Grade B

Disable XML-RPC Pingback

Name: Disable XML-RPC Pingback
Rating: 4.0 (14 reviews)
Author: Samuel Aguilera

⤓ Download v1.2.2 on WordPress.org ↗

by Samuel Aguileraupdated 2025-11-24😴The Napper

Security relief that might actually leave you with a broken website.

HealthyGrowing

53/100

Mixed reviews highlight effectiveness issues and site breakage alongside concerns about developer conduct.

Loved18/40

Trustworthy6/15

Fair & Honest8/15

Maintained9/18

Momentum12/12

✂️

You might not need this plugin. Its core job is small enough to live in your theme's functions.php.

Show the snippet

// Remove pingback methods from XML-RPC
add_filter( 'xmlrpc_methods', function( $methods ) {
    unset( $methods['pingback.ping'] );
    unset( $methods['pingback.extensions.getPingbacks'] );
    return $methods;
} );

// Remove X-Pingback HTTP header
add_filter( 'wp_headers', function( $headers ) {
    unset( $headers['X-Pingback'] );
    return $headers;
} );

Keep in mind:This keeps the rest of XML-RPC functional, unlike fully disabling it.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~65,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 60k+

→ on track for 70k+in ~3 weeks

Rating

3.9★

14 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

+262%

Growing fast

15 → 53 installs/day

What to watch out for

MINORnot updated in 6 months

Downloads over time

real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend

2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03

organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median

Growing fast · +262% in the last year

15/day a year ago→53/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Review trustMostly organic

4.00★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 3.90★
14%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
past spikeReview timing — up to 100% of all reviews landed in a single month

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

2025-11-062026-03-062026-06-04

5★ reviews1–4★ reviews

All-time ratings · 14 total

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 14 analyzed

2025-10-21★★★★★This excellent plugin is updated if needed and is still actively maintained Gordon1-shot
2021-05-16★★★★★This haven't updated over than a year morti037
2020-10-03★★★★★Broke my site captainzandra1-shot
2017-01-20★★★★★Fantástico plugin, imprescindible Fernando Tellado
2016-11-19★★★★★Great plugins wplike75
2016-06-15★★★★★Awesome and Effective Plugin.gmyoganand
2016-06-07★★★★★I never installed this myself?yolandal
2015-09-14★★★★★Doesn't work zoxee
2014-09-22★★★★★Thank you for providing this timely plugin!rmvgaines
2014-04-11★★★★★Does the job digitaltap

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2025-11-24v1.2.2
2019-11-14v1.2.1
2019-03-30v1.2
2017-11-06v1.1
2014-10-03v1.0

For developers & the curious

the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary above

Download signals

Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.

Baseline · median of last 7 organic days

Prior 7-day baseline

Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days

106

Mean release-day peak (30d)

Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)

-18.6%

Week-over-week organic trend

Review signals

Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.

100%

Max month share · biggest single 30-day window

2.65

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

71%

5★ share in analyzed sample

14%

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

3.86 → 4.00★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered