WordPress Activity Monitoring Plugins Review

The purpose of this article is to list the WordPress dashboard activity monitoring plugins I’ve used between Jan 2014 and June 2015.

As my memory deteriorates from excess Google usage, this article is as much a primer for my security-minded clients than anything else. I hope you’ll find this summary helpful as well.

This is not a “what is the best WordPress logging plugin” article. I’m not so sure there is a best. Please take my opinions regarding each plugin with a grain of salt. Your mileage may vary…

A little background. In ancient times, 2012 CE, the WordPress activity monitoring plugin landscape was essential barren. Then, in 2013, there was an apparent renaissance of WordPress activity loggers. The recent increase in security awareness has most certainly driven the rise of quality login monitoring plugins. Today’s activity monitoring plugins do all manner of things from logging user activities, plugin updates, and reporting certain types of activity by email.

Sadly, activity monitoring plugins have garnered a bad reputation over the past few years. The good news is that in 2015, reports of sluggish website performance mostly due to activity logging plugins supersizing databases have mostly died off. Today’s current activity monitoring plugins have greatly improved their performance, and rarely impact a website’s performance.

Internal website activity monitoring is an important part of any good website security plan.

 

Below is a list of the WordPress activity monitoring plugins I’ve used most recently (linked below).

Activity Log		Notable: Notification Events rule editor sends an email notification when a specific event is triggered.
		Not so good: Events rule editor is too limited.
Simple History		Notable:  Shows actual text changes in change log
		Not so good: No database clearing option.
Simple Login Log		Notable: Export log to CSV file.
		Not so good: Not updated in over a year.
Stream		Notable: Integrates nicely with MainWP.
		Not so good: The Sign up process can be confusing to some.
WP Security Audit Log		Notable: Mature plugin with loads of advanced features.
		Not so good: Premium features, like email notifications, are free in other plugins.

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Yes, I’ve purposely left out the WordPress security plugins which include a number of nice activity logging features. If you are using any of  the top WordPress security plugins that’s great! I still recommend you try one or two of the above plugins as well.

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All of the internal activity monitoring plugins shown here report activities completed by users to varying degrees of detail, to include user account related changes, content changes and installations related changes. Automated tasks may be logged as well.

Activity Monitoring Plugins	Activity Log	Simple History	Simple Login Log	Stream	WP Security Audit Log
Author	various	Pär Thernström	Max Chirkov	Frankie Jarrett	Robert Abela
Country	Israel	Sweden	USA	USA	Malta
Plugin Birthdate	2013	2013	2013	2014	2013
Active Installs	10,000+	20,000+	20,000+	8,000+	10,000+
PD Reviews	20+	60+	15+	40+	50+
PD Rating	4.7	4.9	4.9	3.5	4.6
Exclude Activity Rules	no	no	no	yes	yes
Limit Review By User Role	no	no	no	yes	yes
Limit Plugin Settings By User Role	no	no	no	yes	yes
Multi-Language Support	10+	5+	5+	5+	5+
Offsite Logging	no	no	no	no	yes
Premium Features	no	no	no	yes	yes
RSS Feed	no	yes	no	yes	no
Can Delete Logs	yes	yes	yes	n/a	yes
Periodic Log Clearing	yes	yes	no	n/a	yes
Email Events	limited	no	no	paid	paid
Download Logs	no	no	yes	no	no
Log Summary	basic	basic	basic	detailed	detailed
Hide Plugin On Plugins Page	no	no	no	no	yes
Multisite Compatible	no	yes	no	yes	yes
Cron Activities Tracking	no	no	no	yes	yes

Enjoy!

* Table style and presentation made possible using TablePress and his excellency FooTable