Anything that is free – completely free – comes with a cost. A free plugin for WordPress can be a great tool, but many times, free plugins come with hidden costs.
Business Continuity Risk
First, there is the risk of business continuity. If you use a free plugin from the wordpress.org plugin repository (or from anywhere else, for that matter), you run the risk that the developer of the plugin quits supporting it. WordPress releases a core update about twice per year. A plugin can become incompatible with current versions of WordPress if it is not maintained.
That’s not to say that a plugin from the free repo is bad. But business continuity needs to be considered.
(Note: WP-Members, which was the first membership plugin for WordPress, is now twenty years old. And I have every intention to keep it going. If you’re looking for a membership plugin that has a track record of staying up-to-date with current WordPress, give WP-Members a try.)
Plugin Support
The more popular a plugin, the more support for a free version becomes a drag on the plugin’s development. Many free plugins that become popular simply cannot keep up with the demand for technical support. In these cases, they end up creating a freemium model, or even only offering paid support.
Some free plugins do continue to maintain tech support, even if they don’t have a paid commercial model at all. But those are rare.
How much support you may need for a plugin will become a factor when considering how much you rely on a free plugin.
Nulled Plugins
Lastly, there is the topic of nulled plugins. This is a commercial (paid) plugin that has had its open source code stripped of features that might prevent it from operating freely, such as removing the need for a license key or pinging its developer’s site. These are offered for free or for sale at a low price through various sites.
Clearly, that’s an unethical practice. And it’s just as unethical to be on the buy side of that transaction. But beyond that, getting a low-cost version of a high-priced plugin through such channels comes with extreme risk factors. Nulled plugins are often a tool to insert malicious code into your site.
If you are considering using a nulled plugin (or worse, if you already do), I implore you to read the following article from Wordfence on how these are used as a way to hack your site:
How Nulled Plugins Are Used to Weaken Your Defense
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