Mandate App Security vs PublishPress Permissions

WordPress Application Passwords prove identity. They do not limit what an authenticated request can do. If the user behind a password is an admin, every tool that authenticates as that user has admin-level access — with no native way to narrow it. Today, REST clients, automation platforms, AI agents, management tools, and MCP connectors all authenticate with Application Passwords. Any of them, if misconfigured or compromised, can do anything that user can do. Mandate App Security adds the missing layer: a capability policy per Application Password. You define what each credential is allowed to do. Mandate App Security enforces it on every request. Normal wp-admin sessions and user roles are unaffected. Instead of treating every Application Password as equally trusted, Mandate App Security lets administrators and password owners save a capability allowlist per password. An administrator can choose: a WordPress user one of that user’s Application Passwords the capabilities that password should be allowed to use an optional expiration date for that password whether the scope is locked so the password owner can view it but not edit it Users can scope their own Application Passwords when WordPress allows Application Passwords for their account. Only administrators can edit another user’s scope or lock a scope against owner edits. When a request is authenticated with that Application Password, Mandate App Security checks the saved allowlist and removes capabilities that are not allowed for that password. Mandate App Security never grants new permissions. It only narrows an Application Password to capabilities the selected user already receives from assigned roles. If the selected Application Password is past its saved expiration date, Mandate App Security removes all capabilities for that request. Normal browser and wp-admin sessions for the same user are not changed. Example scopes A reporting dashboard that only needs to read posts and media should never be able to edit settings or manage users. A content automation tool that publishes posts has no reason to access WooCommerce orders. An AI writing assistant does not need plugin management access. With Mandate App Security, each of those tools gets a dedicated Application Password scoped to exactly what it needs. Nothing more. Source Code Mandate App Security is available at https://wpmandate.com. The public development repository, release packages, and build documentation are at https://github.com/FernleafSystems/Mandate-for-WordPress.

PublishPress Permissions allows you to enable or deny access to posts, pages, categories, tags and more. You can apply these permissions for user roles, individual users, and even custom groups. With PublishPress Permissions, you can control who can view and edit your WordPress content. You can choose who can access images and files in your site’s Media Library. For example, you can deny all direct access to files for logged out users. The Pro version of PublishPress Permissions has many advanced features such as teaser previews of restricted content, custom WordPress statuses, and automatically creating personal posts for users. PublishPress Permissions Pro Upgrade to Permissions Pro This plugin is the free version of PublishPress Permissions. The Pro version of Permissions has all the features you need to control permissions for your WordPress users. With Permissions Pro you can manage access to posts, pages, media, taxonomies and custom post types. Click here to control access to your WordPress site with Permissions Pro! Key Features in PublishPress Permissions Viewing permissions: Every post, page, and taxonomy term has a box where you can choose who can read this content. Editing permissions: Every post, page, and taxonomy term has a box where you can choose who can edit this content. Media Library permissions: You decide who gets to edit and view image files and documents in your Media Library. Hide other users’ posts: You can prevent users from seeing posts by other users in the WordPress admin area. Create user groups: Build groups of users who can be given their own custom permissions. Two default groups include Logged in and Logged out users. Show teasers for restricted content (Pro version): Have teaser text that is publicly available, followed by private content that is restricted to only your site’s users. Personal posts for each user (Pro version): You can automatically create individual posts for your users so they have their own private content to edit or read. Publishing statuses (Pro version): Go beyond “Draft”, “Pending Review” and “Published” with your own custom, and far more advanced, workflow. Visibility statuses (Pro version): Create visibility options for your content. One example is a “Premium” status that makes content visible only for paying members. Editorial Circles and Visibility Circles (Pro version): Restrict users to editing or viewing posts that were authored by other users in the same group. Integration with other plugins (Pro version): The Permissions plugin integrates with other popular plugins including bbPress, BuddyPress, WPML, and Relevanssi. Feature 1. Viewing Permissions for WordPress Content PublishPress Permissions enables you to customize viewing access for WordPress content. Open any post and you’ll see a box with the label, “Permissions: Read this Post”. This box allows you to choose “Enabled” or “Blocked” for any user role, individual user, or user group. You can also set permissions for all users who are guests, and those who are logged in. Click here to see how to control viewing permissions. Feature 2. Editing Permissions for WordPress Content PublishPress Permissions allows you to customize the editing permissions for all your content. Open a Post, Page, Category, Tag, or custom post type and you can decide who is allowed to edit that content. You can even prevent users from editing child pages of a specific parent page. Open any content item and you’ll see a box with a label like this: “Permissions: Edit this Post”. This box allows you to choose “Enabled” or “Blocked” for any user role, individual user, or user group. Click here to see how to control editing permissions. Feature 3. Access Permissions for the Media Library PublishPress Permissions gives you detailed control over access to media on your WordPress site. You decide who gets to edit and view files in your Media Library. For example, you can set up WordPress so that users only have access to files that they uploaded. Or you can add an exception so users can edit other people’s media files if they are attached to a post they can edit. The Pro version of Permissions allows you to deny any public access to files on your site. Nobody will be able to see your Media Library files unless they have access to a post that includes that file. Click here to see how to manage access to your media files. Feature 4. Hide Other Users’ Posts in the WordPress Admin By default, WordPress users in the admin area can see all the Posts on the site, regardless of whether they are the author. This is not a problem for many sites. After all, most posts on most sites are publicly available – there’s no need to hide them. However, in some situations, site owners don’t want authors to see the posts that other users are working on. PublishPress Permissions can hide posts in the WordPress admin area, unless you have access to edit that post. Click here to see how to hide other users’ posts. Feature 5. Create Your Own User Groups PublishPress Permissions allows you to create your own user groups. Imagine you want to give some users access to a single Post. Instead of creating a new user role and applying all the permissions, you can easily add those users to a group. This is a simple and more flexible alternative to user roles. You can also prevent users from reading or editing content if they are not in a specific group. By default, this plugin gives you sample groups that include all Logged in and Logged out users so you can easily set public and private content. Click here to see how to use custom user groups. Feature 6. Show Teasers for Restricted Content (Pro Version) PublishPress Permissions Pro allows you to display a teaser for unreadable content. This is perfect for making small snippets of your content available to the public. You can have teaser text that is publicly available, followed by private content that is only visible for your site’s users. If you choose to display a login form, the redirect will go to the originally requested content. Click here to see how to display content teasers. Feature 7. Automatically Create Posts for Users (Pro Version) This Pro feature allows you to automatically create content for your users. For example, you can sync your staff members to Pages. This would allow your staff to each have their own page to edit and update. You can use this feature to automatically create posts, WooCommerce products, or any other post type that is defined on your site. Click here to see how to automatically create posts for users. Feature 8. Create Your Own Publishing Statuses (Pro Version) WordPress provides some status options including “Draft”, “Pending Review” and “Published”. Permissions Pro enables you to design a far more advanced workflow. Each status you create can have its own unique capability requirements. Click here to see how to build your own workflow statuses. Feature 9. Create Your Own Visibility Statuses (Pro Version) With PublishPress Permissions Pro, you can create visibility options for your content. One example is a “Premium” status that makes content visible only for paying members. Another example is a “Staff” status, for the people who run your site. Click here to see how to build your own visibility statuses. Feature 10. Editorial Circles and Visibility Circles (Pro Version) Visibility Circles are a feature in PublishPress Permissions Pro that restrict users to viewing posts that were authored by other users in the same group. PublishPress Permissions also has Editorial Circles. If you are in an Editorial Circle for Pages, you will only be able to edit pages authored by other circle members. The most common way to use this feature is to restrict users in the Editor role so that they can only edit posts written by other Editors. This is because Editors are the only default WordPress role that can edit content (except for Administrators). Click here to see how to build your own Editorial Circles and click here to see how to build your own Visibility Circles. Feature 11. Support for Other Plugins The Permissions plugin integrates with other popular plugins: BuddyPress content permissions: With the PublishPress Permissions Pro plugin, you can give users access to create WordPress content, based on their BuddyPress group membership. Relevanssi search permissions: Relevanssi is an excellent plugin that replaces the standard WordPress search with a better search engine. PublishPress Permissions Pro has integration with Relevanssi. If you use PublishPress Permissions Pro, your Relevanssi search results will have the correct visibility. WPML language permissions: PublishPress Permissions Pro does have support for the WPML plugin. By default, PublishPress Permissions Pro will automatically mirror your post / category permissions to the translated content. bbPress language permissions: bbPress is the most popular forum software for WordPress. With PublishPress Permissions Pro, you can manage access and to important bbPress features. Join PublishPress and get the Pro plugins The Pro versions of the PublishPress plugins are well worth your investment. The Pro versions have extra features and faster support. Click here to join PublishPress. Join PublishPress and you’ll get access to these Pro plugins: PublishPress Authors Pro allows you to add multiple authors and guest authors to WordPress posts. PublishPress Blocks Pro has everything you need to build professional websites with the WordPress block editor. PublishPress Capabilities Pro is the plugin to manage your WordPress user roles, permissions, and capabilities. PublishPress Checklists Pro enables you to define tasks that must be completed before content is published. PublishPress Future Pro is the plugin for scheduling changes to your posts. PublishPress Permissions Pro is the plugin for advanced WordPress permissions. PublishPress Planner Pro is the plugin for managing and scheduling WordPress content. PublishPress Revisions Pro allows you to update your published pages with teamwork and precision. PublishPress Series Pro enables you to group content together into a series. PublishPress Shortlinks Pro allows you to create custom URLs for your posts and external links. PublishPress Statuses Pro enables you to create additional publishing steps for your posts. Together, these plugins are a suite of powerful publishing tools for WordPress. If you need to create a professional workflow in WordPress, with moderation, revisions, permissions and more, then you should try PublishPress. Bug Reports Bug reports for PublishPress Permissions are welcomed in our repository on GitHub. Please note that GitHub is not a support forum, and that issues that aren’t properly qualified as bugs will be closed. Follow the PublishPress team Follow PublishPress on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube