I’m of the opinion that WordPress has entered a silver age recently and with that comes a vast multitude of fantastic plugins. I run a lot of WP installations and get to try out a lot of plugins. Here’s my first list of five great plugins for WordPress.
- Resize Image After Upload
Brilliantly simple, this plugin resizes the “original” you uploaded to the dimension of your choice. This makes the file sizes in your uploads folder much more manageable. It can also make a big difference if your hosting comes with a disk size restriction or price threshold. - Updraft Plus
WordPress is a magnet for security issues and if you never have a problem you should consider yourself lucky. If you back up your data regularly, you’ll be prepared for a problem. Updraft Plus makes automated backups easy and it supports an array of remote storage locations including Rackspace Cloud Files, Google Drive, Dropbox and FTP. - BuddyPress
This is perhaps one of the most underused plugins for WordPress. BuddyPress turns your blog into a full-featured social media site in a matter of minutes. It’s perfect for groups that in any way face inwardly or who want to fully engage their author and reader communities. - All-in-One Event Calendar
This plugin turns your blog into a robust events platform. It is hugely powerful and highly customizable. You can even consume your event-type posts with a SlideDeck slideshow. - SlideDeck
This plugin allows you to create responsive-layout slideshows from an array of sources including your WordPress posts, YouTube, Facebook, Google+, Flickr, Vimeo, Pinterest, Instagram and RSS. These animated slideshows are very attractive and highly customizable. Paid tiers include additional features and “lenses”.