight. Fake crawler detection via FCrDNS (dual-direction DNS verification), ASN tokens, and published IP ranges – 95% effective, impossible to spoof without controlling the provider’s DNS zone. LLM / AI crawler management – allow or block GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Bytespider via CIDR-verified IP ranges (1,435 synced from cloud). Country, ASN, IP range, User-Agent, Referer blocking rules with instant enforcement. ASN database: 3.6M verified records. Geo-blocking with visual country selector and import/export. Cloudflare-aware real-IP resolution and origin bypass protection TLS fingerprinting (JA3/JA4) – detects bots by TLS handshake signature, cross-validates against User-Agent. 189 signatures. Opt-in, requires server module. RKN (Roskomnadzor) blocking – 852 CIDR ranges, cloud-synced, auto-updated with self-healing tamper recovery Full IPv6 support – separate tables and logic for IPv4 and IPv6 Live traffic monitor with attack map, country, ASN, device, browser, block reason Built-in caching via Redis and Memcached – free, auto-disable on connection failure 🔍 Bot Detection & Anti-Detect (Free) 13 HTTP header checks run on every visitor, catching bots others miss: Empty User-Agent / UA Anomalies / Empty Accept-Language PTR/DNS Mismatch – forward/reverse DNS mismatch, impossible to fake Geo vs Language Mismatch – language claimed differs from visitor’s country Incognito/Private Mode detection AdBlock/uBlock detection in visitor’s browser Canvas & WebGL Fingerprinting – JS consistency verification WhatsApp Preview / OPTIONS Preflight – legitimate traffic whitelisted Anti-Detect Challenge Page activates when header checks raise suspicion – silent browser fingerprinting before any CAPTCHA appears: 9 weighted signals: navigator (×2), fake plugins (×3), font rendering (×2), WebGL (×2), Chromium properties (×3), JS jitter, touch events (×2), language (×3), incognito (×2) Critical signal combinations trigger immediate block Cookie capability test + sessionStorage retry counter HMAC-signed responses resist DDoS provider interference Circuit Breaker: 3 failures → 30-second cooldown → auto-retry CAPTCHA appears only if auto-verification fails 🎯 CAPTCHA System – All 9 Modes Free 9 CAPTCHA modes, all free: Silent Auto-Verify (recommended – zero clicks, silent JS fingerprint check), Simple Button, Color Buttons, Image CAPTCHA (5 packs: Eagle, Horse, Raccoon, Dog, Cat), reCAPTCHA v2 (+ Button), Dynamic Shapes (60fps Canvas, 25 combinations), Dynamic Digits, Hold Button (hold in the green zone). Hybrid Mode – internal CAPTCHA + invisible reCAPTCHA v3, two-layer defense DDoS Resilience Mode – HMAC-signed responses prevent forged challenge bypass Session Token Verification – cookie-less fingerprint for restricted hosting CAPTCHA Diagnostics – failure reason codes (token decrypt, transient, hash, mode mismatch) Image Delivery: Inline Base64 (single request, recommended) or Separate Requests (cache-friendly) 🔒 Login Security & 2FA (Free) Two-Factor Authentication (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, Bitwarden) – TOTP, 10 backup codes 9 CAPTCHA modes on login, registration, lost password, and custom forms Hybrid Mode – internal CAPTCHA + reCAPTCHA v3 two-layer invisible defense on login Hide login URL (PRO) Configurable lockout escalation – failed CAPTCHA = short ban, repeat = 24-hour ban 💳 Payment Gateway Bypass (Free) Auto-detects 25+ e-commerce platforms (WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, SureCart, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Give, Dokan, CartFlows, FunnelKit and more) and 150+ payment providers (Stripe, PayPal, Mollie, Adyen, Braintree, Square, Razorpay, Klarna, Paddle, Authorize.Net, YooKassa, LiqPay and more), plus form plugin webhooks (Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Fluent Forms). Four detection layers – 198 path patterns, 227 query keys, 360 action names, 114 signature headers – ensure zero false positives. Webhooks, IPN callbacks, and payment notifications never get blocked. 📊 Visibility & Control (Free) Visual dashboard – KPI cards (Requests, Blocked, Search engines passed, Protection score), hourly bar chart, donut charts (Hosting, Device, Browser, OS) Dashboard social proof card – live WordPress.org rating, installs count, ratings, link to WP.org (cached 12h) Inline IP rule widget – add IP allow/block rules via AJAX. Bulk import with 4 one-click buttons (IPv4/IPv6 whitelist/blacklist) Protection Status Checklist – per-feature toggles with “Enable remaining” bulk action Health Score gauge – 44 parameters, 3 categories, 5 levels from Critical (<25) to Secure (≥85), real-time updates 3 security presets – Light, Strong, Full – one-click configuration. Plus Default for new installs Setup Wizard – 8 steps, under 5 minutes ⌘K Command Palette – Ctrl+K / ⌘K on any admin page to search every setting, tab, and action. 30+ quick-action shortcuts. Near-zero-click configuration Interactive analytics – 8 KPI metrics, donut charts, traffic line chart, world map, top IPs and countries rankings 55 diagnostic event codes across 12 log categories – exact block reason for every decision Detailed event log – IP, country, ASN, User-Agent, browser, OS, device, exact block reason 17 interface languages – English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Polski, Русский, Українська, العربية, עברית, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Nederlands, Português, Svenska, Türkçe, 中文 + POT Admin page header bar – “Blocked today: X · Total: Y” on every admin page Admin bar toolbar node – protection status + Dashboard + Settings links Configurable retention with timezone/DST awareness, Daily Summary with incremental aggregation X-Robots-Tag control – SEO directives (noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, noimageindex, notranslate, unavailable_after) on blocked/challenge pages – no search engine indexing of security barriers Clean uninstall – drops 17 tables, 40+ options, 22+ transients, 12 cron hooks, MU-plugin files, uploads/botblocker/. Departure feedback dialog. Zero leftover data 📬 Notifications & Alerts (Free) Email reports – daily / twice-weekly / monthly security summaries. Critical server load warnings and Cloud API expiry alerts. Telegram Bot integration (add-on) – weekly security summaries via @BotFather: requests, allowed, blocked, suspicious, search/fake bots, timezone, protection mode, security score, block rate. Connection test button. Add-ons → Telegram Notifications. Admin Dashboard Alerts (8 types) – cloud lost, missing runtime files, API expired, hits exhausted, ASN/addon update failed, addon incompatible, cache incompatibility 🧩 Shortcodes & Developer Tools (Free) 20 shortcodes for frontend dashboards, client portals, and status pages. * WP Connectors (WordPress 6.7+) – native WordPress Connector on the Connections admin page * Custom verification endpoint (bbcs-verify) – decoupled from permalink structure * WordPress Admin → Tools → Site Health → Info integration * Plugin update changelog injection – changelog displayed in the plugin update screen * Floating support widget – submit support tickets from dashboard without leaving site 🔧 Tools & Diagnostics (Free) 15 maintenance and diagnostic actions built into the admin panel: Export Data & Settings Full JSON backup of settings, rules, IP lists Import Data & Settings Restore from JSON backup Reinstall Database Factory-reset all BotBlocker tables Repair & Optimize DB WordPress database repair and optimization Clear All Visitor Data Purge hits, counters, and statistics Clear Transients Remove expired WordPress transients Update ASN Database Download latest 3.6M-record ASN geolocation database Update RU-Gov List Download latest 852-range RKN CIDR blocklist Sync LLM Providers Refresh 1,435 AI crawler IP ranges from cloud Clear Visitor Cookies Reset all BotBlocker cookies – forces re-verification Reset URL Rewrite Rules Fix 404 errors after permalink changes Clear Object Cache Flush WordPress + Redis/Memcached caches Site Health Open WordPress Site Health diagnostic Clear Debug Log / Download Debug Log Purge or download wp-content/debug.log 🚀 PRO Adds (Premium / Pro / Ultimate) Cloud Threat Intelligence – 5M+ attack IPs cross-checked globally. Zero-day behavioral and heuristic detection catches unknown attack patterns before signatures exist. VPN, Tor, proxy, ASN, hosting reputation checks. Early Init Mode – filtering before WordPress Core loads via wp-config.php boot code. Saves 30-100ms and 5-20MB RAM per blocked request. Multisite-aware, auto-disables if Cloud API inactive. Self-healing runtime files. Hide Login URL – custom admin URL slug. Four behaviors on default URL: 403, 404, home redirect, custom redirect. Reserved slug detection prevents page conflicts. Security Headers – MU-plugin deployment before plugins load. HSTS, CSP with custom domain whitelist, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Permissions-Policy. Auto-detects reCAPTCHA Google + BotBlocker API domains in CSP. Speed Up WordPress – 14 frontend and server optimizations: disable emojis, jQuery Migrate, dashicons, global styles, embeds, RSS feeds, XML-RPC, hide WP version, shortlinks, self-pingbacks. Malware Scanner – 25+ detection patterns: eval() chains, base64 obfuscation, injected scripts, webshell markers. Deobfuscation preprocessor. Scans files (core, plugins, themes, uploads, custom paths) + database (posts, wp_options, users, cron). Truth Source comparator. Scheduled background scanning (hourly to 5 days). Severity: Critical to Info. Confidence: Review to Confirmed. HTTPS Protocol – HTTP→HTTPS 301 redirect. Mixed content auto-fix via output buffering. SSL detection behind 7 proxy headers (Cloudflare, load balancers). Cookie Alert – lightweight first-party cookie consent banner. Custom text, policy link, button label, position, theme, custom CSS. WP accessibility: aria-label, role attributes. 1-year cookie lifetime. Behavioral Analysis Engine – 3-layer AI bot detection. Free: RPM velocity + subnet pressure. Pro: multi-signal scoring (velocity, URI diversity, session depth, timing, referer consistency). Reputation: IP/subnet tracking with lazy decay. 3 quick presets. Cron Jobs – advanced WordPress cron management, monitoring, and debugging Truth Source – file integrity verification against known-good WordPress core, plugin, theme references. Detects modified, added, missing files. Per-file and wildcard ignores. Scheduled background scanning. XMLRPC Tunnel – secure XML-RPC via IP-allowlisted endpoints. IPv4/IPv6/CIDR/wildcard entry formats. Multi-header real-IP resolution. Auto-block non-allowlisted access. Priority support – 24-hour response time Four plans to match your traffic: Premium ($12/month, 25k cloud checks), Pro ($50/month, 100k cloud checks), Ultimate ($100/month, 250k cloud checks + emergency 24h support). Annual billing includes 1 month free. 30-day refund policy. Licensed per domain via Freemius. Compare plans → ⚡ Performance & Compatibility Zero database queries for returning visitors – 11 runtime PHP files with SHA-256 integrity, loaded via include Measured overhead: +3-15ms TTFB for cached visitors, +50-200ms first-time PTR lookups, +2-4MB memory 100+ configurable settings without affecting performance Redis and Memcached support – free, auto-disables gracefully on connection failure Cache plugin compatibility – automatic DONOTCACHEPAGE and cache-bypass headers (Cache-Control: no-store, X-LiteSpeed-Cache-Control: no-cache, X-Accel-Expires: 0, CDN-Cache-Control: no-store, private, Surrogate-Control: no-store, max-age=0) covering PHP caches, Nginx, CDN edge, and surrogate caches in one pass. Works with WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, Hummingbird, WP Fastest Cache, Cache Enabler, Swift Performance. CDN and WAF compatibility – Cloudflare, Sucuri, Incapsula, AWS CloudFront, Fastly, KeyCDN, StackPath. Multi-header real-IP resolution (CF-Connecting-IP, X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP) DDoS Protection Compatibility – auto-detects JS-challenges from DDoS-Guard, Stormwall, Qrator. HMAC-signed AJAX responses, Circuit Breaker with retry/backoff. The only WordPress plugin that works correctly behind aggressive DDoS protection without manual configuration. Fatal Error Hive Mode – during PHP fatal errors from other plugins or themes, renders an emergency page instead of a white screen, preserving the security barrier. Multisite Support – network activation, per-site data, settings, cleanup. Free on all plans. PHP 7.4 – 8.5, tested across 7 versions. WordPress 5.1 – 7.0+. Linux and Windows. 50+ OS versions detected – Windows 95–11, macOS, Android, iOS, Chrome OS, Linux distros, HarmonyOS, Fire OS, KaiOS, Tizen, FreeBSD, gaming consoles 50+ browsers identified – Opera, Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, Samsung Internet, UC Browser, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Tor, Headless Chrome, Lynx/ELinks, and more GDPR and CCPA compliant – no PII, technical parameters only, Legitimate Interest basis (Art. 6(1)(f))

A true Web Application Firewall NinjaFirewall (WP Edition) is a true Web Application Firewall. Although it can be installed and configured just like a plugin, it is a stand-alone firewall that stands in front of WordPress. It allows any blog administrator to benefit from very advanced and powerful security features that usually aren’t available at the WordPress level, but only in security applications such as the Apache ModSecurity module or the PHP Suhosin extension. NinjaFirewall requires at least PHP 7.1, MySQLi extension and is only compatible with Unix-like OS (Linux, BSD). It is not compatible with Microsoft Windows. NinjaFirewall can hook, scan, sanitise or reject any HTTP/HTTPS request sent to a PHP script before it reaches WordPress or any of its plugins. All scripts located inside the blog installation directories and sub-directories will be protected, including those that aren’t part of the WordPress package. Even encoded PHP scripts, hackers shell scripts and backdoors will be filtered by NinjaFirewall. Powerful filtering engine NinjaFirewall includes the most powerful filtering engine available in a WordPress plugin. Its most important feature is its ability to normalize and transform data from incoming HTTP requests which allows it to detect Web Application Firewall evasion techniques and obfuscation tactics used by hackers, as well as to support and decode a large set of encodings. See our blog for a full description: An introduction to NinjaFirewall filtering engine. Fastest and most efficient brute-force attack protection for WordPress By processing incoming HTTP requests before your blog and any of its plugins, NinjaFirewall is the only plugin for WordPress able to protect it against very large brute-force attacks, including distributed attacks coming from several thousands of different IPs. See our benchmarks and stress-tests: Brute-force attack detection plugins comparison The protection applies to the wp-login.php script but can be extended to the xmlrpc.php one. The incident can also be written to the server AUTH log, which can be useful to the system administrator for monitoring purposes or banning IPs at the server level (e.g., Fail2ban). Real-time detection File Guard real-time detection is a totally unique feature provided by NinjaFirewall: it can detect, in real-time, any access to a PHP file that was recently modified or created, and alert you about this. If a hacker uploaded a shell script to your site (or injected a backdoor into an already existing file) and tried to directly access that file using his browser or a script, NinjaFirewall would hook the HTTP request and immediately detect that the file was recently modified or created. It would send you an alert with all details (script name, IP, request, date and time). File integrity monitoring File Check lets you perform file integrity monitoring by scanning your website hourly, twicedaily or daily. Any modification made to a file will be detected: file content, file permissions, file ownership, timestamp as well as file creation and deletion. Watch your website traffic in real time Live Log lets you watch your website traffic in real time. It displays connections in a format similar to the one used by the tail -f Unix command. Because it communicates directly with the firewall, i.e., without loading WordPress, Live Log is fast, lightweight and it will not affect your server load, even if you set its refresh rate to the lowest value. Event Notifications NinjaFirewall can alert you by email on specific events triggered within your blog. Some of those alerts are enabled by default and it is highly recommended to keep them enabled. It is not unusual for a hacker, after breaking into your WordPress admin console, to install or just to upload a backdoored plugin or theme in order to take full control of your website. NinjaFirewall can also attach a PHP backtrace to important notifications. Monitored events: Administrator login. Modification of any administrator account in the database. Plugins upload, installation, (de)activation, update, deletion. Themes upload, installation, activation, deletion. WordPress update. Pending security update in your plugins and themes. Stay protected against the latest WordPress security vulnerabilities To get the most efficient protection, NinjaFirewall can automatically update its security rules daily, twice daily or even hourly. Each time a new vulnerability is found in WordPress or one of its plugins/themes, a new set of security rules will be made available to protect your blog immediately. Strong Privacy Unlike a Cloud Web Application Firewall, or Cloud WAF, NinjaFirewall works and filters the traffic on your own server and infrastructure. That means that your sensitive data (contact form messages, customers credit card number, login credentials etc) remains on your server and is not routed through a third-party company’s servers, which could pose unnecessary risks (e.g., decryption of your HTTPS traffic in order to inspect it, employees accessing your data or logs in plain text, theft of private information, man-in-the-middle attack etc). Your website can run NinjaFirewall and be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). See our blog for more details. IPv6 compatibility IPv6 compatibility is a mandatory feature for a security plugin: if it supports only IPv4, hackers can easily bypass the plugin by using an IPv6. NinjaFirewall natively supports IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, for both public and private addresses. Multi-site support NinjaFirewall is multi-site compatible. It will protect all sites from your network and its configuration interface will be accessible only to the Super Admin from the network main site. Possibility to prepend your own PHP code to the firewall You can prepend your own PHP code to the firewall with the help of an optional distributed configuration file. It will be processed before WordPress and all its plugins are loaded. This is a very powerful feature, and there is almost no limit to what you can do: add your own security rules, manipulate HTTP requests, variables etc. Low Footprint Firewall NinjaFirewall is very fast, optimised, compact, and requires very low system resource. See for yourself: download and install the Code Profiler plugin and compare NinjaFirewall’s performance with other security plugins. Non-Intrusive User Interface NinjaFirewall looks and feels like a built-in WordPress feature. It does not contain intrusive banners, warnings or flashy colors. It uses the WordPress simple and clean interface and is also smartphone-friendly. Contextual Help Each NinjaFirewall menu page has a contextual help screen with useful information about how to use and configure it. If you need help, click on the Help menu tab located in the upper right corner of each page in your admin panel. Need more security ? Check out our new supercharged edition: NinjaFirewall WP+ Edition Unix shared memory use for inter-process communication and blazing fast performances. IP-based Access Control. Role-based Access Control. Country-based Access Control via geolocation. URL-based Access Control. Bot-based Access Control. Import/Export the configuration from WP-CLI. Centralized Logging. Antispam for comment and user regisration forms. Rate limiting option to block aggressive bots, crawlers, web scrapers and HTTP attacks. Response body filter to scan the output of the HTML page right before it is sent to your visitors browser. Better File uploads management. Better logs management. Syslog logging. Learn more about the WP+ Edition unique features. Compare the WP and WP+ Editions. Requirements WordPress 4.9+ Admin/Superadmin with manage_options + unfiltered_html capabilities. PHP 7.1+ MySQL or MariaDB with MySQLi extension Apache / Nginx / LiteSpeed / Openlitespeed compatible Unix-like operating systems only (Linux, BSD etc). NinjaFirewall is NOT compatible with Microsoft Windows.