56
Restrict User Access – Ultimate Membership & Content Protection
Powerful membership features that might accidentally break your entire site.
Declining
56/100
The plugin provides robust access control but suffers from stability issues that can break your entire website.
Active installs
~15,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 10k+
Rating
4.3★
94 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-32%
Declining fast
75 → 51 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORdownloads down 32% vs a year ago
- MINORnot updated in 8 months
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining fast · -32% in the last year
75/day a year ago→51/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayRestrict User Access is praised for its easy setup and strong content restriction features, but users report serious stability, uninstall, and support problems, especially after updates.
What people like
- +Intuitive and simple user interface that makes configuration straightforward×2
- +Robust user access and content restriction capabilities (e.g., hide admin bar, limit author permissions)×4
- +Responsive and helpful support when issues arise×2
- +Long-term reliability; used successfully on multiple sites over several years
Common complaints
- −Blog posts become inaccessible, redirecting to the homepage after activation
- −Uninstall leaves the site broken, preventing creation of new posts, pages, or categories
- −Version 2.3.1 caused sites to crash when auto-updated (since 2.3.1)
- −Incompatible with LiteSpeed caching, causing functionality issues
- −Limited granularity in capability control; cannot restrict editing to specific pages
- −Plugin appears abandoned; developer unresponsive and some users see no effect after activation
- −Documentation is sparse and outdated, making it hard for newcomers
- −Support requires a license number, leaving free-version users without assistance
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.36★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.30★
- 4%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-12-172025-03-112026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 94 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2025-04-28★★★★★Tons of possibilitesbasstrid
- 2024-08-08★★★★★Plugin bug, blog post access lockeddekino
- 2024-05-20★★★★★My favorite !Oaz
- 2024-02-08★★★★★Great for User Permission control!anandaxp
- 2023-11-18★★★★★One of the best plugins I have ever used!erdeme61
- 2023-01-19★★★★★HOW HAS NO ONE MADE ONE FOR HIDING CUSTOMER LISTThe Hemp Collect
- 2022-07-04★★★★★My site is now USELLES. Gonna need to start fresh.fmardito
- 2022-05-24★★★★★Autoupgrade of this plugin took down all sites using itmozboz
- 2022-05-23★★★★★Fantastic.Christoph
- 2022-01-06★★★★★Coool!Dmytro First
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload 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.
51
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
55
Prior 7-day baseline
43
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
47
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-7.3%
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.
20%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.28
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
74%
5★ share in analyzed sample
4%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.31 → 4.36★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered