Sucuri Security – Auditing, Malware Scanner and Security Hardening

86 Quality Score

Active Installs

26/30

With 600,000 active installs, Sucuri has a large user base, though it sits well behind Wordfence (5 million) and Akismet (6 million) in its category.

Update Freshness

25/25

The plugin was last updated in July 2026 and is tested against WordPress 7.0, which signals active and current maintenance.

User Rating

13/15

An 84 out of 100 rating from 384 reviews is solid, indicating users generally find the free tier useful, though it is not as highly rated as Wordfence or Really Simple Security.

Support Health

8/15

Only 4 support threads with a 75 percent resolution rate is a thin sample, making it hard to draw strong conclusions about long-term support responsiveness.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Tested with WordPress 7.0 and requiring only WordPress 3.6, compatibility is excellent and the plugin should run on nearly any modern WordPress install.

Scores higher than 97% of indexed plugins

About

The Sucuri WordPress Security plugin is a security toolset for security integrity monitoring, malware detection and security hardening.

Active Installs 600k+

Rating ★★★★ 4.2/5

Last Updated 2026-09-09 1:38pm GMT

Requires WordPress 6.0+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.4+

Security History

1 known vulnerability, all patched

1 High

Most recent: September 14, 2022

View details ▸

What It Does

Sucuri Security is a free WordPress security plugin that monitors your site for malware, tracks file integrity, hardens core WordPress settings, and audits activity logs. It also integrates with Sucuri's paid cloud-based Website Firewall (WAF) and malware cleanup services, though those paid tiers are sold separately. In practice, it gives you a dashboard of alerts, scheduled scans, and blacklist checks without requiring a paid subscription to use the basic features.

Who It's For

This plugin is a good fit for site owners who want a passive, monitoring-oriented security layer without paying for a premium firewall, particularly on small business sites, blogs, and WooCommerce stores where basic hardening and malware visibility matter. It is also useful for users already using or considering the paid Sucuri firewall, since the plugin ties into their remediation workflow. Sites with compliance needs or anyone who wants detailed activity logs will appreciate the built-in auditing tools.

Who Should Skip It

If you want an all-in-one firewall with an integrated WAF, real-time traffic filtering, and aggressive rate limiting out of the box, Wordfence or Jetpack's security module will serve you better. Developers who want a lightweight, no-branding monitoring tool may find the Sucuri upsell prompts and the firewall-behind-paywall model frustrating.

The Bottom Line

Sucuri Security is a reputable, actively maintained monitoring and hardening plugin that delivers genuine value for free, especially as a stepping stone toward Sucuri's paid firewall and cleanup services. Its main weakness is the gap between the free plugin and the paid WAF, plus a relatively small support footprint compared to Wordfence. Overall, it earns its 85.98 quality score and is a reasonable pick for users who trust the Sucuri brand or want a non-intrusive baseline scanner.

Pick Akismet if your primary concern is comment and contact form spam rather than malware or firewall protection.

Really Simple Security 99/100

Choose Really Simple Security if you mainly need SSL/HTTPS enforcement and lightweight hardening rather than full malware scanning.

Wordfence Security 97/100

Go with Wordfence if you want a built-in application firewall, real-time IP blocking, and country filtering without a separate paid WAF subscription.

Jetpack 93/100

Consider Jetpack if you also need backups, performance, and growth tools bundled with security in a single subscription.

CleanTalk Anti-Spam 93/100

Pick CleanTalk if spam blocking is your main goal and you want a paid cloud-based anti-spam firewall instead of malware scanning.