Running a multi-author WordPress website comes with different challenges compared to a single-author WordPress blog. You will need to plan content, create an editorial workflow, monitor user activity, and make sure that your website runs at peak performance.
When WPBeginner started in 2009, we only had one writer, Syed Balkhi.
Since then, we have built a thriving team of writers and editors and know all about the challenges of managing a multi-author blog. Over the years, we’ve improved our processes using WordPress core features alongside carefully selected plugins.
We also wanted to find the best options for you. So, we tried out different multi-author plugins and compared them based on their ease of use, features, and performance in different situations.
Below are some of the best plugins to efficiently manage multi-author WordPress blogs. These tools can help your team work together more smoothly and efficiently.
If you are in a hurry, then take a quick look at our top picks to make a decision.
| # | Plugins | Best For | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | PublishPress | Improving editorial workflow | $129/yr + Free |
| 🥈 | WPForms | Creating all kinds of forms | $49.50/yr + Free |
| 🥉 | MemberPress | Allowing paid members to submit content | $179.50/yr + Free |
| 4 | TranslatePress | Creating a multilingual site | €8.25/month + Free |
| 5 | Cloudflare | Providing site security | $20/month + Free |
How We Test And Review Plugins That Help Manage Multi-Author Blogs
Our team members tested the most popular plugins for managing multi-author blogs on real websites to give you some great recommendations. When doing that, we particularly focused on the following criteria.
Ease of use: We have prioritized plugins with an easy setup process and a beginner-friendly interface.
Different use cases: For this showcase, we have tried to include plugins for different use cases like managing editorial workflow, adding forms, creating a multilingual site, providing site security, improving SEO, and more.
Reliability: We have only recommended the plugins we tested in real-time. We even use some of these tools on WPBeginner.
User Reviews: We thoroughly tested every plugin on this list, but it would be impossible to try out every possible scenario for these multi-author plugins. To fill in any knowledge gaps, and identify additional strengths and weaknesses, we carefully looked through the user reviews for each of these tools.
Pricing: If you are managing a growing blog with an increasing number of authors, hopefully, that means your online income is increasing too. That said, we know that most small online businesses are on a tight budget. So, we evaluated each plugin in terms of value for price.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we are a team of experts with 16+ years of experience in WordPress, blogging SEO, online marketing, and more. We thoroughly test each tool we review. That way, we can give you the most accurate and helpful recommendations. For more details, see our editorial process.
Without any further delay, let’s look into the best WordPress plugins to efficiently manage multi-author blogs.
1. PublishPress
PublishPress is the best publishing tool kit for any type of content-rich website. In our opinion, it’s a must-have plugin because it helps you streamline your editorial workflow in multiple ways.
We thoroughly tested PublishPress and observed how easily it lets you create and manage an editorial calendar inside WordPress, follow up on drafts and article ideas progress, manage authors, set up custom notifications, and more.
We instantly liked their powerful set of tools and addons. These addons include Capability Manager Enhanced (to customize user permissions), Revisions (to manage revisions in WordPress), and Press Permit, which lets you control viewing permissions on WordPress.
This incredibly powerful plugin helps you every step of the way, from content planning to publishing, while ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks.
For more details, see our guide on how to improve your editorial workflow in WordPress.
Bonus: See our guide on how to do keyword research to find blog post ideas.
2. WPForms
WPForms is the perfect choice if you want to accept blog posts from authors without giving them access to the back end of your website. You can preserve the security of your site by asking guest bloggers to submit their posts using forms.
But WPForms can do a whole lot more than that. In fact, it has proven to be an excellent choice for our contact form needs. For details, see our WPForms review.
Overall, we think it is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market, and you can use it for your other form needs. It allows you to easily build forms using a simple drag and drop form builder.
We appreciate its user-friendly interface, powerful features, and reliable performance. Our team uses WPForms on live sites, and we created several forms on WPBeginner using this plugin.
The built-in spam protection and CAPTCHA integration have significantly reduced spam submissions, ensuring a positive experience for our visitors.
Their Pro plan also comes with user registration, a custom login form, and post submission addons. This allows you to accept posts on your website without allowing anyone accesses to your WordPress admin area.
For details, see our step-by-step guide on how to allow users to submit posts to your WordPress website.
3. MemberPress
If you want to build a website where only paid members can submit posts, then you’ll love MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin and allows you to easily sell subscriptions and membership plans.
During our research, we observed that it allows you to easily restrict access to any content based on the user’s membership level. You can also use it with WPForms to create front-end post submission pages.
For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to easily create a membership website in WordPress.
4. TranslatePress
TranslatePress is a fantastic plugin that helps you easily manage translations if you run a multilingual WordPress website.
It allows you and other authors on your website to easily translate content with a live preview. You can also use it to translate WordPress themes and plugins as well.
We were impressed by TranslatePress’s translation accuracy. We have used the plugin in real-time scenarios and consistently found it to be reliable for translating content on our websites.
For step-by-step details, see our tutorial on how to easily translate your WordPress website
Alternatives: WPML and Polylang
5. Cloudflare
Cloudflare is the best WordPress security plugin to protect your website against unauthorized access, brute-force attacks, and hacking. We have found it to be a superior choice for website security and performance compared to others. Its advanced features, including a reliable CDN and powerful security measures, have made a positive impact on our website.
For details, see our list of reasons why we switched from Sucuri to Cloudflare.
With a multi-author WordPress site, more people have access to the admin area of your WordPress website. While making sure that your authors can write posts, you would also want to make sure that your admin area is safe and secure.
Cloudflare performs regular security checkups and acts as a website firewall. This allows malicious attacks to be blocked even before they reach your website.
Alternative: MalCare is another great security plugin that includes an activity log to monitor what’s happening on your multi-author blog.
6. All in One SEO
All in One SEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market, with over 3 million users. We have experienced remarkable SEO results since using the plugin on WPBeginner.
Its comprehensive features and user-friendly interface have allowed us to optimize our content and improve search engine visibility. For more information, see our AIOSEO review.
Plus it comes with a powerful Author SEO addon that lets you add expanded author bios for all of your writers. You can add credentials like education, topics of expertise, job title, and more, to meet Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines and boost your rankings.
You can use the built-in Written By block to display the author at the top of the article, and hovering over the author name will reveal a mini bio. There’s also an Author Bio block to display a compact or full bio at the bottom of the page.
In addition, you can add a Reviewer block to show that your articles have been fact-checked and are accurate. This is a great way to boost the credibility of your multi-author blog.
Alternative: By default, modern WordPress themes can display an author’s profile pic along with their bio below the article. You can also use a free plugin like Simple Author Box to add a customizable author bio box below articles.
7. Pre-Publish Checklist
Pre-Publish Checklist helps you add a checklist to the post editor, allowing authors to check everything on the list before publishing or submitting it for review.
As the administrator, you want to ensure that all authors follow the editorial process you have set up for your website.
We have observed that the plugins’ beginner-friendly interface lets you add a checklist according to your need with just a few clicks, making it a great choice for multi-author blogs.
8. SeedProd
SeedProd is the best drag and drop page builder for WordPress. It lets you create custom WordPress themes, layouts, and landing pages with no coding required.
With SeedProd, you can easily create custom author pages for each writer on your website. It comes with ready-made blocks that let you display author bios, recent posts, social profiles, and more. This can help build trust with visitors and increase time spent on your site.
Through extensive testing and real-time experience, we have found SeedProd to be an invaluable tool for creating high-converting landing pages. Its user-friendly interface and powerful features make it a top choice for businesses seeking to boost their online presence
For more details, see our tutorial on how to add a custom author profile page in WordPress.
9. Simple Local Avatars
Simple Local Avatars plugin allows users on your WordPress site to upload their author photo by editing their profile.
By default, WordPress uses Gravatar to display user avatars in comments and user profiles. If some of your users may not have a gravatar setup for their email address or simply want to use another picture on their author profile, then Simple Local Avatars is the go-to-plugin.
10. MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress.
It also shows where your users are coming from, what content is doing well, what users do when viewing your website, and more. This data provides insights to make an effective content strategy for your website.
MonsterInsights has been a game-changer for tracking and analyzing our website’s performance and top marketing metrics at WPBeginner. This powerful solution provides in-depth insights into user behavior and traffic trends.
To learn more about its features and benefits, check out our MonsterInsights review.
Alternative: OnePageGA is a simple dashboard that turns your complicated Google Analytics data into easy-to-understand reports. Plus, there’s no plugin installation required.
11. Revision Manager
Revisions Manager helps your authors and editors clone your published posts and pages. This will not change your content on the live site while your authors edit the revisions and submit them for review.
The plugin sends email notifications to admins when authors and editors submit a revision. When testing, we noticed that it also lets you review and approve the post to make sure the content is accurate for your users.
To learn more, see our beginner’s guide to WordPress post revisions with step-by-step instructions on how to use revisions on your blog.
12. Author Avatars List
Author Avatars List plugin allows you to easily add a blog authors list anywhere on your site. It comes with a sidebar widget, and you can also use the shortcode to easily add it to a post or page.
An easy way to attract more authors to write for your website is by showcasing authors prominently on your website. One way to do this is by displaying a list of blog authors.
13. Adminimize
Adminimize gives admins full control over what users can or cannot see inside the WordPress admin area. We found the plugin to be super easy-to-use as it disables user access to unnecessary sections with just a few clicks.
This enables them to provide a lean and distraction-free writing space for the authors. For more details, see our tutorial on how to hide unnecessary items from WordPress admin.
14. User Notes
User Notes allow you to leave notes on user profiles. These notes can only be seen by admins, can be very helpful, and may serve as a reminder tool.
For example, if an author is not following the deadlines, you can add a note to remind yourself that this particular author is careless with the deadlines.
Through thorough testing, we have found the User Notes plugin to be super important for managing multi-author projects, making them a must-have tool.
15. Edit Author Slug
Edit Author Slug plugin allows you to do that. You can simply edit a user profile and change the author URL slug. It also allows you to change the author base.
WordPress has an SEO-friendly URL structure that allows you to choose URL slugs for your posts and pages. However, there is no option to do so for an author page, so you can use the Edit Author Slug plugin to make it happen.
For more information, see our detailed tutorial on how to change the author URL slug and base in WordPress.
16. User Submitted Posts
User Submitted Posts plugin allows users to submit posts to your website without logging in or creating an account.
This lets you manage user-submitted content without managing user accounts or giving users access to the admin area. Upon research, we discovered that it also lets you create post submission forms and add them to your website using a shortcode.
For details, see our guide on how to allow users to submit posts to your WordPress site.
17. Theme My Login
Theme My Login allows you to create a custom WordPress login page for your website. You can also create a front-end registration and profile editing page.
Basically, users can log in without having access to the admin area of your website. Theme My Login can be used with other plugins to create a front-end editing experience for your authors.
18. Two Factor
Two Factor plugin allows you to easily add two-factor authentication to your website. This adds an extra step to your WordPress login screen and makes it difficult for hackers to access your website.
When testing the tool in real time, we realized that you can finish the login process by generating a one-time password using an app like LastPass Authenticator.
For details, see our guide on how to add two-factor authentication in WordPress.
19. WP Activity Log
WP Activity Log helps you keep a log of everything on your website. This allows you to see when each user logged in, what they did, and all other website activities.
This helps you find an imposter, catch mistakes, block hacking attempts, and more. We have thoroughly the tool on a real website and have found it to be diligent and reliable.
For details, see our guide on how to monitor user activity on your WordPress site.
Note: If you use MalCare to secure your site, you can enable its activity log feature from the dashboard. This will save you from installing an additional plugin.
20. Constant Contact
Constant Contact allows you to quickly send an email to all authors and registered users on your website. This comes in handy if you want to communicate important announcements, notifications, and site-related updates.
Through extensive testing, we have found Constant Contact to be a reliable and effective email marketing platform. Its user-friendly interface, powerful features, and exceptional deliverability make it a great choice for multi-author blogs.
You’ll need the WP Mail SMTP plugin and a proper SMTP service provider like SendLayer to ensure your emails reach the user’s inbox.
21. User Blocker
User Blocker plugin allows you to easily block an author on your WordPress website without changing author information or deleting their account.
This helps you make sure that content on your website is not affected while ensuring unwanted users can no longer access the WordPress admin area.
For more information, see our step-by-step guide on how to block a WordPress user without deleting their account.
Bonus: Brandy
Brandy is an online brand management platform that allows you to keep all of your brand assets, including photos, logos, fonts, color palettes, and more, in one place.
This makes it easy for your authors to follow your blog’s style guidelines and maintain consistency across all blog posts.
It offers easy-to-remember links that you can share with authors to give them instant access to all of the resources they need. Plus, it comes with full text search so that authors can find what they need quickly.
What Is the Best Plugin for Managing WordPress Multi Author Blogs?
In our expert opinion, PublishPress is the ultimate toolkit for multi author WordPress blogs because it lets you create an editorial calendar, manage authors, and set up custom notifications.
Other than that, it allows you to customize user permissions, manage revisions, and so much more.
However, to add forms to your website, you must opt for WPForms because it the most beginner-friendly form builder on the internet.
Similarly, to optimize your site for search engines, we recommend All in One SEO. This plugin lets you add schema markup, XML sitemaps, author bios, and track keywords.
On the other hand, if you want to secure your multi author blog, you should choose Cloudflare.
It is an amazing security solution that we use on WPBeginner and have had a great experience with. It protects your website against hackers and malware and has powerful CDN to improve your page loading times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about managing multi author blogs with different plugins.
What is a multi-author blog?
A multi-author blog is a website where multiple people contribute content. Unlike a single-author blog, where one person is responsible for all the content, a multi-author blog allows for a diverse range of perspectives and topics.
It usually has a centralized editorial team that goes through submissions, ensures quality, and maintains a consistent tone throughout the site.
Many successful online platforms, such as Medium and Huffington Post, are multi-author blogs that use different voices to engage and inform their readers.
How can these plugins improve the efficiency of my multi-author blog?
Plugins can significantly improve the efficiency of your multi-author blog by streamlining content management, improving collaboration, and optimizing the publishing process.
For instance, editorial workflow plugins like PublishPress allow you to manage submissions, assign tasks, and track the status of posts, making it easier for your editorial team to coordinate.
Additionally, user role management plugins enable you to set specific permissions for different authors, ensuring that they can only access the parts of the site relevant to them.
By using these tools, you can maintain quality control while allowing multiple authors to contribute to your blog.
What are some best practices for managing a multi author blog?
Here is a list of some best practices that can help you manage your multi author blog effectively:
- Set clear guidelines: Establish rules for content style, tone, and length.
- Use a content calendar: Schedule content in advance to ensure a steady stream of posts.
- Facilitate communication: Use collaboration tools and regular meetings to keep contributors updated.
- Provide feedback: Offer constructive feedback and support to contributors.
- Maintain quality control: Ensure all content meets your standards before publication.
- Promote your blog: Use social media and other marketing channels to reach your audience.
- Monitor analytics: Track website traffic, user engagement, and content performance.
- Reward contributors: Recognize and reward authors for their contributions.
- Continuously improve: Regularly evaluate your blog’s performance
Best WordPress Guides for Multi-Author Blogs
We hope this article helped you find useful plugins to manage your multi-author WordPress blogs. You may also want to see our other WordPress guides for multi-author blogs and websites:
- How to Start a WordPress Blog (Beginner’s Guide)
- How to Increase Your Blog Traffic – The Easy Way (Proven Tips)
- The Ultimate Guide to Boost WordPress Speed & Performance
- The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide (Step by Step)
- How to Clear Your Cache in WordPress (Step by Step)
- How to Restrict WordPress Admin Access by IP Address
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Jiří Vaněk
Thank you for the great list of plugins. I recently implemented the MemberPress plugin on my site because I’ve always wanted to create a community and have a website with contributions from multiple authors. That’s why this list caught my interest, especially in terms of what else I can do and where I can find inspiration. I already have some of the plugins, like AIO SEO, WP Forms, or Monster Insights. However, I’m particularly interested in the revision manager and checklist plugins. These seem quite important to have on a website. Thanks to this article, I can take another step forward in having a more refined website and better management. Many thanks!
mendy
I want viewers to subscribe and be able to list their own item for so that a viewer can contact them directly to purchase it. Is user submitted posts the right plugin for me?
WPBeginner Support
For what you’re wanting, you would want to take a look at a marketplace plugin like the one from our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-an-online-marketplace-using-wordpress/
Admin
AZAHAR UDDIN AHMED
Is there any plugin that allows admin and moderators to approve authors ” blogposts ” and other ” custom post types ” bere it appears live in the website and which supports ” revisions also have approve by admin or moderators ” before it’s going live?
WPBeginner Support
It sounds like you would want to take a look at PublishPress from these recommendations.
Admin
Mohamed
Hi … Is there any plugin to create a workflow for fairly sharing the revenue between all authors?
Thanks
Florian
One use-case seems to be not covered by any plugins or tutorials I’ve found.
Allow authors to edit articles from some specifc authors only. Is there a way to achieve this? Maybe by messing around in the WP-code?
WPBeginner Support
Hi Florian,
You can achieve this by changing the user role of the authors you don’t want to give permission to edit. You can also use modify user roles or create a custom user role with desired permissions.
Admin
saleh memar
hi ! thank you for this great post
i wanna make multi author blog but i don’t want to my writers access the wordpress dashbord and i want them to post with wordpress editors on frontend , so how can i do this ?
WPBeginner Support
Hi Saleh,
Please see our guide on how to allow users to submit posts in WordPress.
Admin
John
You can use the Remarks plugin to find which of your authors and categories is generating the most discussion (and where!).
anirudh
hi there!
my site have user submitted post and there are many friends of mine who write articles for my site but i want to make an box below the post in which there profile and their picture and their social account was mentioned because i’ve got many users so i dont want to make each one’s gravatar who just submit a single post
so is there any solution in which i just give credits to many user by making a small box.
Disher
Hi
Thanks for ur question. U did not mention ur site address. It is pretty hard to understand without seeing ur site or the design.
Many regards
Jason Ring
Thanks for the article….always enjoy your tutorials!
I tried Co Authors Plus, but it doesn’t work with all themes out of the box….including mine. You have to make .php changes by adding tags (and stuff). Is there no better solution than this plugin to simply add more than one author to a post?
Lance
Hi, Im trying to find a plugin that would allow me to group authors into a group. For example, Im building a site that has 4 categories. Work, Life, Money and Family. We have at least 5 corporate partners (companies) who are contributing/writing posts. So each partner (company) has at least 3 authors who will be writing posts in the categories listed above. How can I achieve this?
I have already created these categories and added the users. Initially when I created the users. I used each company name for the author and realized that would hinder me showing the actual person/author in an archive page. Any help would be appreciated!!
Thanks!
WPBeginner Support
Please take a look at our guide on how to restrict authors to specific category in WordPress.
Admin
Lance
Thank you responding. I like that plugin but not sure I want to restrict authors from a category as all of the authors from all the partners will be writing on all or any of these categories. I’ve been looking into taxonomies but not sure where to start. Like wondering if a ‘company/partner’ can be a taxonomy term. Hmmm…. Thank you
Naomi
How can I remove a blogger without removing his posts?
WPBeginner Support
When you delete a user on your WordPress site, you will be asked what you want to do with the posts created by the user. You can assign those posts to another user. Make sure that you select ‘Attribute all content to:’ and then select a user. Finally click on confirm deletion button. WordPress will now delete the user and attribute all their posts to the user you selected.
If you do not want to remove the user and just want to restrict their access to your website. Then see our guide on how to block a WordPress user without deleting their account
Admin
Maryam
Hello. I’m trying to find a plugin that I can use to encourage the other bloggers to post regularly. I was thinking of using a plugin that tracks the number of articles the user posts and give them a standing. I have noticed that some forums gives each member a position according to how many posts they write on a forum.
I would like to use the same concept but on my blog.
Can someone please suggest a plugin that would do something like that?
Also, I would like to have the member/user/author standing visible to the public to help encourage them to post as much as they can to move up a level/standing.
Thanks.
Alex
Great question Maryam, I would like to know the best plug-ins for those two things as well.
Also I am looking for a plug in where readers can subscribe to a specific author – so they will get updated when their favorite authors posts
Really liked this blog! Helped me a lot. Thanks!
WPBeginner Support
See how to add a simple user ranking system in WordPress. You can also add a post ratings system.
Admin
Stefano
Hi there,
I’d also like to recommend Post Pay Counter, which allows to easily handle authors’ payments on a multi-author blog. The admin defines payment criteria and the plugin shows how much each writer should be paid
Michelle
Awesome post! Do you have anything so an author can import a post from another wordpress blog? My authors do not have that accessibility right now…
Salahuddin
Hi, I want members to register through front end by filling a customized registration form and then they are allowed to post (like a website for all writers to write their stories by becoming a member)
is there any plugin for this?
please help I tried a lot for this but couldn’t find.
Thanks.
Jitendra sharma
Wow what a list i used more then 5 plugin from this list for my multi author website.Thanks for list
Anne
I like your Related Posts section. What plugin do you use?
WPBeginner Support
We use custom code to display related posts on WPBeginner. You may want to take a look at our tutorial on how to add related posts with a thumbnail without using plugins.
Admin
Anne Sarte
I have just noticed your reply when I reread the article. I thought I would be notified by email when a reply comes through. I could have missed it. Is there a way for you to send an email to readers who posts comments?
WPBeginner Support
Sorry about that Anne. We had that feature but we had to disable it temporarily. We will add it back soon and you will be notified about new comments via email then.
David
How to manage articles that can only be read by certain members.
But the article displays summary only and have button “Only Premium Members”.
Is there a plugin like that?
sam
Really helpful article . I installed “Capability Manager Enhanced” as per your post and it is pretty awesome plugin.
Thanks,
manas
How to send any notice to our authors once?
Reva
Hello !
Does anyone know how to add more than 10 authors? I need to add 33 for a class.
Thanks!
Reva
WPBeginner Staff
Using Edit Flow you can add topics as pitches and users can pick them up and assign them to each other.
krisco
Hello, do you know of any muti author plugins that allow us to add many content topics and authors can check the ones they want to do, once checked it will not be visible to other authors?
Sam
How can I log accurate individual post stats by individual author history?
pritamchk
Hello. First, i would like to give you many thanks for this great post. I want to make a multi-author blog and want to add a feature so that the authors can see status and comment notifications for a notification bar. How can I add this feature? Please help me i need this urgent. I mean i want a plugin to add a status update feature like social networks to my blog and a notification bar feature. Please reply.
Thanks
WPBeginner Staff
Here is a tutorial for you. How to Notify Post Authors of New Disqus Comments in WordPress
Davide De Maestri
Any plugin (that works) to receive notification about comments?
WPBeginner Staff
You can receive notifications for comments by visiting Settings > Discussion and checking the boxes next to Email me when anyone posts a comment, a comment is held for moderation.
Davide De Maestri
There’s no option to send notification to post author! I don’t want admin to be notified but author. We have disqus.