Best WordPress MCP Plugins in 2026 (Free and Paid, Compared)

If you’re in a rush: pick by job ⚡

How these plugins were compared 🧪

Every plugin here was checked against its wordpress.org listing or vendor pages, plus whichever readme, documentation and pricing page were available; Saddle Pro’s prices were not checked. Easy MCP AI, AI Engine and Royal MCP were then installed one at a time on a site with four posts, and MCP Adapter on a second site with the same posts; each was connected to Claude Code with its own credential and given the same two prompts, one read and one write. WPVibe and miniOrange are compared from their listings, docs and pricing pages, Novamira from its own homepage and pricing page, and Saddle from its listing and readme, with WPVibe’s and miniOrange’s wp-admin screens and miniOrange’s code also checked; “tested” below means those two prompts.

The correct read answer (“list the three most recent posts”) was three posts with “Holiday gift boxes 2026” as the only draft; the write prompt’s post status came from the database via WP-CLI, never from the AI’s reply.

Side by side: where it runs, what’s free, what’s guarded 📊

Eight options side by side; “not documented” means the listing, readme and docs do not say, and “not checked” means no vendor page was checked, never that the feature is missing.

Two prices can move soon: miniOrange’s paid tiers are early bird rates valid until November 30, and Royal’s are founder prices behind a countdown timer.

Do you even need a plugin? The adapter, WordPress.com and the archived repo 🧩

The MCP Adapter is the free, official transport layer from WordPress.org, on the plugin directory since October 2026, and it requires WordPress 6.9. It does not provide any AI features itself: it exposes WordPress abilities, and an ability is only reachable over MCP if it has been marked public.

Its 50,000+ installs arrived within three weeks; the readme asks plugin developers to declare Requires Plugins: mcp-adapter, so some may be dependency installs.

On a fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site, Claude Code connected over an application password and received three meta tools; a discover call returned three read-only abilities (site info, user info, environment info). Asked for the three most recent posts, the reply was “I can’t list the posts”; asked to write one, “I can’t publish this one”, and the post lists and table checksums were identical before and after. The Abilities API arrived in WordPress 6.9; WPShout’s report on the release that followed shows what core built on top of it.

The repository Google keeps ranking, Automattic’s wordpress-mcp on GitHub, was archived by the owner on September 17, 2026, is read-only and describes itself as “not the recommended way to add MCP support to WordPress”. One ranking list post and even an AI overview still link to it as the official server. Don’t install it; the adapter above is its successor.

A naming trap: AI Connectors and MCP run in opposite directions. AI Connectors (covered in WPShout’s WordPress 7 report) let WordPress call AI providers; MCP lets an AI client call WordPress. Two options in the search results are not plugins at all: WordPress.com has a built-in MCP server on every WordPress.com site, free or paid, and InstaWP’s InstaMCP is a hosting feature with one toggle and 43 tools.

Most plugins sign your AI client in over OAuth in the browser, which needs HTTPS on a live site; clients without a browser flow take an API key or an application password, and local servers can run over STDIO through WP-CLI.

You may not need MCP at all: in an r/Wordpress thread, one commenter’s setup was “I don’t use MCP. WP CLI + SSH. Everything I need tbh.” With shell access and a coding client that is a legitimate answer. But a raw application password carries that WordPress user’s entire REST reach, with no per-tool scoping and no MCP call log; MCP earns its keep where there is no shell or where you want a scoped credential and a log of what the agent did.

WordPress MCP plugin options, one by one 🔌

Ordered by the jobs they fit, not by installs.

1. Easy MCP AI

Easy MCP AI is the free, self-hosted option that turns a WordPress site into an MCP server for Claude (web, desktop, Cowork and Claude Code), ChatGPT, Cursor, GitHub Copilot in VS Code, OpenAI Codex CLI, Windsurf and others.

• 🎯 Best for: content, WooCommerce (its tool group starts off), SEO fields and analytics from chat, on WordPress 6.0+ with PHP 7.4+.
• 💳 Price: Free, all 280+ tools included: no paid tier, no vendor quota, no Easy MCP account. Semrush, SE Ranking and DataForSEO data needs your own paid accounts with those services; Ahrefs Domain Rating uses a free Ahrefs APIv3 key. The AI client may cost money on its own.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: Inside WordPress on your site, with no hosted relay, and the plugin calls no AI provider; the data services you connect receive the requests made to them.
• 🛡️ Default access: OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic client registration, or API keys bound to a WordPress user and refused on any other host. The key form starts on Full access with a 30-day expiry. Since 2.1.0 the AI can also call the REST API routes of WordPress and your other plugins as the connected user, and REST writes are on by default, so bind the connection to a user whose role fits the job.
• ❌ Watch out: Delete approvals are opt-in.

A Read-only key listed no post-editing tool at all, so the client attempted no edit and the title stayed unchanged. With “Ask before destructive actions” switched on (it stays off until you enable it under Settings > Access & safety), the delete call paused and returned an approval link; after approval on the site’s own page, the draft moved to the trash, exactly what the preview had said. The audit log, on by default, records every MCP tool call while it is on; it logged both prompts’ calls.

Change history keeps before and after snapshots of changes made through MCP, and since 2.1.0 the AI can restore many of them; there is no restore button in wp-admin. Since 2.3.0, Easy MCP AI reads Elementor, WPBakery and Flatsome UX Builder layouts and edits the text, links, images and other content fields of existing elements (WPBakery editing needs version 6.0.5 or 9.0.1, Flatsome 3.16.1 or 3.20.11; other versions of either builder are read-only), but it cannot add, remove or move elements, and it has no Divi, Bricks or Beaver Builder support. It sits at 30,000+ active installs with a 98/100 rating from 16 ratings.

👉 Get Easy MCP AI free from WordPress.org

2. WPVibe

• 🎯 Best for: hosted one-click connections where approvals for destructive operations should be on from the start.
• 💳 Price: Free includes every tool and skill with 100 tool calls a day, counted per account over a rolling 24 hours, on as many sites as you need. Paid raises the daily allowance on the pricing page: Pro $99 a year (500 calls a day), Power $299 (2,000), Agency $599 (5,000) and Scale $899 (10,000), with a 14-day refund on a first paid subscription.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: On WPVibe’s servers, and it only connects to HTTPS sites. Connecting a site creates a WordPress application password, encrypted with AES-256-GCM and stored on WPVibe’s Cloudflare-hosted servers.
• 🛡️ Default access: Approvals for destructive operations are on by default, posts default to draft, and a per-site “Dangerously bypass approvals” switch starts off.
• ❌ Watch out: The free allowance is 100 calls a day shared per account, and the site needs HTTPS.

WPVibe needs its cloud relay, an account and an HTTPS site, so this entry rests on its listing, readme, pricing page and wp-admin screens. Those screens show approvals on by default, with a “Dangerously bypass approvals” box left unchecked, and an append-only Approval Log.

👉 Get WPVibe from WordPress.org

3. AI Engine

• 🎯 Best for: sites that want AI features inside wp-admin and MCP access in the same plugin.
• 💳 Price: The MCP server is free with no monthly fee and no usage cap. AI Engine Pro starts at $69 a year for one site.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: On your site; its MCP screen says there is no relay service in between.
• 🛡️ Default access: OAuth for Claude and ChatGPT with per-user access; scripts and developer tools such as Claude Code can also use a bearer token, starting at Admin (full access). Editor Access is opt-in and limited to the content that user can already edit.
• ❌ Watch out: The Database tool set is Pro.

The free plugin asked for no license, marks the Plugins, Themes, Database, Polylang, WPML and WooCommerce tool sets Pro, and requires PHP 8.1.

👉 Get AI Engine from WordPress.org

4. Royal MCP

• 🎯 Best for: Divi and Elementor sites that want builder-aware edits and an undo token on destructive writes.
• 💳 Price: The free plugin is on wordpress.org. The Pro product page shows founder pricing: Personal $79 a year for one site (regular $99), Professional $249 for five, Agency $750 for a hundred (regular $999).
• ⚙️ Where it runs: On your site; credentials stay in your WordPress database with no hosted middleman.
• 🛡️ Default access: OAuth 2.0 with PKCE and dynamic client registration, plus a rate-limited API key with Full access by default for clients without OAuth; the integration stayed off until an admin enabled it, and its Read-only mode and Drafts only switches started off. The approval step its readme describes is the client’s own prompt, not a plugin-side gate. The readme promises a 72-hour undo token on every destructive write; the Pro page lists an undo token in the free tier too and sells a 72 to 168 hour window as Pro.
• 🧩 Page builders: For page-builder sites, the free plugin already has Divi 4 and Divi 5 tools and format-aware writes across Divi, Elementor and Gutenberg; Divi 5 module authoring and Elementor Pro depth are Pro.
• ❌ Watch out: Its Pro prices are founder rates behind a countdown timer.

👉 Get Royal MCP from WordPress.org

5. miniOrange Secure MCP Server

• 🎯 Best for: teams that want grant-by-grant role policies and per-tool switches.
• 💳 Price: Free covers 100 requests a day on unlimited sites. Paid tiers are early bird prices valid until November 30: Pro $79 a year ($99 regular) for 500 requests a day.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: through miniOrange’s gateway on the supported path; the plugin runs an on-site endpoint too, but its 1.5.3 code marks direct connections deprecated.
• 🛡️ Default access: A new agent starts with zero grants; the setup wizard refused to create one until at least one ability was granted to a role.
• ❌ Watch out: The supported connection path is the vendor gateway, and the free tier allows 100 requests a day.

The readme says no third-party relay sits between your AI client and your site, and an on-site endpoint with its own OAuth 2.1 server does exist. But every connect screen in 1.5.3 points the client at gateway.miniorange.ai and asks for your site URL. Expect the gateway, whatever the readme’s no-relay line suggests.

This entry rests on its listing, docs, screens and code; the supported path signs in through the vendor’s gateway. It requires WordPress 6.9.

👉 Get miniOrange Secure MCP Server from WordPress.org

6. Novamira

🎯 Best for: Novamira is built for developers: it gives the AI PHP execution, WP-CLI commands, database queries and file edits, and its own homepage restricts it to development and staging. It is not on wordpress.org, downloads from the vendor’s site, and this entry follows its own pages.

• 💳 Price: The free plugin is €0 for unlimited sites. Pro costs €69 a year for 3 sites or €149 a year for 1,000, with a €299 one-time agency lifetime tier; there are no credits or action quotas, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: On your server, not a proxy; every request is authenticated over HTTPS, though its pages do not name the method.
• 🛡️ Default access: Full access to PHP, the database and files. New PHP files are sandboxed and recoverable, while database changes, config edits and direct code execution run live. A read-only mode exists, but as a Pro feature added in 1.12.0.

7. Saddle

• 🎯 Best for: Divi 5 or block-editor sites that should start read-only.
• 💳 Price: Free plugin with no cap stated; Saddle Pro is a paid add-on for Divi 5 sites, and its prices were not checked.
• ⚙️ Where it runs: On your site; you sign in through a browser approval, or paste a key backed by application passwords.
• 🛡️ Default access: New apps start at read only, every delete shows a preview and waits for your approval, and the activity log shows every change and every blocked request. Logged changes can be undone, but permanent deletes, installs, updates and anything edited again since cannot, and the AI cannot write or edit files on your server.
• ❌ Watch out: On Divi sites, Saddle edits Divi 5 pages only and leaves Divi 4 shortcode pages untouched, and multi-page Divi work is Pro.

One of the newest options here: added to wordpress.org in September 2026, with 50+ installs and no ratings yet, and compared from its listing and readme only.

👉 Get Saddle from WordPress.org

Before you install one: a checklist for any MCP plugin ✅

Whatever you pick, run these checks before connecting an AI to a site you care about:

• Where does the server run? On your site, through a vendor’s relay, or inside your hosting platform. A relay puts the vendor’s infrastructure on the path between the AI and your data.
• What is free, and what is capped? WPVibe and miniOrange both count the daily allowance per account across every connected site, so a free tier that fits a blog may not fit an agency.
• What can a fresh connection do? Saddle starts new apps read-only, miniOrange asks for at least one grant during setup, and the adapter exposes only abilities marked public; whatever the default, check both the exposed operations and the connected user’s permissions before handing over a key.
• What happens before a delete? Look for a preview, an approval step or at least a trash-only policy.
• Can you see what it did? An activity log of every call, and ideally before and after snapshots you can restore from.
• Does it need staging first? Plugins with PHP, database or file access (Novamira is explicit about it) belong on a copy of the site, not the original.
• One MCP plugin per site. Pick the one that fits the job, and run only it.
• Expect prompt injection. Text the AI reads, including comments, form entries and image filenames, can carry instructions for an agent with write access. The MCP specification itself warns that “Tools represent arbitrary code execution and must be treated with appropriate caution.” Read-only keys for untrusted content, scoped credentials and approval switches are the mitigations.

Bottom line 💬

Easy MCP AI is the default pick for content and site work because every tool is free, its audit log is on by default, and an opt-in switch pauses deletes for your approval (API keys marked Unattended never pause, a Never ask for entry exempts a tool unless Always ask for also matches it, and the site’s approval filter has the last word). The other picks are job-specific: WPVibe for approvals on by default through a hosted relay, AI Engine for its wp-admin AI suite, Royal MCP for Divi and for building Elementor layouts, Saddle for Divi 5 with a read-only start, miniOrange for grant-by-grant policies, Novamira on staging only, WordPress.com’s built-in server for sites hosted on WordPress.com, and the adapter to build on the official layer. For a store, turn on Ask before destructive actions and add Easy MCP AI’s single-order create and update tools to Always ask for if you want order changes to wait for approval, keeping in mind that API keys marked Unattended never pause and the site’s approval filter has the last word; no dedicated WooCommerce tool creates refunds.

Which MCP plugin are you running, and what do you let it touch?