crawler-hunter
It is a simple but effective plugin. Stops spam bots by checking browser content. You can also add an ip address to the blacklist.
Consider an alternative
crawler-hunter shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 1 year ago, and scores 38/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in over a year
- Only tested up to WordPress 6.8 (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 crawler-hunter stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| bad bots | #82 |
| ban | >100 |
| block | >100 |
| security | >100 |
| spiders | #29 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 from 2 reviews
About crawler-hunter
From the official readme · v1.3Description
Bots and web crawlers coming to your site check the content of the full user agent string, and those that are not on the whitelist will be blocked.
AI crawlers are also blocked.
In addition, you can manually blacklist the IP address. If you enable the automatic IP blocking option, IP addresses that make more than 5 requests in 1 minute will be blocked for 240 minutes (4 hours) by default.
You can change these values here.
Blocked bots include:
- GPTBot
- ClaudeBot
- Amazonbot
- SemrushBot
- MJ12bot
- and more bots…
Installation
Upload the crawler-hunter plugin to your blog and activate
Changelog
1.1
- Fixed bugs in php 8.x
- Tests on WordPress 6.3.1
1.3
- Tests on WordPress 6.8.1
Screenshots
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 crawler-hunter alternatives
All bad bots plugins →FAQ
crawler-hunter: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 9, 2026
Is crawler-hunter free?
Yes. crawler-hunter is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is crawler-hunter safe to use in 2026?
crawler-hunter shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 1 year ago, and scores 38/100 on our health check.
How many websites use crawler-hunter?
crawler-hunter is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 1,887 times since it launched in October 2022. It was downloaded 81 times in the last 30 days.
Does crawler-hunter work with WordPress 7.1?
crawler-hunter is officially tested up to WordPress 6.8.11, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does crawler-hunter need?
crawler-hunter requires PHP 5.6 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was crawler-hunter last updated?
The latest version, 1.3, was released on May 27, 2025 (1 year ago).
Who makes crawler-hunter?
crawler-hunter is developed and maintained by naimgr83.
What are the best alternatives to crawler-hunter?
The most popular alternatives to crawler-hunter are Bot Traffic Shield (700+ installs), ShieldUp (80+ installs) and Block old browser versions… (<10 installs).
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