Only the Advanced Blog hosting supports custom plugin installation. Basic Blog hosting includes pre-installed plugins that can be activated as needed. You can find a list of pre-installed plugins here.
Approved Plugins
Most plugins will work with our Advanced Blog hosting. We could never provide a thorough enough list of all functioning plugins, so we suggest you give a plugin a try to see if it works!
Disabled Plugins
There are a some plugins that will be disabled automatically if they duplicate functionality or if they will slow down your site loading. The following is not an exhaustive list of disallowed plugins. Any plugin that fits into these categories or is otherwise known to cause problems may be added to the list or disabled at any time.
Note: For a current list of known plugin conflicts that can/will cause errors on your Showit site, refer to this article here.
Duplicate Functionality – Backups
These plugins duplicate our existing backup and restore functionality. We have seen these plugins cause problems for customers because they use too many resources creating archive files (tar/gzip/zip) and we have seen some poorly configured plugins create recursive backups and sites exceed their allotted storage amount.
backupwordpress
backwpup
wponlinebackup
6scan-backup
the-codetree-backup
ezpz-one-click-backup
Recommended AlternativesWe backup your files and database daily for 30 days. You can contact our team to restore your site to a previous version easily.
To backup your site on demand, you can use SFTP access and a database backup plugin like WP-DB-Backup or WP-DBManager.
Duplicate Functionality – Caching
These plugins duplicate our existing caching functionality. We handle caching before your visitors ever hit WordPress, so these plugins will not work properly.
w3-total-cache
wp-cache
wp-file-cache
wp-super-cache
wp-fast-cache
wp-fastest-cache
wp-cachecom
Recommended AlternativesNone! We cache your site for you. If you need help making your site even faster, try these suggestions.
Use the P3 Profiler plugin to check if your plugins are slowing down your site. Contact our support team. If your site is still slow, we want to know why and how we can help.
Unnecessary / Nonfunctional
These plugins don’t add any value and may not work correctly on our system. Some of these are competitors’ integration plugins, and some are superfluous but known to slow down site performance.
wpengine-common
wp-engine-snapshot
sgcachepress
synthesis
wordpress-beta-tester
NOTE: We do not remove the Hello Dolly plugin, but we do not install it by default.
Stats Plugins
These plugins hit the database frequently for stats purposes. They are useful, but they negatively impact your sites’ performance. In some cases, they prevent us from properly caching your site.
jr-referrer
referrer-wp
statpress
wp-postviews
wp-slimstat
Recommended AlternativesYou can use any service that records and stores your stats off-site. These include Chartbeat (paid), Google Analytics (free), Jetpack (free), MixPanel (free), and Segment.io (free).
Duplicate Functionality – Misc
These plugins duplicate functionality in various parts of our system.
6scan-protection — We take care of security and patching core files.
adminer
portable-phpmyadmin
wordpress-gzip-compression — Output compression is handled automatically.
wp-phpmyadmin
Related Posts
These plugins increase database load by using inefficient queries, poor caching, or poor scaling on large sites.
wordpress-popular-posts (versions 3.1.1 and below)
contextual-related-post
fuzzy-seo-booster
seo-alrp
similar-posts
yet-another-featured-posts-plugin
yet-another-related-posts-plugin
Recommended AlternativesYou can use any service that handles the relationship logic off-site like outbrain or Jetpack.
Security
These plugins have associated security issues.
InfiniteWP Client (versions 1.3.8 and below)
MailPoet (versions 2.6.6 and below)
toolspack
wp-copysafe-web and wp-copysafe-pdf
General Performance
These plugins don’t perform well, in general, especially on large sites.
broken-link-checker — This can cause large amounts of traffic and resource usage. Please try using client software on your computer or an external service.
google-sitemap-generator (versions < 4.0) — This can cause performance issues on large sites. Please try Google Sitemap plugin or WordPress SEO instead.
google-xml-sitemaps-with-multisite-support — This can cause performance issues on large sites. Please try Google Sitemap plugin or WordPress SEO instead.
adsense-click-fraud-monitoring — This can cause performance issues. There are no recommended alternatives at this time.
For more info on Disallowed Plugins, check out this article: