
Excerpt Length Security & Risk Analysis
wordpress.org/plugins/excerpt-lengthAdds an Excerpt Length field setting to the Reading Settings section, this is used to set the number of words that appear in the the_excerpt().
Is Excerpt Length Safe to Use in 2026?
Generally Safe
Score 85/100Excerpt Length has no known CVEs and is actively maintained. It's a solid choice for most WordPress installations.
The "excerpt-length" plugin v1.1 exhibits a strong security posture in several key areas. The static analysis reveals no identified attack surface, no dangerous functions, and all SQL queries utilize prepared statements. Furthermore, there are no recorded vulnerabilities (CVEs) associated with this plugin. This indicates a developer who is either very diligent in their security practices or has developed a plugin with a very limited scope that inherently avoids common vulnerabilities. However, a significant concern arises from the output escaping analysis, where 100% of the analyzed outputs are not properly escaped. This presents a potential cross-site scripting (XSS) risk if user-supplied data is displayed without proper sanitization. While the lack of an attack surface and vulnerability history is positive, the unescaped output is a critical oversight that needs immediate attention to mitigate potential security threats.
Key Concerns
- Unescaped output detected
Excerpt Length Security Vulnerabilities
Excerpt Length Code Analysis
Output Escaping
Excerpt Length Attack Surface
WordPress Hooks 4
Maintenance & Trust
Excerpt Length Maintenance & Trust
Maintenance Signals
Community Trust
Excerpt Length Alternatives
Change Excerpt Length
change-excerpt-length
Allows users to change the excerpt length from the WordPress Reading Settings page.
Advanced Excerpt
advanced-excerpt
Control the appearance of WordPress post excerpts
Toggle wpautop
toggle-wpautop
Easily disable the default wpautop filter on a post by post basis.
WP Super Edit
wp-super-edit
Get control of the WordPress wysiwyg visual editor and add some functionality with more buttons and custom TinyMCE plugins.
Posts Character Count Admin
posts-character-count-admin
Displays a column with the character count for each post in the Manage Posts SubPanel and in the Edit Posts SubPanel.
Excerpt Length Developer Profile
2 plugins · 200 total installs
How We Detect Excerpt Length
Patterns used to identify this plugin on WordPress sites during automated security audits and web crawling.
Asset Fingerprints
HTML / DOM Fingerprints
setting-description