Plugin Installation

In this section, all possible ways to install plugins on WordPress will be discussed. Installing plugins in WordPress is very simple.

Read also: Installing WP plugins via composer

There are several ways to install a plugin:

Method 1. Installing a plugin from the WordPress plugin directory

This is the most common and reliable method. Reliable because before a plugin is accepted into the directory, it is checked, not as thoroughly as one would like, but still checked.

To add a plugin this way, you need to:

Go to the admin panel of the site in the section: Plugins -> Add New:

Next, in the search field, type the name of the desired plugin, for example Democracy poll, press Enter. And in the search results, click Install:

After the plugin is installed, activate it:

That's it, the plugin is installed!

Method 2. Uploading a zip archive with the plugin from the admin panel

This method is needed when the plugin is not in the WordPress plugin directory. For example, if you purchased a plugin or downloaded it from another site. Not all plugin creators add plugins to the directory.

To install this way, you need to download the plugin to your computer; it must be a ZIP archive.

Next, as in the first method, go to the admin panel section: Plugins -> Add New and click the button: Upload Plugin:

Next, click Choose File (choose file) and select our ZIP archive from the computer. Then click Install:

After the plugin is uploaded, click the link: Activate Plugin.

That's it, the plugin is installed!

Method 3. Uploading the plugin to the server via FTP

This method, considering the simplicity of the previous ones, is used less often. And usually when you need to transfer several plugins at once, for example, when moving to another hosting. Or when transferring a site from local (from the computer) to the server (remote hosting).

To install the plugin this way, you need to:

  1. Download the ZIP archive of the plugin to your computer, unpack it (it will contain the plugin folder).
  2. Upload the plugin folder from the downloaded zip archive to the WordPress plugin directory: /wp-content/plugins/
  3. Go to the admin panel in the section Plugins and activate the plugin.

That's it, the plugin is installed!

Method 4. Installing a plugin via the command line (WP-CLI)

If the hosting has SSH (shell), then the plugin from the WP directory can be easily installed by name. To do this, you need to install WP-CLI (only SSH access is required for installation!). Next, from the command line, go to the folder with the wp-config.php file, i.e., in the main folder where WP is installed. Then run the command wp plugin install.

wp plugin install wp-crontrol

Or one like this to activate the plugin immediately:

wp plugin install wp-crontrol --activate

When running such a command, WP-CLI will automatically download the plugin archive and unpack it in the WP plugin folder, and activate the plugin if specified in the command.

That's it, the plugin is installed!

-

That's all, I won't indulge in unnecessary demagoguery about which plugins should be installed and which should not, or that ordinary code is better than a plugin — all this is nonsense! The main thing is one — the plugin must be good!