Free & open source
Bottle: bot throttling for WordPress
LLM crawlers, botnets, scrapers and automated exploit scans can slow a WordPress site to a crawl or knock it offline. Bottle (Bot + Throttle) is our free plugin that slows abusive traffic and cuts server load, without blocking real visitors.
Stops the load early. Checks each request before WordPress finishes loading, with no database queries.
Rate-based, not user-agent-based. Throttles by session, IP, site section and excessive 404s, and verifies search bots against their published IP lists.
Gentle responses. A 429, an invisible proof-of-work check, or an optional Cloudflare Turnstile.
See what's happening. Real-time request tracking and a heatmap of bot activity help you tune the rules.