Best GPL WordPress Plugin Providers
What is GPL? GPL stands for General Public License and is often used in what is called open-source software. WordPress itself is an Open-Source CMS (Content Management System) software which carries this type of license. And every copy of WordPress be it the one I use for my website or yours carries the exact same license. My goal here is not to bother you with legal stuff or anything of sorts.
What are GPL WordPress Plugins? But what you need to know is that any software built upon WordPress, such as themes and plugins, will still carry the original GPL license. Although when doing so you can’t expect to get the same level of support that people who bought it might get in certain instances.
Are GPL WordPress Plugins Legal? Developers can sell their plugins but once someone buys them, they are free to do what they want with them.
GPL providers focus on distributing these plugins, and it’s perfectly legal to download themes or plugins that carry out this license.
How Do GPL WordPress Plugins Work? The installation process is the same as installing normal WordPress plugins. By uploading the zip file from your computer to your WordPress Plugins Section, clicking “install” and then proceeding to click on “activate”. So, what’s the difference? Well depending on your provider… Some of them have an additional plugin to install and activate with a private activation key. Some have the benefit of allowing you to easily update the plugins from your WordPress Dashboard without having to go to the site again to download every single new version of the plugin.
Best GPL WordPress Plugin Providers Now that you know what GPL WordPress Plugins are let me tell you where you can find them. Here are the 5 best GPL providers for WordPress plugins…
Festinger Vault The first on the list is Festinger Vault for the overall ease of use and experience and plugin selection.
Main Points It packs over 8000 themes and plugins with one click install and automatic updates throughout the Festinger Vault plugin. Plugins are added daily, but if the ones you need are not available you can still open a request for missing ones. If you are a part of an agency, they also provide white labeling options. Clients are over 30K and counting.
Search Plugins and Themes You can check out what’s available by going into the Themes or Plugins or make a search for a specific plugin.
Pricing They have both monthly and one-time fee options to choose from. Memberships start at $15 per month and are great if you need access to multiple plugins or have a business centered around WordPress services.
You will get a certain number of credits to get plugins every single day starting at 10, available to use on 1 domain, and the updates also range from 1 month to lifetime. With one-time time options you get a certain number of credits instantly and that’s it. They will also give you life-time updates for every purchase.
GPL Vault Main Pointers GPL Vault has a little bit less files available for download with around 4000. They still feature one-click updates, but even better is the fact that there’s unlimited domain use for themes and plugins. That means you can use your downloads on as many sites as you like, although you can only download 20 items per day which applies to all members.
Selection If you visit the site, you can see right at the top that they have plugins and themes organized from A-Z by category, developer team or exact match. It’s easy to sort through them that way, but if you can find your go to use the search bar to see if they are available.
Pricing There are only two plans: either $15 per month or $90 per year but both include the same. Of course, for the course of an entire year the year plan would be cheaper at $90 than the monthly which would cost $180 total.
GPL Cellar Main Pointers Another option is GPL Cellar with 5200 plugins available inside their own plugin which allows for automatic updates. You only need one license to access the GPL Cellar plugin and then you can pretty much search, try and install any plugin available on their selection. If an update has been released by the developers and is not available yet you can request an update as a member, and they will provide it.
Selection You can find an extensive list of plugins on their site or look at them through the WordPress dashboard.
Pricing One thing that sets this site apart from the rest is in the flexible plans and especially the lifetime ones, where you pay once and get lifetime access to everything.
Lifetime plans have no limit on downloads or whatsoever So you can install and use the plugins on as many sites as needed! There are also some monthly plans with a strict number of domains but if you need a lot of them, you would be better off with the agency plan anyways (1000 activations).
GPL Plus Main Pointers GPL Plus features 3000 themes and plugins with unlimited domains on all plans, so that you can install them on as many sites as you want. They also put emphasis on 24/7 support, regular updates and files that are verified by McAfee secure.
Selection To see what plugins are available you can click on plugins or themes from the menu at the top. From then on you can sort them with different criteria or simply find what you want by using the search bar.
Pricing There are three main plans available. You can pay $24.99 for a month, $199 for one year and $599 for a lifetime option. All have a daily download limit, and it scales up from the first to last plan starting on 5 downloads per day on the monthly, 10 downloads a day for the yearly plan and then 20 downloads for the lifetime. But if you want to buy single items, they’ll also give you that alternative where you can pay around $5 to get the product and 1 year of updates.
GPL Guru Main Pointers GPL Guru seems to be the one on the list with a smaller selection of 2800 plugins and themes. Still have regular updates like the other websites, very similar features…
Selection You can go to the shop to see what plugins and themes are available. Prices may vary but there’s a lot of them at $8 and $10.
Prices You can both buy plugins once through their store or get a membership for 1 month (junior membership) at $14.99 or a 1-year membership (VIP Membership) at $49.
If you choose the VIP Plan you will be paying around $4 per month which becomes cheaper than the monthly option. Of course, if you don’t need the 1 year membership you have already purchased the plan anyway so you got to think whether or not it’s worthy for your use case. Both plans have a daily download limit for 12 files.
Theme Price Main Pointers Lastly, we have Theme Price with 4000 plugins and themes available for download. Each file is scanned using Sucuri and they have a 7day money back guarantee. You can also get automatic updates by installing their own WordPress plugin on your own WordPress site. So that you don’t have to go back and forth downloading and uploading zip files.
Selection From the top menu you can get a general idea of what type of plugins and themes are available by looking at the drop-down menus. An extra category is web templates which are just site templates you can use even if you are not using WordPress. Since they include raw HTML, CSS and JAVASCRIPT files.
Pricing Individual items can be bought for $4, or you can also opt for a membership. All 4 plans are under the Premium Membership category:
Monthly costs $10 (20 downloads/ day) Yearly for $55 (40 downloads/ day) Lifetime for a one-time $125 fee (50 downloads/ day) Half Year $29 for 6 Months (30 downloads/ day)
All plans include unlimited domains, automatic updates, and support.