Virtually every site that we build starts with the same core set of plugins. We’ve used these on countless sites and tested them under every circumstance imaginable. We recommend each of them without reservation.

(And no, we aren’t earning commission from these links – opinions expressed in this post are a genuine endorsement.)

1. Classic Editor
   Let’s face it: Gutenberg sucks. We would love to see it go away entirely. But until that magical day happens, the very first thing we always do upon installing WordPress is to install and activate Classic Editor.
2. ACF Pro
   Advanced Custom Fields is the correct way, and best way, to add functionality and custom post types to your website. The Pro version contains so many useful features, from repeating fields to flexible content fields, media galleries, and custom options pages. This is the correct way to create your own custom page-building tool within WordPress.
3. Relvanssi
   The search tool built in to WordPress has never been great. Frankly, it’s never even been good. Mediocre? Maybe. That’s as far as we’ll go. Thankfully, Relevanssi, created by Mikko Saari, is an outstanding drop-in replacement. The free version offers an instant upgrade over the stock search tool, and the Premium version goes much further and is well worth the price. Relevanssi is highly customizable, so you can make your site’s search work however you want. And, critically, it provides full support for Advanced Custom Fields.
4. Gravity Forms
   There are other form builders out there, but none come close to Gravity Forms, in our opinion. With a wealth of of free and paid add-ons, Gravity Forms is both powerful and highly customizable, able to seamlessly integrate with just about any third-party service, from CRMs to payment processors and more.
5. Redirection
   There are a lot of redirection plugins available for WordPress, but this one by John Godley is our favorite. It is simple to configure and use, and highly reliable. With just about any website, some URLs need to be redirected. This redirection manager for WordPress makes that chore a snap. And, it also provides full logging and tracks 404 errors, which provides a simple way to identify dead links and fix problems.
6. Site Kit by Google
   Frankly, we find this plugin to be a little bit buggy, which is surprising considering it is the official Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and it is built by Google itself. But even with its shortcomings, we figure it is best to go with this one and hope it gets better over time.
7. UpdraftPlus
   Even if your hosting company provides free backups, we recommend having a second off-site backup. UpdraftPlus makes this a breeze and integrates seamlessly with remote destinations such as Amazon S3 or BackBlaze. Additionally, the Premium edition offers incremental backups, which are essential if your site changes frequently. The built-in site migration tools are pretty handy too.
8. WordFence
   With any WordPress site, you can expect to attract hackers and other bad actors. WordFence provides a simple and powerful way to fight back. The free version offers basic tools and a decently configurable firewall. It’s a no-brainer for any website. If you need a higher level of security, then premium options are available too.
9. Yoast Duplicate Post
   When populating a page or post, it is often a time-saver to make a copy of an existing one, and then change the content. Yoast Duplicate Post makes this a snap. With one click you can clone any type of page or post. It is a real time-saver.
10. A tie between WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache
    Website performance is crucial, and the simplest way to make big performance gains is with a page caching plugin. But in our experience, not every website plays well with every caching plugin. So sometimes we use WP Rocket and sometimes we use W3 Total Cache. They are both great, so when we launch a new site, we test both cache plugins and go with whichever is the most compatible with the site in question.

BONUS: The 11th plugin you should install is the SEO plugin of your choice. There are several to choose from, but we tend to use either Yoast, AIOSEO, or RankMath. They all work well, so we consider this mostly to be a matter of personal taste. But there are some material differences between them which we will delve into in another post.