TrustBrain

TrustBrain IP Access Control is a security plugin for WordPress that provides comprehensive IP-based access control:
<h4>Access Control Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Country-based access control (whitelist/blacklist)</li>
<li>IP address and CIDR whitelist/blacklist</li>
<li>ASN (Autonomous System Number) based blocking</li>
<li>Separate settings for backend (admin area) and frontend</li>
<li>XML-RPC and REST API protection</li>
<li>Comment and trackback spam protection</li>
<li>Access logging and statistics</li>
<li>Emergency access URL for lockout recovery</li>
</ul>
<h4>GeoIP Integration</h4>
This plugin uses MaxMind GeoLite2 databases for IP geolocation. You need to obtain a free license key from <a href="https://www.maxmind.com/en/geolite2/signup" rel="nofollow ugc">MaxMind</a> to use the geolocation features.
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
This plugin stores access logs including IP addresses for security purposes. The logs are stored locally in your WordPress database and can be configured to auto-delete after a specified retention period.
This plugin uses MaxMind GeoLite2 databases for IP geolocation. The databases are stored locally and no IP data is sent to external services during normal operation.
<h3>Third-Party Services</h3>
This plugin optionally connects to MaxMind servers to download GeoLite2 database updates. This only occurs when you manually trigger an update or enable automatic updates. No visitor data is transmitted.
<ul>
<li>MaxMind GeoLite2: https://www.maxmind.com/en/geolite2/eula</li>
<li>Privacy Policy: https://www.maxmind.com/en/privacy-policy</li>
</ul>

TrustBrain IP Access Control

GeoIP-based access control plugin with country blocking, IP whitelist/blacklist, and access logging.

sf-geoguard

SF GeoGuard is a lightweight country-based access control plugin for WordPress.
It allows you to restrict website access by visitor country using simple ISO country codes (US, CA, GB, etc.), helping reduce unwanted traffic, bot activity, and unnecessary server load.
Main features: 
* Allow access only from selected countries 
* Whitelist IP addresses 
* Cache IP → country lookups for better performance 
* Customize the block message (HTML supported) 
* Choose what happens if the geo service is unavailable (allow or block) 
* Support for sites behind reverse proxies (Cloudflare, Nginx)
SF GeoGuard focuses on doing one thing well: restricting access by country. 
It does not modify WordPress core files and does not load unnecessary scripts on the frontend.
By default, geo checks are applied only to frontend requests. You can optionally 
enable restrictions for wp-admin and wp-login.php in the plugin settings.
<h3>External Services</h3>
This plugin connects to a third-party IP geolocation service to determine 
the visitor’s country based on their IP address.
Service used: 
IP-API (https://ip-api.com/)
Purpose: 
The service is used to detect the visitor’s country in order to apply 
country-based access rules configured in the plugin settings.
Data sent: 
– Visitor IP address
When data is sent: 
– On frontend page load when geo-based access control is enabled 
– Only if the visitor IP address cannot be resolved from the local cache
Note: 
The free IP-API endpoint does not support HTTPS. The plugin uses the HTTP 
endpoint provided by IP-API unless a paid HTTPS plan is used.
Privacy & Terms: 
– Privacy Policy: https://ip-api.com/docs/legal 
– Terms of Service: https://ip-api.com/docs/legal
No personally identifiable information other than the IP address 
is stored, logged, or shared by the plugin.

SF GeoGuard

Country-based access control for WordPress. Restrict access by country, whitelist IP addresses and reduce unwanted traffic.

TrustBrain IP Access Control vs SF GeoGuard