New: “AI + WordPress” lessons just dropped — build smarter sites in half the time.

Tools for WordPress Pros

Free and pro tools for speed testing, SEO, local development, design and monitoring — plus the best AI tools for WordPress.

Professor Press, the WordPress Professor mascot

Great builders have great toolboxes. These are the tools the Professor reaches for when testing speed, auditing SEO, building locally, designing and keeping an eye on uptime.

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Local

Free

One-click local WordPress sites on your computer.

Dev
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WP-CLI

Free

Manage WordPress from the command line: updates, search-replace, users and more.

Dev
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GitHub

Freemium

Version control for themes and plugins — your undo button for code.

Dev
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Cloudflare

Freemium

DNS, CDN, SSL and DDoS protection in front of your site.

SpeedSecurity
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WPScan

Freemium

Vulnerability database and scanner for WordPress core, plugins and themes.

Security
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Figma

Freemium

Design and prototype pages before you build them.

Design
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Canva

Freemium

Quick featured images, social graphics and logos.

Design
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AI tools

See the full AI + WordPress playbook for how to use these well.

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Claude

Freemium

Anthropic’s AI assistant — excellent for long-form writing, code, plugin building and site audits.

WritingCoding
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Agentic coding tool that can read your theme/plugin code, make changes and run commands.

CodingVibe coding
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ChatGPT

Freemium

OpenAI’s assistant for brainstorming, drafting and quick code snippets.

WritingCoding
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Gemini

Freemium

Google’s assistant with strong research and Google Workspace integration.

WritingResearch
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Cursor

Freemium

An AI-first code editor built for vibe coding whole features.

CodingVibe coding
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