Overview
RationalCleanup is a WordPress optimization plugin that removes unnecessary bloat, hardens security, and improves performance. It provides 24 toggleable features organized into 6 categories, each controlled by a simple on/off switch.
The plugin ships with opinionated defaults — features that are safe for the vast majority of sites are enabled out of the box, while potentially breaking changes are left off for you to enable manually.
Installation
- Upload the
rationalcleanupfolder to/wp-content/plugins/, or install via the WordPress plugin installer. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
- Navigate to Settings → RationalWP → Cleanup to review and adjust options.
On activation, the plugin applies its default settings automatically. No additional configuration is required for most sites.
Requirements
- WordPress 5.0 or higher
- PHP 7.4 or higher
How It Works
RationalCleanup hooks into WordPress at the earliest opportunity and conditionally removes or disables features based on your saved settings. All changes are non-destructive — disabling a toggle restores the original WordPress behavior instantly.
Settings are stored in a single database option (rationalcleanup_options) and are preserved if you deactivate the plugin. They are only deleted if you fully uninstall (delete) the plugin.
Default Settings
The following features are enabled by default upon activation:
- Remove WordPress generator tag
- Remove WLW Manifest link
- Remove RSD link
- Remove shortlink
- Remove REST API discovery link
- Remove emoji scripts and styles
- Remove jQuery Migrate
- Disable XML-RPC
- Block user enumeration
- Obfuscate login errors
- Disable self-pingbacks
All other features are off by default and can be enabled as needed.