WordPress -

Plugins

A list of plugins I've used before and made development faster.

Forms:

• Contact Form 7: Basic contact form that sends email.
• Gravity Forms: Create all kinds of forms and input elements for the website.

Admin:

• Advanced Custom Fields : Allows creating better edit tools for admins of the site.
• Admin Columns: Customize how posts look for admins.
• Custom Post Type UI: Allows creating custom post types and taxonomies from the admin UI.
• Post Types Order: Allows reordering of posts.
• Display Posts Shortcode: Introduces [display-posts] so admins can easily include posts in posts.
• Shortcodes Ultimate: Introduces a lot shortcodes for admins like tabs, boxes, sliders etc.
• Meta Slider: Allows admins to create sliders.
• TablePress: Allow creating tables easier; without any code.

Media:

• YouTube Embed: Improved embedding of videos e.g. responsiveness, channel galleries, playlists, thumbnails and caching.
• Viper’s Video Quicktags: Makes embedding videos easier.
• Slideshare by Yoast: Makes embedding slides easier.
• NextGen Gallery: Responsive image galleries.

Calendar/Schedules:

• The Events Calendar: Makes sharing events online easy.
• WP Booking Calendar: Allows booking interface on top of WordPress.
• Editorial Calendar: Allows viewing your posts in a calendar so planning future content is easier.

Commerce:

• WooCommerge: Good webstore platform, doesn't work for really big stores, but if you get to that kind of traffic, you should have revenue to reimplement it. Helps to start fast and simple.

Maintenance:

• UpdraftPlus: Backup database and file system to S3.
• Wordfence: Improved security e.g. Two Factor Authentication, real-time blocking of attackers, traffic monitoring.
• Really Simple SSL: Easily configured SSL.
• W3 Total Cache: Better control how things are cached in browser, database, CDN etc.
• WS Smush: Packs uploaded images better.
• Akismet: Anti-spam service for $9 / month, totally worth the price in my opinion.