Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) vs Limited Admin Menu Access by URLs

Limited Admin Menu Access by URLs is built for site owners and administrators who need to give support agents, clients, or junior staff a tightly controlled window into the WordPress admin — without handing over full access. The typical use case: you have a support agent who needs to handle WooCommerce orders, or a client who should only see their own content settings, or a developer you want to restrict to specific tools. Instead of creating a custom role from scratch, you simply select the user and click the pages they are allowed to visit. The plugin hides everything else from their sidebar and blocks any attempt to navigate to restricted pages directly by URL. Key Features User Targeting — Select one or more users from a searchable, filterable list. Filter by role (Administrator, Editor, Author, Subscriber) with live AJAX search by name or email. Visual Link Picker — Hold CTRL (or CMD on Mac) to activate an interactive overlay on the admin sidebar. Click any link to instantly add it to the allowlist. Added links are highlighted green; click again to remove. URL + Title Tags — Allowed URLs are stored with their menu title for a human-readable allowlist display and a friendlier Access Denied page. Menu Hiding — All admin sidebar menu items not in the allowlist are automatically hidden for targeted users. Hard URL Blocking — Direct navigation to a blocked URL is intercepted at admin_init and returns a styled 403 Access Denied page — even if the user tries to type the URL directly into the address bar. Access Denied Page — A professional full-page block screen lists all pages the user is allowed to visit, with titles and URLs as clickable links. Empty Dashboard Option — A single checkbox removes all dashboard widgets for restricted users, leaving a clean empty dashboard while keeping the page itself accessible. Plugin Self-Protection — When a restricted user is granted access to the Plugins page, the Deactivate and Settings action links for this plugin are automatically removed from their view. A server-side guard additionally intercepts and blocks any direct deactivation request, even if crafted manually, ensuring the plugin cannot be disabled by a restricted user. Backwards Compatible — Existing plain-text URL lists from earlier versions are automatically migrated to the new JSON format on first save. Clean Uninstall — All plugin data is removed from the database when the plugin is deleted. Primary Use Case: Granting Limited Admin Access to Support Agents When a support agent needs to help with order management, content issues, or plugin configuration, giving them full admin access is a security and compliance risk. This plugin solves that problem cleanly: Create a WordPress account for the support agent (any role). Open Limited Admin Access in your sidebar. Check the agent’s name in the Target Users list. Hold CTRL and click the exact sidebar pages they need — Orders, a specific settings tab, the media library, whatever the job requires. Click Apply Restrictions. The agent now sees only those pages in their sidebar, and any attempt to navigate elsewhere returns a branded Access Denied screen listing exactly where they are allowed to go. No custom roles, no code, no guesswork. Other Use Cases Give a client access to only their WooCommerce orders page and nothing else. Restrict a content author to only the post editor and media library. Limit a junior developer to only the tools relevant to their current task. Prevent non-technical staff from accidentally accessing sensitive settings. Provide a contractor with a scoped admin view for the duration of a project. How It Works Go to Limited Admin Access in the WordPress admin sidebar. Select one or more users to restrict using the Target Users panel. Hold CTRL and click sidebar links to add them to the allowlist — or type URLs manually. Optionally check Hide All Dashboard Widgets to give restricted users a blank dashboard. Click Apply Restrictions. From that point on, restricted users will only see the allowed menu items and can only navigate to allowed pages. Attempting to visit any other admin URL returns a 403 page with links to permitted pages. Security All inputs are sanitized using WordPress-native functions (sanitize_text_field, esc_url_raw, absint, wp_unslash). URL scheme validation rejects javascript:, data:, and other non-HTTP schemes from the allowlist. AJAX endpoints are protected with nonces and current_user_can('manage_options') checks. URL matching uses exact path + query-string comparison — substring matching is not used, preventing crafted URL bypass attacks. The plugin page render callback has an explicit capability gate independent of the menu registration. Restricted users who are granted access to the Plugins page cannot deactivate this plugin — the Deactivate and Settings action links are stripped from the plugin row for those users, and a server-side admin_init guard verifies WordPress’s own deactivation nonce before intercepting and blocking any direct deactivation request. All data is removed on plugin deletion via uninstall.php.

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!