Grow for WordPress vs Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL)

Ready to grow your audience, increase engagement, and supercharge your traffic for free? Grow saves independent content creators like you time and money by helping your content stand out to the people who matter most: your readers. PRICE New to Grow? Creating an account is 100% FREE. No hidden costs, subscriptions, or charges. All you have to do is sign up today to start bringing your website to the next level. WHY CHOOSE GROW? Grow is a smarter and more efficient way to grow your audience without the expense and hassle of managing multiple platforms. Streamline your workflow, buy back time, and let Grow take care of email and audience engagement so you can focus on what you do best: crafting killer content. CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE Build stronger relationships and grow trust and loyalty faster than ever! Features like Spotlight Subscribe and Recommended Content make it easy for readers to find and engage with your content… and keep coming back for more. Spotlight Subscribe: When a user scrolls into view, it darkens the rest of the page, highlighting—or casting a spotlight—on the signup form. In-content calls-to-action encourage readers to sign up for Grow as well. Spotlight Subscribe also provides multiple ways to customize the plugin for your needs. Update images and text, and even use different widgets across different pages using the Category Targeting settings or the Manual Placement option. Recommended Content: Sit back and leave the content curation to Grow! When users log in, they’ll receive personalized recommendations based on things they’ve read, shared, or marked as favorites on your website. Meanwhile, logged-out users receive recommendations based on their browsing content and what other users like them have clicked on. Subscribe: Say goodbye to complicated form building and hello to turbocharged list growth and direct referral traffic from your newsletter with Subscribe. Subscribe allows publishers like you to simultaneously build an email list and encourage readers to sign up for Grow and consent to personalized ads. As a publisher, you get to nurture, connect, and develop growing relationships with your readers all while maximizing your earning potential from digital ads running on your website. ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE Customize your feature setup in the Grow Publisher Portal to crush your engagement goals as readers Favorite and Save your top posts. Enhanced Search: Designed with your readers in mind, Grow’s all-new search experience beautifully displays your most popular, latest and recommended content to maximize engagement. Grow’s all-new search beautifully displays your most popular, latest and recommended content to maximize engagement. Exclusive Content: You’re in the driver’s seat with the power to place full recipes, printables, digital downloads and more behind a login. All these benefits are available in one powerful plugin! FAST, EASY CONFIGURATION Activate Grow quickly and easily! Step #1: Start by installing the Grow plugin. If you’ve already installed Grow, go to Step #2. For instructions on how to install Grow on WordPress, visit our help doc Getting Started with Grow’s WordPress Plugin. Step #2: Once the plugin is installed, navigate to Grow in the WordPress sidebar. Step #3: From there, Connect or Create an Account and follow the steps to add the Grow WordPress plugin to your site. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GROW Getting Started with Grow: A Resource Guide Grow Recommended Content Grow: Introducing Subscribe and the Spotlight Widget Grow’s New and Improved Search Experience Introducing Exclusive Content with Grow 1.5.3 – 2025-04-09 Prevent duplicate script attributes from appearing on Ads Scripts Increase Priority for loading of Ads Scripts Prevent accidental dynamic properties in the Options Class leading to php notices Fix persisting issues with textdomain notice 1.5.2 – 2025-01-08 Fix issue with textdomain debugging notice appearing. 1.5.1 – 2024-12-09 Prevent plugin from being optimized in some third-party site optimization plugins. 1.5.0 – 2024-07-16 Fix issues with blank page appearing when attempting to enable Journey. Fix issues with Redirection plugin when Journey is enabled. 1.4.1 – 2024-06-24 Fix issue with duplicate Journey ad slots with newer versions of Create by Mediavine. 1.4.0 – 2024-06-04 Add Journey ad slot integrations with Create By Mediavine and Trellis. 1.3.0 – 2024-04-18 Add ads.txt troubleshooting for Journey by Mediavine. Update domain for ads.txt. Add CSS class to post articles. 1.2.0 – 2024-03-29 Add support for Journey by Mediavine. 1.1.0 – 2024-03-11 Automatically redirect to Grow login page on activation. 1.0.0 – 2023-10-18 Plugin Released Update plugin assets for parsing Fix type and link for Main Menu and feature link (#83) Add support for validity and connectedness in status api (#82) Update readme and add banner (#81) Pass site path to Grow Auth (#80) fix: WordPress dev container always restarts (#79) Escape the values output in the grow script initializer (#78) fix: feature descriptions URL-escaped (#77) feature: add WP_Mock (#74) feature: add dev container support (#73) fix: non-compliant escaping and file access (#72) move screenshots to correct directory (#71) add screenshots to readme (#70) chore: update readme (#69) feat: Add settings link to Plugins Page and Update Plugin URI feat: Add Support for wp build testing workflow with alternate wp builds feat: Use Custom Lighthouse Orb fix: Update docker image Update docker image Update docker image Update docker image Fix Frontent Test 0.1.7 – 2023-08-11 fix: Adjust Typography on Settings Page fix: Bigger Images for Settings Page 0.1.6 – 2023-07-26 fix: Window Size for site authentication now larger fix: Open Help Doc Links in New Tab 0.1.5 – 2023-07-10 fix: Open Authenticated Link in new tab chore: Add Test for Authenticated View 0.1.4 – 2023-06-26 chore: Remove Author URI 0.1.3 – 2023-06-23 chore: Name changed to Grow for WP 0.1.2 – 2023-06-22 fix: Don’t Stretch Images in Settings page 0.1.1 – 2023-06-20 feat: Add changelog Generation fix: Direct Users to correct Grow Site

Easily improve site security with WordPress Hardening, Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), Login Protection, Vulnerability Detection and SSL certificate. Really simple, Effective and Performant WordPress Security Really Simple Security is the most lightweight and easy-to-use security plugin for WordPress. It secures your WordPress website with SSL certificate generation, including proper 301 https redirection and SSL enforcement, scanning for possible vulnerabilities, Login Protection and implementing essential WordPress hardening features. We believe that security should have the absolute minimum effect on website performance, user experience and maintainability. Therefore, Really Simple Security is: Lightweight: Every security feature is developed with a modular approach and with performance in mind. Disabled features won’t load any redundant code. Easy-to-use: 1-minute configuration with short onboarding setup. Security Features Easy SSL Migration Migrates your website to HTTPS and enforces SSL in just one click. 301 redirect via PHP or .htaccess Secure cookies Let’s Encrypt: Install an SSL Certificate if your hosting provider supports manual installation. Server Health Check: Your server configuration is every bit as important for your website security. WordPress Hardening Tweak your configuration and keep WordPress fortified and safe by tackling potential weaknesses. Prevent code execution in the uploads folder Prevent login feedback and disable user enumeration Disable XML-RPC Disable directory browsing Username restrictions (block ‘admin’ and public names) and much more.. Vulnerability Detection Get notified when plugins, themes or WP core contain vulnerabilities and need appropriate action. Login Protection Allow or enforce Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for specific user roles. Users receive a two-factor code via Email. Improve Security with Really Simple Security Pro Protect your site with all essential security features by upgrading to Really Simple Security Pro. Advanced SSL enforcement Mixed Content Scan & Fixer. Detect files that are requested over HTTP and fix them to HTTPS, both Front- and Back-end. Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security and configure your site for the HSTS Preload list. Firewall Really Simple Security Pro includes a performant and efficient WordPress firewall, to stop bots, crawlers and bad actors with IP and username blocks. 404 blocking – Blocks crawlers as they trigger unusual numbers of 404 errors. Region blocking – Only allow/block access to your site from specific regions. Automated and customisable Firewall rules. IP blocklist and allowlist. Security Headers Security headers protect your site visitors against the risk of clickjacking, cross-site-forgery attacks, stealing login credentials and malware. Independent of your Server Configuration, works on Apache, LiteSpeed, NGINX, etc. Protect your website visitors with X-XSS Protection, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, a Referrer Policy and CORS headers. Automatically generate your WordPress-tailored Content Security Policy. Vulnerability Measures When a vulnerability is detected in a plugin, theme or WordPress core you will get notified accordingly. With Vulnerability Measures, you can configure simple but effective measures to make sure that a critical vulnerability won’t remain unattended. Force update: An update process will be tried multiple times until it can be assumed development of a theme or plugin is abandoned. You will be notified during these steps. Quarantine: When a plugin or theme can’t be updated to solve a vulnerability, Really Simple Security can quarantine the plugin. Advanced Site Hardening Choose a custom login URL Automated File Permissions check and fixer Rename and randomize your database prefix Change the debug.log file location to a non-public folder Disable application passwords Control admin creation Disable HTTP methods, reducing HTTP requests Login Protection Secure your website’s login process and user accounts with powerful security measures. Two-Step verification (Email login) 2FA (two factor authentication) with TOTP Passwordless login with passkey login Enforce strong passwords and frequent password change Limit Login Attempts With Limit Login Attempts you can configure a threshold to temporarily or permanently block IP addresses or (non-existing) usernames. You can also throw a CAPTCHA after a failed login (hCaptcha or Google reCaptcha) Access Control Restrict access to your site for specific regions. Add specific IP addresses or IP ranges to the Blocklist or Allowlist. Useful Links Documentation Security Definitions Translate Really Simple Security Issues & pull requests Feature requests Love Really Simple Security? If you want to support the continuing development of this plugin, please consider buying Really Simple Security Pro, which includes some excellent security features and premium support. About Really Simple Plugins Our mission is to make complex WordPress requirements really easy. Really Simple Security is developed by Really Simple Plugins. For generating SSL certificates, Really Simple Security uses the le acme2 PHP Let’s Encrypt client library, thanks to ‘fbett’ for providing it. Vulnerability Detection uses WP Vulnerability, an open-source initiative by Javier Casares. Want to join as a collaborator? We’re on GitHub as well!