Gatekeeper
Gatekeeper allows administrators to take a WordPress site offline quickly and easily while leaving it fully accessible to administrators and other authorized users. Site visitors will be shown or redirected to a…
Consider an alternative
Gatekeeper shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 200+ sites, is rated 3.7/5 and was last updated 9 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (200+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 8 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.8 (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 Gatekeeper stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| blacklist | >100 |
| gatekeeper | #24 |
| maintenance | >100 |
| offline | >100 |
| whitelist | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 3.7 from 3 reviews
About Gatekeeper
From the official readme · v1.1Description
Gatekeeper allows administrators to take a WordPress site offline quickly and easily while leaving it fully accessible to administrators and other authorized users. Site visitors will be shown or redirected to a specified offline page. An optional blacklist can be used for permanent bans.
** Features **
- Visitors can either be redirected to an existing non-WordPress offline page (using http 302 temporary redirect) or WordPress pages can be temporarily replaced with the offline page.
- Logged in admins can be whitelisted
- The current admin’s IP address can be automatically whitelisted
- An IP-based whitelist that can accept specific IP addresses, wildcards, and ranges
- A basic IP-based blacklist that redirects blacklisted IPs to a specified page (not to be used for security)
- A notifier that appears on administrator pages when the site is offline
Installation
- Upload
gatekeeperto the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to Tools > Gatekeeper to manage Gatekeeper.
Changelog
No upgrades available.
1.1
- UI improvements.
- Explicit warnings that the Blacklist is not designed for security. See FAQ.
- Acknowledging support for latest version of WordPress.
1.0.1
- Minor bug fix to eliminate an “undefined index” error.
1.0
- Updated code to avoid conflicts with other plugins and themes that were resulting in “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare admin_register_head()” errors.
- Consolidated plugin styles (CSS) into one stylesheet, instead of having some inline styles scattered throughout the code.
- Whitelist/Blacklist options are now collapsible (and collapsed by default).
- Minor miscellaneous visual improvements.
0.8
- Initial release (beta version).
Screenshots
For developers
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Best Gatekeeper alternatives
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FAQ
Gatekeeper: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 6, 2026
Is Gatekeeper free?
Yes. Gatekeeper is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Gatekeeper safe to use in 2026?
Gatekeeper shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 200+ sites, is rated 3.7/5 and was last updated 9 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Gatekeeper?
Gatekeeper is active on 200+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 18,581 times since it launched in July 2011. It was downloaded 163 times in the last 30 days.
Does Gatekeeper work with WordPress 7.1?
Gatekeeper is officially tested up to WordPress 4.8.32, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Gatekeeper last updated?
The latest version, 1.1, was released on October 23, 2017 (9 years ago).
Who makes Gatekeeper?
Gatekeeper is developed and maintained by jamiewilson.
What are the best alternatives to Gatekeeper?
The most popular alternatives to Gatekeeper are Gravity Forms Email Blackli… (10K+ installs), Block List Updater (3K+ installs) and Blacklist Manager (2K+ installs).
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