In this post I’m taking a look at the pro version of the Login Lockdown security plugin. I’ll do a walk-through of the options in the WordPress admin, take a look at the online central dashboard available for managing the plugin, and view the plugins website and pricing.
Video Version
Free Version
The free version of Login Lockdown has more than 100,000 active installs. It has 43 five star reviews and 5 of 5 support questions have been resolved in the last two months. It is currently being developed by WebFactory, but the plugin actually has been around since 2007. It was doing well for a long time but recently the developer wasn’t able to keep it going and WebFactory took it over. When they took it over WebFactory quickly fixed some issues to bring it up to date, and then they started work on a Pro version.
Documentation and Pricing
There are a fair number of help topics available. At launch of the pro version there are lifetime packages on the plugins website for 1, 5, and 100 sites.
There is very good pricing on AppSumo and the packages are available for 5, 50, and unlimited sites.
Online Dashboard
You get access to an online dashboard. Here you can download the plugin, get the license, and review purchases. If you purchase the top tier there is the option to rebrand the plugin using your own logo.
On the Websites page you can see the websites the plugin is installed on, the license used, block the plugin or sync the stats.
The online dashboard also has the option to create a whitelist of IP addresses that will never be blocked and blacklist of IP addresses that won’t be allowed to access your sites with the plugin installed. Yes, this is your own cross-site list.
WP Login Lockdown Pro Walk-through
Even though there is both a free and a pro version, it is nice that you don’t need to have the free version installed. Just one plugin is needed.
The settings pages are located off the main Admin Settings menu. The basic settings allow you to set the number of login tries and the time period for lockout for unsuccessful attempts. You can block bots and there are logging options.
On the Advanced tab you can check for weak passwords, block if people try to login with a non-existent users, and set logging to remove the IP address for GDPR privacy.
On the Tools panel you can get a recovery link to and and use in case you get locked out. You can also export and import settings, which would make it easier to configure for more than one site.
There is a stats area where you can see info about visitors and view failed login attempts.
You can target by country with either a whitelist or blacklist. People might use this if, say, it was family website or the business knew the countries where employees lived.
Two Factor Authentication is an important security step. Login Lockdown Pro will send you an email with a login link if this is enabled.
There are several Captcha options. The plugin comes with a built-in math captcha option. I’ve found that math captcha works surprisingly well. It tells you which options are GDPR compliant and recommends hCaptcha because it is.
On the Cloud Protection panel you turn on to use the IPs you set on the dashboard for white or black lists. There is also the option to participate in the WebFactory cloud blacklist. Here if an IP is blocked by one site in the group then that IP is added to the list and shared with all of the other sites.
There is also the option to create temporary login links. You can set how many times the link can be used and how long it is valid for. This would be handy if, for instance, you were allowing a support person access to your site and this way if you forgot to disable their login the limits here would prevent long term access.
There are also tabs for support resources and a place to enter your license key.
Discussion and Conclusions
One thing I’ve noticed is that each security plugin has different features and areas it protects. For example, Login Lockdown protects the login form and provides Two Factor Authentication, but doesn’t have a firewall. I often combine a couple of security plugins to get more comprehensive coverage. The BBQ Firewall, Block Bad Queries, is a very light weight and problem free plugin that I use with security plugins that don’t include a firewall, and it might be a good match with Login Lockdown.
When people see a deal like the current pricing of Login Lockdown Pro on the Webfactory website, or the even better pricing on AppSumo at the moment, they wonder if they should purchase this. My advice is to look at the other security plugins you own. If you don’t have any, or not one that protects the login form and provides 2FA, then Login Lockdown Pro is a good value. If you have a solution that you are happy with, then you probably don’t need to make a purchase.
WebFactory has been around for a while and has a number of plugins, such as WP Reset Pro, 301 Redirects, and Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode. I use all three and particular like WP Reset Pro, which I use when doing testing.
I hope the video and this walk-through have been useful.
