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Plugins

WordPress VIP does not maintain a list of “approved” plugins. Plugins of the customer’s choice can be installed to extend a site’s functionality.

It is the responsibility of the customer to thoroughly research, scan, and test a plugin candidate on a non-production environment prior to activating it on a production environment.

Plugin files and directories can only be added, updated, or removed via code commits to GitHub; not from within the WordPress Admin dashboard.

  • Add a plugin

    Themes and plugins can only be installed, updated, or deleted via the application’s wpcomvip GitHub repository; they cannot be installed, updated, or deleted in the WordPress Admin dashboard.

  • Activate a plugin through code

    As an alternative to manual activation, it is recommended to code-activate plugins instead to gain greater control and consistency across all environments.

  • Load order of plugins

    The WordPress load order hook that is used to activate a plugin determines which point within the load process that plugin will load.

  • Evaluate third-party plugins

    Before installing a plugin candidate, evaluate a variety of the plugin’s qualities, including how completely the plugin candidate addresses requirements and/or the problem needing to be solved.

  • Version updates for third-party plugins

    All third-party plugins that are added to a site on the WordPress VIP Platform should be kept up to date with their latest available version.

  • Plugin incompatibilities

    Some third-party plugins include operations or features that are incompatible with or duplicative to the infrastructure of the VIP Platform.

  • Plugin helper file

    Plugin authors can add alternative code to a plugin helper file in order to load code for their plugins that is compatible with the VIP Platform.

  • Automattic plugins

    Automattic is the author of a large number and wide variety of plugins. Review the plugins authored by Automattic that are most often added to WordPress sites on the VIP Platform.

  • WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is a free ecommerce plugin authored by Automattic and compatible with WordPress single sites and WordPress multisites on the VIP Platform.

Last updated: December 31, 2025

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