Download websites that use Wordfence

A security plugin that can be fingerprinted from the outside has, in a small way, given something away. Wordfence runs inside WordPress as PHP code on the server, filtering requests before the application sees them, scanning files for known malicious patterns and hardening the login form. Done quietly, none of that needs to be visible to a visitor. In practice, block pages, challenge screens, asset paths and version stamps leak, and the installs that leak are the ones we can count.

That produces a number which must be read carefully. As of October 2026 we attribute the plugin to 149 sites. The figure is not an estimate of how many WordPress installations run it, and it should never be quoted as one. Server side plugins are systematically invisible to external detection, so what the count actually measures is the subset of deployments that expose an identifiable artifact. The true installed base is far larger than anything a crawl can see.

The bias in that subset is the interesting part rather than a flaw to apologise for. A site that serves a recognisable block page or an asset path with a version in it is a site whose configuration was left close to default, which correlates with the sites least likely to have anyone tuning them. For a researcher studying how quickly security fixes actually reach ordinary websites, that population is not a poor sample. Neglected installs are the population under study.

Version data supports the same line of work. Our records carry 35 distinct version strings for the plugin, 7.4.14 among them, which is a wide spread for a product that ships updates frequently and prompts administrators to apply them. A security tool running old code is a finding in itself, because the protective value of a firewall depends on its rule set being current, and a stale plugin can leave an operator feeling covered while the coverage has drifted.

Some context on the product frames all of this. Sold by Defiant Inc. since 2011 under a Freemium model, it is aimed squarely at self managed WordPress sites, the ones without a security team behind them. Presence therefore implies a site owner who worried about compromise enough to act, but who is also running the platform that receives the most automated attack traffic on the web.

The uses of a downloadable list follow from the bias, not despite it. Hosting companies check which of their customers are protecting themselves and which are not. Competing security vendors and managed WordPress providers look for accounts to approach. Researchers measure patch latency across a real population instead of a survey. A lookup on one domain answers a support question. Only the export supports counting, comparison across exports, and any claim about how a plugin ecosystem behaves over time.