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Possibly abandoned Tested up to 4.9.33 #3 in capability

Hide This

Hide This provides a [hide] shortcode that lets you hide some parts of the content from your posts and pages. You can easily manage inclusions and exclusions for hidden content in three levels: absolute, groups and…

Active installs2K+1K+ tier
Downloads · 30d199▲ +13.7% vs prev. 30d
Rating5/549 reviews
Health score45/100Fair
All-time downloads50KSince Oct 2013
Support resolved—No recent threads
RequiresWP 3.0PHP any
Downloads · 7d43▼ -24.6% week over week
Our verdict

Use with caution

Hide This works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 2K+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 9 years ago, and scores 45/100 on our health check.

  • Loved by users — 5/5 from 49 reviews
  • No update in 8 years
  • Only tested up to WordPress 4.9 (latest is 7.1)

How does it stack up?

Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support

Daily downloads

369Jun 30Aug 13Sep 27
Yesterday4
Daily average (1y)4
Peak day13Feb 11, 2026
Last 12 months1.4K

Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.

Rankings

Where Hide This stands today

WordPress.org search rankings

Live position in the plugin search, top 100
KeywordPositionCompeting pluginsCategory
capability >100 7,613 Best capability plugins →
content >100 10,000 Best content plugins →
hide >100 9,570 Best hide plugins →
role >100 6,183 Best role plugins →
user >100 10,000 Best user plugins →

Version adoption

Share of active sites per release.

  • 1.1100.0%

Rating breakdown

★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 49 reviews

  • 5★100.0%
  • 4★0.00%
  • 3★0.00%
  • 2★0.00%
  • 1★0.00%

About Hide This

From the official readme · v1.1.3

Description

Hide This provides a [hide] shortcode that lets you hide some parts of the content from your posts and pages. You can easily manage inclusions and exclusions for hidden content in three levels: absolute, groups and capabilities, and specific user.

Maybe some part of your post should not be published yet? Or maybe you want to show some specific parts of your content to a certain group or users, let’s say your logged in users or your clients? This plugin may be the solution you need.

It’s very important to note that the content wrapped within the shortcode won’t even be printed as HTML. It will be really, really hidden. There are a lot of great plugins that hide the content via CSS and Javascript, but this is not the case. If you want your content to not be visible, but still printed as HTML, you should try one of those.

Basic usage:

[hide]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

This example will hide that content for all the site visitors. But you can be more specific by using attributes.

Accepted attributes:

  • for: (optional) your rules to hide content. You can use absolute rules (all, none, [!]logged), rules by roles and capabilities ([!]{role}, [!]{role}:[!]{capability}, :[!]{capability}), and rules by specific user (userid:[!]{ID}, useremail:[!]{email}, username:[!]{username}).
  • exclude: (optional) your rules to show the hidden content to some specific visitor/s. As in for, you can use absolute rules (all, none, [!]logged), rules by roles and capabilities ([!]{role}, [!]{role}:[!]{capability}, :[!]{capability}), and rules by specific user (userid:[!]{ID}, useremail:[!]{email}, username:[!]{username}).
  • test: (optional) for debugging purposes. The kind of output you expect. Accepts content and empty. Use it wisely, because it prints a message with the result of the test.

Some useful examples:

Hide your content to all visitors:

[hide]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content to all visitors, except for a specific user:

[hide for="all" exclude="username:foo"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content to all non-logged visitors:

[hide for="!logged"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content to all logged in visitors:

[hide for="logged"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content to all logged in visitors, except for a specific user:

[hide for="logged" exclude="username:foo"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for some specific role:

[hide for="contributor"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for two specific roles:

[hide for="editor, contributor"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for all visitors except for a specific role:

[hide for="!administrator"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]
[hide for="all" exclude="administrator"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for all visitors except for two specific roles:

[hide for="!administrator, !editor"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]
[hide for="all" exclude="administrator, editor"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for users with a specific role and a specific capability:

[hide for="some_role:do_a_barrel_roll"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for users with a specific role, not having a specific capability:

[hide for="some_role:!do_a_barrel_roll"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for users with a specific capability:

[hide for=":do_a_barrel_roll"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for a specific user by user name:

[hide for="username:foo"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for a specific user by user ID:

[hide for="userid:42"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for a specific user by user email:

[hide for="useremail:foo@mail.com"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

Hide your content for everyone except for a specific user by user name:

[hide for="username:!foo"]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.[/hide]

You should get the idea by now. Notice how you can use ! to deny values such as login status, roles, capabilities and user values.

Extending

This plugin offers hooks for filters, so you can modify its functionality or add your own.

  • hide_this_attributes: Modify the attributes that the shortcode receives.
  • hide_this_content: Modify the full content that the shortcode prints.
  • hide_this_hide_rules: Modify rules for hiding content.
  • hide_this_show_rules: Modify rules for showing content.

Contribute

You can make suggestions and submit your own modifications to this plugin on Github.

Installation

  1. Unzip hide-this.zip and upload the hide-this folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  2. Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
  3. Start using the [hide] shortcode to hide the content you want.

Changelog

1.1.3

  • Fix: A bug was causing contents always showing for all users when applying negations to roles.

1.1.2

  • Fix: Multiple role assignation wasn’t working in some scenarios.

1.1.1

  • Improvement: Parsing shortcodes into [hide] and [hidethis].

1.1

  • Object oriented code.
  • New filter hooks.

1.0

First release!

Full changelog on WordPress.org →

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.

Active installs badge Rating badge Health score badge

Best Hide This alternatives

All capability plugins →
Alternatives
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2 User Role by BestWebSoft – Add and Customize Roles and Capabilities in WordPress User Role by BestWebSoft Powerful user role management plugin for WordPress websites. Easily create, customize, and… by bestwebsoft 3K+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 3.6 (12) 2 months ago 68
4 Access Areas for WordPress Access Areas for WordPress Fine tuning access to your posts. by podpirate 400+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 (17) 10 months ago 52
5 Custom Role Creator (CRC) Custom Role Creator (CRC) Custom Role Creator plugin allows you to add or change user roles and capabilities easily. by Ratul Hasan 100+ ★★★★★★★★★★ No reviews 1 year ago 34
6 User Upgrade Capability User Upgrade Capability Link multiple network sites/blogs together - Maintain only one site list of users. by Justin Fletcher 10+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 (7) 2 years ago 34
7 mmbrs mmbrs Restrict content access using shortcodes; based on roles, capabilities, user meta, and… by benwills 10+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 5 (1) 12 years ago 30
8 Limit Revision Publishing Limit Revision Publishing Limit Revision Publishing restricts edits made by users without the publish_{post_type}… by Paul Ryan 10+ ★★★★★★★★★★ No reviews 5 months ago 44
9 Web Administrator User Role Web Administrator User Role Plugin that automatically creates custom role for Web Administrators and allows to edit… by Robert Kampas 10+ ★★★★★★★★★★ No reviews 9 years ago 23
10 Restrict Page Parents Restrict Page Parents Restrict Page Parents restricts page parent options to those owned by the user, with the… by tom.maitland 10+ ★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 (4) 13 years ago 29
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FAQ

Hide This: quick answers

Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.

Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 28, 2026

Is Hide This free?

Yes. Hide This is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.

Is Hide This safe to use in 2026?

Hide This works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 2K+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 9 years ago, and scores 45/100 on our health check.

How many websites use Hide This?

Hide This is active on 2K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 50,007 times since it launched in October 2013. It was downloaded 199 times in the last 30 days.

Does Hide This work with WordPress 7.1?

Hide This is officially tested up to WordPress 4.9.33, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.

When was Hide This last updated?

The latest version, 1.1.3, was released on February 12, 2018 (9 years ago).

Who makes Hide This?

Hide This is developed and maintained by Andrés Villarreal.

What are the best alternatives to Hide This?

The most popular alternatives to Hide This are Controlled Admin Access (10K+ installs), User Role by BestWebSoft (3K+ installs) and Access Areas for WordPress (400+ installs).

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