s2Member vs Paid Memberships Pro

s2Member and Paid Memberships Pro both land on Depends.

s2Member

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy it only if you run WordPress, sell memberships via PayPal/Stripe, and can handle heavy configuration plus fast security patching.

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you run WordPress and need gated content with Stripe/PayPal subscriptions, and you will keep the plugin patched.

s2Member versus Paid Memberships Pro
Compare	s2Member	Paid Memberships Pro
Verdict	Depends	Depends
Best for	WordPress membership/paywall sites	WordPress sites selling memberships
Who it's not for	Non-technical users wanting plug-and-play	Non-WordPress projects
Privacy	Active, maintained plugin, but a 2024-2026 trail of CVEs including critical unauthenticated privilege escalation . patching discipline is mandatory.^³	Multiple public CVEs (SQLi, CSRF, auth bypass) across 2023-2026; patching discipline is mandatory.
Support quality	Forum-based; refund requests, read-only legacy forums	No user support evidence in sources
Public sentiment	Users value its depth and low cost but frequently complain about configuration complexity and security upkeep.	WordPress reviewers rate it well, but Reddit threads flag fee changes and its exit from the repo.¹³
Biggest gotcha	CVE-2026-1994: unauthenticated privilege escalation via account takeover. Patch immediately if running it.^³	Repeated CVEs (SQLi, CSRF, auth bypass) mean slow patching is genuinely risky