I’ve been using Wordfence for many years. With 4+ million active installations and thousands of 5-star ratings, it has been my de facto WordPress security plugin I’m using on all my own and clients’ sites.

But for now, I’ve deactivated Wordfence and replaced it with the in-house plugins provided by my hosting provider – SiteGround Optimizer and, more particularly, SiteGround Security.

The reason for my switch from my long trusted Wordfence to SiteGround Security is simple – It’s simple! That’s right, I like the simplicity of it and it’s kind of like an activate-and-forget type of plugin. Most importantly, it works!

Now before I go into a little more on the details of SiteGround Security, I must admit that another key factor for my switch is it’s developed in-house by my hosting provider; and together with another in-house SiteGround Optimizer, everything from site speed to security are well taken care of.

However, if you’re not with SiteGround hosting, then you might not have the natural tendency to use these in-house plugins. In this case, of course I’d still strongly recommend Wordfence. To me, the bare minimum for all websites these days must have SSL (HTTPS secured) and activated with a good security plugin!

Right, back to SiteGround Security .. it’s a all-in-one security plugin which include :

• Custom login URL instead of the default /wp-admin
• Limit admin login to specific (or range of) IPs
• 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) (with Google Authentication)
• Limit login attempts
• Hiding WordPress version
• Disable themes and plugins editors
• HSTS (HTTP Strict-Transport-Security) preventing “man-in-the-middle” attacks
• And more

Now if you are going to compare tit for tat between SiteGround Security against Wordfence, not to forget that SiteGround Security is still relatively new compared to the well-established Wordfence, for sure the more matured Wordfence will have the edge in terms of functionalities. 

However, if you are like me, already with SiteGround hosting (which is the best hosting provider; considering the handful of tier-1 hosting providers myself and those my clients are/were using), it’s a no brainer to make the switch over to SiteGround’s in-house solutions.