The more people who have access to your WordPress dashboard, the greater the security risk. To avoid problems and manage workflow, you can use a plugin to monitor user activity on your website.
There are several plugins that can help you track the login history of WordPress users and the changes they make on your website. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best ones.
1. WP Activity Log
WP Activity Log is a popular plugin for monitoring logins, status, content changes, title, URL, tags, categories, widgets, menus, setting changes, database, user changes, etc. It also records the date and time of the event, the person responsible, IP addresses and the changes made. Thanks to its comprehensive and effective features, WP Activity Log becomes one of the most appreciated log plugins.
Developed by Melapress, this plugin serves hundreds of thousands of administrators who need full visibility of their WordPress sites. The plugin goes beyond just logging by providing millisecond accurate timestamps and what exactly changed in each event. For teams with multiple users, the security benefits are huge – you’ll know about failed login attempts and can stop breaches before they happen.
The free version has good functionality including customizable retention policies and role based access control, whilst the premium version adds real time monitoring, user session management and integration with external systems like Slack and AWS CloudWatch. With built in support for popular plugins like WooCommerce, Yoast SEO. and WPForms, it’s a complete logging solution for any WordPress site.
2. Simple History
If you’re looking for a free and user-friendly activity tracking plugin, Simple History could be a good choice. Although it has a simple interface, you are still able to monitor logins and track every important change on the dashboard.
These changes include posts and pages, attachments, comments, widgets, plugins, dates, user profiles, etc. Apart from English, the plugin supports 8 languages including Swedish, German, Polish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French and Russian. This makes it friendly for users who use different languages.
What makes this plugin particularly useful is its zero-configuration setup—install the plugin and it immediately starts logging activities without any settings to adjust. You can view logs directly on your dashboard through a widget or on a dedicated page.
The plugin tracks failed login attempts, which helps identify potential security threats, and includes built-in support for popular third-party plugins like Jetpack, ACF, and Beaver Builder. For technical users, Simple History offers WP-CLI commands for automation and an RSS feed for remote monitoring.
With over 300 five-star reviews, many site managers consider it a standard installation for all their WordPress projects. You can even enable “Stealth Mode” to hide the plugin from other users while maintaining full logging functionality.
3. Sucuri
Sucuri is a powerful multifunctional plugin. Like other activity log plugins, it provides you with information about login attempts, posts, media, themes, settings, etc. It also offers other interesting features such as protection against malware, hacking and DDoS attacks.
What sets Sucuri apart from typical logging tools is its complete security focus. The plugin includes file integrity monitoring that alerts you when core WordPress files change unexpectedly, potentially signaling a breach. Regular remote malware scanning runs automatically to check your site for suspicious code or files. If your site gets compromised, the post-hack security tools help you recover quickly without needing technical expertise.
The free version offers solid protection, but website owners with higher security needs might consider the premium Sucuri Firewall. This adds a Web Application Firewall that blocks malicious traffic before it reaches your site, plus vulnerability scanning for WordPress core, plugins, themes, and PHP.
With detailed reporting on brute force attempts and DDoS protection included, it’s a comprehensive security solution that goes well beyond standard activity logging.
4. User Activity Log
With User Activity Log, you can secure your website by tracking user activity, from logging in to creating, updating and deleting elements such as posts, pages, categories, widgets, menus, etc. The plugin helps you monitor the activities of specific users by using various filter options.
It’s a monitoring tool that makes managing multiple users much easier by recording a detailed log of their actions, tracking an impressive range of activities including WordPress core updates, all content modifications, taxonomy changes, comment management, media uploads, and even user logins/logouts including failed attempts. Website owners will appreciate that it works right out of the box without any configuration needed.
For extra security, you can set up email alerts when particular users or anyone with specific roles logs in to your site. The free version already supports popular plugins like WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, Advanced Custom Fields, and Yoast SEO.
If you need more control, the Pro version adds sorting capabilities, password protection for logs, CSV exports, and detailed before/after comparisons of changes. It’s particularly valuable for teams of developers, agencies managing client sites, and any WordPress installation with multiple contributors.
5. Activity Log
The standout point of Activity Log, compared to other plugins, is its well-organized interface. Every feature, from tracking login history to displaying the time of the event, is shown in a user-friendly way.
Beyond basic tracking, Activity Log includes email logging capabilities that capture all messages sent from your WordPress installation, which proves incredibly helpful for WooCommerce store owners who need to verify order confirmations and customer communications. You can export all this data to CSV files for record-keeping or analysis.
The plugin is perfect for recording detailed information about nearly every WordPress component—from core updates to plugin installations, user logins to media uploads. For each action, you’ll see exactly when it happened, who did it, and from which IP address. Site owners managing multiple contributors particularly value this transparency. Activity Log also includes GDPR compliance tools, making it suitable for websites that serve European visitors and need to meet data privacy regulations.
Conclusion
To summarize, tracking user login history and activity is important if you want to keep your website secure, and there are many plugins that can help you to do this. Hopefully among all of the plugins mentioned above, you can find one that’s right for your needs.
