WordPress is one of the most popular website content management systems available. It saves money; is easily customized, clients can easily update their own content, and it’s free. Due to its open-sourced framework anyone can create plugins designed to enhance website functionally, and developers love this about it.

With so many plugins being created, it is easy to miss a few great ones from time to time. We asked LunaGraphica staff what their favorites are and almost everyone learned of something they weren’t familiar with. After sorting through the best of the best, we narrowed them down to our top five plugins.

WordPress’s built-in forms can be rather limiting in style and function options; which is why we are big fans of Ninja Forms. With Ninja forms you are able to create custom forms easily and quickly by dragging and dropping desired fields. You can also rename fields, and even edit the size and layout of your needed fields. Ninja provides many built-in styles to choose from, but the plugin also allows you match your site’s design.

One of our favorite features of Ninja forms is the ability to connect to literally hundreds of services so the end user can do anything from making a payment, to signing up for a newsletter through the form you have created. It has has dozens of additional plugins designed to interact and work along with the forms, making this form builder almost limitless in possibilities. And you never have to worry about losing track of user submissions because a backup is always saved in WordPress. Oh yeah, and it is free!

Another free plugin that boasts over 40,000 active installations, Custom Field Suite allows you to add custom sections on WordPress pages. You can choose from 14 field types which range from simple single-line text fields, to widgets that perform specific navigation functions, and you can group fields into tabs.

Once installed CFS is accessed through the WordPress admin menu. The plugin interface is easy to use and not only allows you to make custom fields, but choose where they appear using the simple placement rules. Our designers like this plugin for its ease of use, consistency, and because it allows our clients to easily edit and update their own content.

Have you ever been on a web page that feels like it has you scrolling for hours, only to have to scroll back to the top to find something else you need? Honestly, all the scrolling can be one of the more annoying things about reading web pages. I am sure every one of us has become so frustrated with exceptionally “scrolly” websites we just gave up and went to a new site. Well, that doesn’t have to happen at all with WPFront Scroll Top!

Sometimes long pages are unavoidable, and when that is the case it is always nice to give users a “back to top” arrow for easier site navigation. This plugin makes it a snap to include this feature on WordPress sites. There are many ways to customize your site’s new “back to top” feature so it will always have the look and feel you desire for your design.

For instance, you can set any image you want for your button, or choose to use text if you prefer. The arrow can be positioned where you want it on pages, and you can choose to auto hide it so it only appears when users hover over it. There is also a feature that allows you to hide the button on smaller devices. This is a simple and functional plugin that will keep users on your sites longer, and keep them coming back again and again.

One of the most soul crushing moments one can experience is realizing your website has been compromised in some way and the backups you relied on your hosting provider to keep are out of date (or missing all together). Situations like this can mean hours of work, stress, and the potential for big losses. Everyone knows keeping multiple backups is the best policy and BackUpWordPress makes doing so the simplest of tasks.

Once you install the plugin you are ready to go… it is really that easy! Just schedule your backups for a time that works for you and there you have it; you can even manage multiple schedules. Save time and storage space space by excluding files, and having backups files emailed directly to you as a zip files.

This plugin works on both Linux and Windows servers, and in low memory “shared host” situations. Human Made Limited has translations for numerous languages and is constantly seeking to create more translations. If ever needed, you can rest assured you will get excellent support for this plugin.

If you have ever had to chase down corrupted files on a website after it has been hacked, you know just how upsetting and time consuming this process can be. Sometimes protecting your website from malicious attacks seems like an impossible task, but Sucuri Security is your first line of defense against attackers.

This security suite plugin is free to all WordPress users and is meant to work with the security features you already have in place. Most of the time you find out you have been hacked because something has gone wrong; Sucuri Security monitors, detects, and reports all failed login attempts and changes on your website as they happen. This gives you the ability to act quickly and prevent damage with the post-hack security actions provided in the suite.

Internet security is a growing problem and though no site can be 100% safe from attack, having this security suite in place will give you a leg up on defending your site and a little extra piece of mind.