Best hotlinking plugins for WordPress
The most popular hotlinking plugins for WordPress in November 2026, in WordPress.org’s own popular order, which follows active installs. Hotlink Protection leads with 200+ active installs, ahead of Replace External Images (100+) and BitSplit Media Delivery (fewer than 10). All 3 plugins tagged “hotlinking” are below, with figures from WordPress.org that update every day.
Installs aren’t everything: a recent release, a “Tested up to” that matches the current WordPress, and support threads that get resolved show a plugin is looked after. Open any plugin for its downloads, rank history and alternatives.
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Top 3 hotlinking plugins
- 1.
Hotlink ProtectionThe most installed hotlinking plugin, with 200+ active installs. Rated 1.0 from 5 reviews, last updated 8 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 4.9.35.
- 2.
Replace External Images100+ active installs. No reviews yet, updated 1 week ago.
- 3.
BitSplit Media DeliveryFewer than 10 active installs. No reviews yet, updated 2 months ago.
All 3 plugins tagged “hotlinking”
Hotlink Protection
Down in the last 7 days:87#11,827by zuda8 years ago
The WordPress Automatic Image Hotlink Protection plugin is a single step script designed to stop others from stealing your images.
- Installs
- 200+
- Rating
- 1.0(5)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Replace External Images
Up in the last 7 days:389#14,487by Hans & Friends7 days ago
Import external and hotlinked images into your Media Library in bulk. Finds them in posts, Elementor, widgets and theme and replaces the URLs.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 23/day
BitSplit Media Delivery
Down in the last 7 days:10,023#58,722by frolpaxa2 months ago
Replace ready-to-download media URLs with on-demand browser reconstruction to deter hotlinking and generic scraping.
- Installs
- <10
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day