10 Best WP Dashboard Notes Alternatives in 2026
Updated September 7, 2026 · Ranked by how closely each plugin matches, from WordPress.org data · How this works
WP Dashboard Notes has 20,000+ active installs on WordPress.org. These 10 plugins share its category or its tags on WordPress.org, are actively maintained, and each has at least 100 active installs. They are ordered by how closely they match, not by our opinion.
The 10 closest alternatives to WP Dashboard Notes
- 1
Simple Post Notes
Closest match5.0 (24) 9,000+ active installsAdds simple notes to post, page and custom post type edit screen.
Shares the note, notes tags on WordPress.org. About half the installs, no update since September 4, 2025.
- 2
4.7 (254) 200,000+ active installsAdminimize that lets you hide 'unnecessary' items from the WordPress backend
About 10 times the installs, rated 4.7 against 4.6, last updated June 10, 2026.
- 3
4.5 (249) 100,000+ active installsA highly customizable, easy-to-use popular posts plugin!
About 5 times the installs, rated 4.5 against 4.6, last updated 4 days ago.
- 4
BBQ Firewall – Fast & Powerful Firewall Security
4.9 (160) 100,000+ active installsThe fastest firewall plugin for WordPress. Protect against a wide range of threats with minimal performance impact.
About 5 times the installs, rated 4.9 against 4.6, last updated 29 days ago.
- 5
4.8 (191) 200,000+ active installsThe visual editor widget for WordPress.
About 10 times the installs, rated 4.8 against 4.6, last updated 18 days ago.
- 6
4.8 (71) 200,000+ active installsEdit the permalink of custom post type.
About 10 times the installs, rated 4.8 against 4.6, last updated May 20, 2026.
- 7
Spam protection, Honeypot, Anti-Spam by CleanTalk
4.8 (3,211) 200,000+ active installsTop-rated antispam for contact forms, comments, WooCommerce, eCommerce, and login. No CAPTCHAs, no friction, just background anti spam protection.
About 10 times the installs, rated 4.8 against 4.6, last updated 5 days ago.
- 8
GiveWP – Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform
4.6 (707) 100,000+ active installsAccept donations and begin fundraising with GiveWP, the highest rated WordPress donation plugin for online giving.
About 5 times the installs, last updated 4 days ago.
- 9
4.8 (54) 100,000+ active installsEnable and disable email notifications that WordPress sends to the admin and user. Works perfectly with many other plugins!
About 5 times the installs, rated 4.8 against 4.6, last updated July 21, 2026.
- 10
4.7 (255) 200,000+ active installsAdd Cloudflare Turnstile to WordPress, WooCommerce, Contact Forms & more. The user-friendly, privacy-preserving reCAPTCHA alternative. 100% free!
About 10 times the installs, rated 4.7 against 4.6, last updated July 27, 2026.
Switching from WP Dashboard Notes: common questions
What is the best alternative to WP Dashboard Notes?
Simple Post Notes is the closest match: it shares the same WordPress.org tags and has 9,000+ active installs with a 5.0 out of 5 rating.
Which WP Dashboard Notes alternative has the most users?
Adminimize, with 200,000+ active installs reported by WordPress.org.
Which WP Dashboard Notes alternative is rated highest?
BBQ Firewall, rated 4.9 out of 5 by 160 reviewers. Only plugins with at least 50 reviews are counted.
Are these WP Dashboard Notes alternatives free?
Every plugin listed here is free to install from WordPress.org. Where WordPress.org marks a plugin as commercial, the developer also sells a paid version or add-ons, and that is shown on each plugin.
How are alternatives chosen?
Automatically, from WordPress.org data: plugins that share a category top 10 with WP Dashboard Notes score highest, then plugins that appear in the same WordPress.org rankings, then plugins with the same tags, weighted so rare tags count more than common ones. Plugins by the same author and plugins rated under 4.0 are left out.
How we choose these alternatives
Nothing on this page is picked by hand. Every day we walk the whole WordPress.org directory, then score every plugin against WP Dashboard Notes on three signals: sharing a category top 10 counts most, then appearing in the same WordPress.org rankings, then carrying the same tags, with rare tags counting for more than common ones like "wordpress". Plugins by the same author are excluded, so an author's own add-ons cannot fill the list, and so is anything rated below 4.0 or with fewer than 100 active installs. The ten highest scores are what you see, in that order. Full methodology.
The bottom line
Simple Post Notes is the closest match to WP Dashboard Notes by the data we track, and Adminimize has the widest reach with 200,000+ active installs. GiveWP shipped the most recent release, on September 3, 2026. The list is rebuilt every day from WordPress.org, so a plugin that stops being maintained drops out on its own.
Weekly · free
What moved this week
One email a week, built from the same daily snapshots these rankings come from: the plugins that climbed, what launched, and one ranking worth a look.