LaughterOnWater

<p>SanctumGate gives small websites an easy way to keep the majority of pages and posts private for active members without the complexity of a full-on membership system. With simple, granular access controls, you decide exactly what the public sees — and what stays reserved for your logged-in community.</p>
<p><strong>Key Features:</strong><br />
* <strong>Page-Level Control</strong>: Choose specific pages to make publicly accessible<br />
* <strong>Category-Based Access</strong>: Make entire categories of posts public<br />
* <strong>Category Archives</strong>: Public category archive pages for allowed categories<br />
* <strong>User-Friendly Interface</strong>: Checkbox-based selection instead of manual ID entry<br />
* <strong>Visual Feedback</strong>: See exactly what’s currently public at a glance<br />
* <strong>Lightweight</strong>: Minimal performance impact, perfect for smaller sites</p>
<p><strong>Perfect For:</strong><br />
* Small business websites<br />
* Community sites<br />
* Member-only content areas<br />
* Private blogs<br />
* Non-profit organization sites</p>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<h3>Basic Setup</h3>
<ol>
<li>Navigate to <strong>Appearance <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> SanctumGate</strong> in your WordPress admin</li>
<li>You’ll see two sections: “Allowed Pages” and “Allowed Categories”</li>
</ol>
<h3>Making Pages Public</h3>
<ul>
<li>Check the boxes next to any pages you want to be publicly accessible</li>
<li>The home page is always public by default</li>
<li>Save your changes</li>
</ul>
<h3>Making Posts Public by Category</h3>
<ul>
<li>Check the boxes next to categories whose posts should be public</li>
<li>All posts in checked categories will be accessible without login</li>
<li>Category archive pages for allowed categories are also public</li>
<li>Save your changes</li>
</ul>
<h3>What Stays Private</h3>
<p>Everything else on your site will require users to log in to access, including:<br />
* Unchecked pages<br />
* Posts in unchecked categories<br />
* All other post types and content</p>
<h3>Support</h3>
<p>For support, please visit the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/sanctumgate/" rel="ugc">WordPress support forums</a> or check the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/sanctumgate/" rel="ugc">plugin documentation</a>.</p>
<h3>Credits</h3>
<p>Developed by LaughterOnWater<br />
Inspired by the need for simple, effective access control on small WordPress sites.</p>


SanctumGate

Simple granular access controls for WordPress sites. Keep content private for members while selectively making pages and categories public.

Freemius

Jory Hogeveen

Joachim Jensen

DEV Institute

<p><strong>Restrict User Access is a fast and simple Membership Plugin for WordPress. Restrict your content in minutes, NOT hours.</strong></p>
<p>Quickly set up a paid membership site where your users can get different levels such as Platinum, Gold, or Free. Then, grant those levels when a user purchases a product in WooCommerce.</p>
<h3>👥 Unlimited Access Levels</h3>
<p>Users can have multiple levels, and you control how long memberships should last. When unauthorized users try to access restricted content, you can redirect them to another URL or display a teaser.</p>
<h3>⚡ Level Membership Automations</h3>
<p>Automatically add levels to your users based on something they do (Triggers) or something they are (Traits):</p>
<ul>
<li>User Registration</li>
<li>User Roles</li>
<li>Logged-in or Guests</li>
<li>WooCommerce Purchases</li>
<li>Easy Digital Downloads Purchases</li>
<li>BuddyPress Member Types</li>
<li>GiveWP Donations</li>
</ul>
<h3>🔒 Contextual Content Protection</h3>
<p>Prevent unauthorized users from visiting your posts, pages, or categories. You can even combine the conditions: protect all posts tagged “Premium” written by a select author.</p>
<p>The following Access Conditions are available out of the box:</p>
<ul>
<li>Posts, Pages & Custom Post Types</li>
<li>Content with Tags, Categories, or Custom Taxonomies</li>
<li>Content written by select Authors</li>
<li>Page Templates</li>
<li>Blog Page & Post Type Archives</li>
<li>Author Archives</li>
<li>Taxonomy Archives</li>
<li>Front Page, Search Results, 404 Not Found Page</li>
<li>bbPress Profiles, Forums & Topics</li>
<li>BuddyPress Profile Sections</li>
<li>Languages (Polylang, qTranslate X, TranslatePress, Transposh, Weglot, WPML)</li>
<li>Pods Pages</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that Access Conditions do not apply to content displayed in lists.</p>
<h3>✅ Grant & Deny Capabilities</h3>
<p>The easy-to-use WordPress User Manager gives you full control over the capabilities the members should or shouldn’t have. Access Level Capabilities will override the permissions set by roles or other plugins.</p>
<h3>👁️ Hide Admin Bar & Nav Menu Visibility</h3>
<p>Disable the admin bar for select levels and control what menu items members can see. You can even hide any widget area created with <a href="https://dev.institute/wordpress-sidebars/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=section&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">Content Aware Sidebars</a></p>
<h3>🤖 Restrict Content from Other Plugins</h3>
<p>Restrict User Access autodetects Custom Post Types and Taxonomies created by any plugin or theme. Built-in support for some of the most popular WordPress plugins means that you e.g. can restrict access to bbPress forums or multilingual content.</p>
<ul>
<li>bbPress</li>
<li>BuddyPress</li>
<li>Easy Digital Downloads</li>
<li>Pods</li>
<li>Polylang</li>
<li>TranslatePress</li>
<li>WooCommerce</li>
<li>Weglot</li>
<li>WPML</li>
<li>and more …</li>
</ul>
<h3>🛡️ WordPress Security Enhancements</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>WP REST API Content Protection</strong><br />
Enforces PoLA to minimize attack surfaces and stop threat actors from harvesting your data</li>
<li><strong>How to display content in lists</strong><br />
Display excerpts only or hide content when post types are displayed in blog, archives, search results, lists, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>📑 Restrict Content with Shortcodes</h3>
<p>Fine-tune content visibility in your posts or pages by adding simple shortcodes:</p>
<pre><code>[restrict level="platinum"]
This content can only be seen by users with Platinum level or above.
[/restrict]

[restrict level="!platinum"]
This content can only be seen by users without Platinum level or above.
[/restrict]

[restrict role="editor,contributor" page="1"]
This content can only be seen by editors and contributors.
Other users will see content from page with ID 1.
[/restrict]

[login-form]
</code></pre>
<h3>👋 Developer-friendly API</h3>
<p>Restrict User Access makes it super easy for developers to programmatically customize WordPress access control by adding a few lines of code to theme templates.</p>
<h4>Example – Add level to current user</h4>
<pre><code>rua_get_user()->add_level($level_id);
</code></pre>
<h4>Example – Check if current user has an active level membership</h4>
<pre><code>if(rua_get_user()->has_level($level_id)) {
    //show restricted content
} else {
    //show content if unauthorized
}
</code></pre>
<p><a href="https://dev.institute/docs/restrict-user-access/developer-api/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=section&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">View full RUA PHP API documentation here.</a></p>
<h3>🎛️ Premium Add-ons for Restrict User Access</h3>
<p>Complete your WordPress membership site with these powerful extensions</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=acf&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">ACF Restriction</a></strong><br />
Restrict content that contain data from Advanced Custom Fields plugin</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=date&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">Date Restriction</a></strong><br />
Restrict content based on the time it was published</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=metabox&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">Meta Box Restriction</a></strong><br />
Restrict content that contain data from Meta Box plugin</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=timelock&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">Timelock</a></strong><br />
Determine when to enable or disable select Access Conditions</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=url&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">URL Restriction</a></strong><br />
Restrict content based on the WordPress URL, with wildcard support</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://dev.institute/products/category/restrict-user-access/?utm_source=readme&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=visibility&utm_campaign=rua" rel="nofollow ugc">Visibility Control</a></strong><br />
Hide content from blog, search results, archives, custom lists, WP REST API, and more</li>
</ul>


Restrict User Access – Ultimate Membership & Content Protection

Create Access Levels and restrict any post, page, category, etc. Supports bbPress, BuddyPress, WooCommerce, WPML, and more.

SanctumGate vs Restrict User Access – Ultimate Membership & Content Protection