JTZL's Bot Maze vs Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL)

JTZL’s Bot Maze protects your WordPress site from unwanted AI crawlers and scrapers by planting invisible trap links that only bots will follow. When a bot enters the trap maze, it gets lost in an ever-expanding maze of realistic-looking fake pages while it quietly builds a suspicion score based on its behavior. How it works: Trap link injection — Invisible links are added to your real pages. Legitimate visitors never see them, but bots following every link on the page will enter the trap maze. Lazy maze generation — Trap pages link to more trap pages, generated on demand. The deeper a bot goes, the more time it wastes. Bot scoring — Each trap page visit adds suspicion points. Deeper traversal earns bonus points. Once a threshold is reached, the visitor is flagged as a bot. Blocking and tarpitting — Flagged bots can be blocked outright (403), served decoy pages (light tarpit), or slowed down with a deliberate delay (full tarpit). Crawler verification — Known search engine crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.) are verified via reverse DNS and exempted from scoring. Features: Zero impact on legitimate visitors — trap links are hidden from humans and search engines Configurable injection method (content, footer, or both) Adjustable scoring thresholds and blocking behavior robots.txt integration to signal trap paths as disallowed Analytics dashboard showing bot activity, top IPs, and score distribution Blocked Bots detail page showing full user agent, score, visit history Optional comprehensive tracking mode to monitor blocked bot persistence Automatic log retention and maintenance via WP-Cron Privacy policy suggestion for GDPR compliance Geographic heat map of bot activity by country with two GeoIP provider options MaxMind GeoLite2 local database — all lookups on your server, GDPR-friendly (recommended) ip-api.com external API — simple setup, no license key required Lightweight — minimal footprint, geographic tracking is fully optional Third-Party Services This plugin offers optional geographic tracking with two provider options. No data is sent to any external service unless a site administrator explicitly enables one of these providers. MaxMind GeoLite2 (Recommended) When MaxMind GeoLite2 is selected as the GeoIP provider (Settings > Bot Maze > Geographic Tracking), the plugin downloads the GeoLite2-Country database from MaxMind and performs all IP-to-country lookups locally. No visitor data leaves your server. What is downloaded: The GeoLite2-Country database (~60 MB), updated weekly via WP-Cron. What is sent to MaxMind: Only your license key during database downloads. No visitor IP addresses are shared. Requires: A free MaxMind license key from maxmind.com/en/geolite2/signup. Service website: https://www.maxmind.com License: GeoLite2 databases are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Terms of service: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geolite2/eula ip-api.com When ip-api.com is selected as the GeoIP provider, the plugin sends visitor IP addresses to ip-api.com to resolve their country of origin. This data is used to display a geographic heat map of bot activity in the admin dashboard. What is sent: The visitor’s IP address only, over unencrypted HTTP. When it is sent: At the time a trap page visit is recorded, only while this provider is selected. Service website: http://ip-api.com Terms of service: https://ip-api.com/docs/legal Privacy policy: ip-api.com does not log queries from the free API endpoint. Note: The free tier only supports HTTP (not HTTPS). If your site must comply with GDPR, use the MaxMind local database option instead. Geographic tracking is off by default and requires explicit opt-in by a site administrator.

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!