Bloat Buster – A Simple Plugin To Kill Off Bloat
A super simple plugin to remove unnecessary bloat from your WordPress site.
Consider an alternative
Bloat Buster shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 30+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (30+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 2 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 6.4 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Bloat Buster stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| clean-up | >100 |
| disable | >100 |
| performance tweak | >100 |
| remove bloat | #100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews
About Bloat Buster
From the official readme · v1.2.1Description
Bloat Buster is a super simple plugin to remove unnecessary bloat from your WordPress site. Just a toggle away and you’re set.
Features
9 Optimization Features Available:
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Remove Emoticon Scripts – Remove extra code related to emojis from WordPress which was added recently to suport emoticons in an older browser.
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Remove Full Site Editing Global Styles – This will prevent the Full Site Editing global CSS from loading because this script is enabled by default even if you’re not using FSE.
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Remove RSD Links – RSD (Really Simple Discovery) is needed if you intend to use XML-RPC client, pingback, etc. However, if you don’t need pingback or remote client to manage post then you can safely get rid of this unnecessary header.
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Remove Shortlink – Starting from version 3, WordPress added shortlink (shorter link of web page address) in header code. If you’re not using shortlink for any functionality then you can remove them.
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Disable Embed – WordPress introduced oEmbed features in 4.4 which allows any site to embed WordPress post remotely. Activate this feature to prevent other parties from embedding your blog post and disable loading related JS file.
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Disable XML-RPC – Activate this option if you don’t use WordPress API (XML-RPC) to publish/edit/delete a post, edit/list comments, upload file. Having XML-RPC enabled and not hardened properly may lead to DDoS & brute force attacks.
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Hide WordPress Version – This doesn’t help in performance but more to mitigate information leakage vulnerability. By default, WordPress adds meta name generator with the version details which is visible in source code and HTTP header. To remove the WP version, activate this option.
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Disable Heartbeat – WordPress use heartbeat API to communicate with a browser to a server by frequently calling admin-ajax.php. This may slow down the overall page load time and increase CPU utilization if on shared hosting. If you don’t have a requirement to use heartbeat API, then you can activate this option.
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Disable Dashicons on The Front-end – Dashicons are utilized in the admin console, and if not using them to load any icons on front-end then you may want to disable it. By activating this option,
dashicons.min.csswill stop loading on front-end.
Contribute to Bloat Buster
Development for this plugin happens in a public GitHub repository. If you have a suggestion, bug report, patch, or pull request, please feel free to contribute here.
Installation
- Activate the plugin.
- Go to Settings > Bloat Buster and configure the options.
Changelog
1.2.1, January 6, 2024
- Compatibility with WordPress 6.4.2.
- Increased overall robustness of the import setting functionality.
- Improved the exported file naming convention by incorporating a timestamp to make each export unique and easily identifiable.
- Implemented comprehensive file handling and validation for the import setting process, including checks for file type, size limitations, and JSON content validation.
1.2, March 15, 2023
- Improvement: Code base refactoring
- New: Added Export and Import Settings
1.1.2.1, December 15, 2022
- Compatibility with WordPress 6.1.
1.1.2, June 10, 2022
- Compatibility with WordPress 6.0.
1.1.1, April 1, 2022
- Improvement: Added function to remove the option table generated by this plugin upon uninstall.
1.1.0, March 31, 2022
- New: Added 7 new optimization features.
- Improvement: Code base refactored.
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Bloat Buster alternatives
All clean-up plugins →
FAQ
Bloat Buster: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 6, 2026
Is Bloat Buster free?
Yes. Bloat Buster is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Bloat Buster safe to use in 2026?
Bloat Buster shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 30+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Bloat Buster?
Bloat Buster is active on 30+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 4,133 times since it launched in March 2022. It was downloaded 73 times in the last 30 days.
Does Bloat Buster work with WordPress 7.1?
Bloat Buster is officially tested up to WordPress 6.4.13, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Bloat Buster need?
Bloat Buster requires PHP 7.0 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Bloat Buster last updated?
The latest version, 1.2.1, was released on January 6, 2024 (3 years ago).
Who makes Bloat Buster?
Bloat Buster is developed and maintained by Alvind.
What are the best alternatives to Bloat Buster?
The most popular alternatives to Bloat Buster are Templ Optimizer (1K+ installs), Disable Global Style (600+ installs) and Advanced Clean Master (10+ installs).
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