Groups – Memberships and Access Control

80 Quality Score

Active Installs

18/30

At 10,000 active installs, it sits well below the major membership plugins, suggesting a niche audience of developers and integrators rather than mainstream adoption.

Update Freshness

25/25

The plugin was updated within the last update cycle and explicitly supports WordPress 7.0, which is excellent forward compatibility.

User Rating

14/15

A 96 out of 100 rating from 380 users is genuinely strong and indicates consistent satisfaction among its user base.

Support Health

8/15

With zero tracked support threads and a support health score of only 50, the public help channel is essentially inactive, which is a meaningful risk.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Full marks for compatibility, as it is tested against WordPress 7.0, requires PHP 7.4, and integrates with the broader WordPress role and capability system.

Scores higher than 78% of indexed plugins

About

Turn your site into a powerful membership solution. Manage members, teams and access to content easily.

Active Installs 10k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.8/5

Last Updated 2026-09-24 10:08am GMT

Requires WordPress 6.7+

Tested Up To 7.1.2

Requires PHP 7.4+

Security History

3 known vulnerabilities, all patched

1 High 2 Medium

Most recent: September 26, 2026

View details ▸

What It Does

Groups lets site owners create and manage user groups, then tie WordPress capabilities and content visibility to those groups. It works as a foundation layer, so other plugins (such as forum or e-commerce tools) can read membership data to restrict features, downloads, or pages.

Who It's For

This plugin suits developers and site builders running membership-driven communities, client portals, or course platforms who need flexible group-based access control and are comfortable wiring it into other plugins. It is a strong fit for sites where membership tiers are more important than self-service registration forms.

Who Should Skip It

If you need a turnkey registration form, payment gateway, or member directory out of the box, Groups will feel like a half-built toolkit. Casual site owners looking for a one-click membership site should pick Ultimate Member or User Registration instead.

The Bottom Line

Groups is a solid, well-maintained foundation plugin for group-based access control, and its 79.81 overall score reflects both technical strength and a limited mainstream footprint. It is a smart pick for developers, but the near-empty public support forum means you should be ready to rely on documentation or paid help. Skip it if you want a plug-and-play membership site.

Pick Members when you want a similar capability-focused approach but with a far larger user base (300,000 installs) and more documentation.

Ultimate Member 90/100

Choose Ultimate Member if you need built-in registration forms, profiles, member directories, and content restriction in one package.

User Registration & Membership 89/100

Go with User Registration when paid subscriptions and a visual form builder matter more than granular group logic.

Loginizer 89/100

Pick Loginizer only if your concern is hardening the login screen, since it does not handle group-based memberships.

User Role Editor 87/100

Choose User Role Editor when you mainly need to tweak WordPress roles and capabilities without building a full group system.