User Role by BestWebSoft – Add and Customize Roles and Capabilities in WordPress

74 Quality Score

Active Installs

16/30

Only 3,000 active installs puts this well behind the leading alternative, WPFront User Role Editor, which has 30,000 installs, so it is a niche choice in this category.

Update Freshness

25/25

Updated in December 2025 and tested against WordPress 6.9.4, the maintenance signal is strong and the plugin is clearly being kept current with core releases.

User Rating

11/15

A 72 out of 100 from 12 ratings is decent but the very small sample size makes the rating less reliable than scores from plugins with hundreds of reviews.

Support Health

8/15

Zero support threads opened and zero resolved gives a 50 percent support health score, which is essentially a non-result and offers no real evidence of how the developer handles issues.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Tested with WordPress 6.9.4 and compatible back to 5.6, with a perfect compatibility score indicating broad version coverage.

Scores higher than 34% of indexed plugins

About

Powerful user role management plugin for WordPress websites. Easily create, customize, and manage user roles and capabilities without writing code.

Active Installs 3k+

Rating ★★★½ 3.6/5

Last Updated 2026-07-15 6:45pm GMT

Requires WordPress 5.6+

Tested Up To 7.0.4

Security History

2 known vulnerabilities, all patched

1 High 1 Medium

Most recent: March 13, 2023

View details ▸

What It Does

User Role by BestWebSoft lets you create custom WordPress user roles and assign granular capabilities without touching code. It also lets you modify or clone existing roles, giving administrators fine-grained control over who can do what in the WordPress backend. In practice, it is a no-code role management layer that sits on top of WordPress's native capabilities system.

Who It's For

This plugin is best for site owners who need custom roles beyond Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber but do not want to edit functions.php or use WP-CLI. It fits small to mid-sized teams, membership sites, and agencies that manage multiple clients and need to spin up role variations quickly. If you are already comfortable with code-based role management, you will likely not get much from this plugin.

Who Should Skip It

Developers who are comfortable using the built-in add_role() and add_cap() functions, or tools like WP-CLI, do not need this plugin and would be better off without the extra admin UI overhead. Sites that only need the default WordPress roles have no reason to install a role management plugin at all.

The Bottom Line

User Role by BestWebSoft does the job and is well maintained, but with only 3,000 installs, a thin rating base, and no trackable support history, it is hard to recommend over the more popular WPFront User Role Editor. It is a reasonable pick if you already trust BestWebSoft plugins and want a simple no-code solution. Overall quality lands at 71.89 out of 100, which is acceptable but not a standout.

Related Plugins

WPFront User Role Editor 81/100

Pick this if you want a much larger install base, a longer track record, and a more battle-tested role editor with a deeper feature set.

Controlled Admin Access 78/100

Pick this if your main concern is restricting access to specific admin pages or features rather than building out entirely new custom roles.