Hide Liquid Web - SiteEngine

Credits

The verified target slug lw-software-manager was identified by Lindsey Osborne (linzeo.ai) in her minimal version of this plugin. This expanded version builds on her finding with a settings UI, pattern-match fallback, dashboard widget cleanup, and agency-scale deployment notes.

siteengine-hide-liquid-web.php — the plugin. Procedural code, well-commented, all in one file for easy distribution and modification. Lindsey’s verified slug as primary target, my pattern-match as fallback, dashboard widget cleanup retained. Activation hook seeds defaults.

Settings page at Tools → Hide Liquid Web with three toggles (menu hide, pattern-match fallback, dashboard widgets) and two textareas for additional slugs and keywords. A live status box shows exactly what was removed on the last admin page load with slug, title, and which method caught it — so recipients can verify it’s working without spelunking. There’s also a “Settings” link on the Plugins page row for one-click access.

LICENSE —
/**

Lindsey Osborne (https://linzeo.ai) in her own plugin. Used here with credit.

Plugin Name: SiteEngine Hide Liquid Web

Plugin URI: https://siteengine.io

Description: Removes the “Liquid Web” admin menu that Kadence Pro silently injects via the Liquid Web Software Manager. Includes a pattern-matching fallback so future renames still get caught, plus a configurable allow-list for additional vendor cruft. Works on any host.

Version: 1.0.0
Requires at least: 5.5
Requires PHP: 7.4
Author: SiteEngine
Author URI: https://siteengine.io
License: GPL-2.0-or-later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Text Domain: siteengine-hide-liquid-web
*Credits: The verified target slug lw-software-manager was identified by

uninstall.php — clean removal of options and transients when the plugin is deleted, with multisite support.

README.md — GitHub-style docs covering what it does, why it exists, three install paths (standard, WP-CLI bulk, mu-plugin enforcement), settings reference table, how to find slugs, FAQ, credits to Lindsey, and changelog.

readme.txt — WordPress.org-style readme in case you want to submit it to the plugin directory eventually.

uninstall.php — clean removal of options and transients when the plugin is deleted, with multisite support.
README.md — GitHub-style docs covering what it does, why it exists, three install paths (standard, WP-CLI bulk, mu-plugin enforcement), settings reference table, how to find slugs, FAQ, credits to Lindsey, and changelog.
readme.txt — WordPress.org-style readme in case you want to submit it to the plugin directory eventually.
LICENSE — full GPL-2.0 text.

A couple of design choices worth flagging:

The plugin lives under Tools rather than Settings. Settings pages are for site configuration; this is a maintenance tool. Tools menu feels right for “thing that nukes other things.”

Input sanitization on the textareas strips everything except letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores. That keeps slug values safe and prevents anything weird from being injected, but it means if someone tries to paste a keyword with a space they’ll need to use separate lines. Reasonable trade-off.

The pattern-match keyword liquid is hardcoded as a baseline rather than user-removable. Logic: that’s the whole reason the plugin exists. If someone wants to keep liquid in their menus they can just disable pattern-matching entirely.

When you hand this to other designers, they can install it like any plugin — Upload → Install → Activate, done. For your own 21 sites, you can either bulk-install via WP-CLI or drop the main PHP file into your /opt/siteengine/mu-plugins/ pipeline and use the deploy script you already have set up. The settings page works in either mode.

SiteEngine Hide Liquid Web

A small WordPress plugin that removes the “Liquid Web” admin menu item that Kadence Pro silently injects via the Liquid Web Software Manager.

If you bought a Kadence lifetime license before the StellarWP/Liquid Web acquisition and you’re now staring at a promotional “Liquid Web” menu in every client’s WordPress dashboard — labeling your lifetime license a “Legacy” license — this plugin makes it go away. Cleanly, on every host, with no code editing required.

What it does

Removes the Liquid Web admin menu (slug: lw-software-manager)
Optionally pattern-matches any future renames (catches liquid-anything, “Liquid Web” in titles, etc.)
Optionally removes related dashboard widgets (anything containing “liquid” or “stellar”)
Exposes a Tools → Hide Liquid Web settings page so non-developers can toggle behavior
Lets you list additional vendor-cruft menu slugs and keywords to nuke without writing code
Shows a status box on the settings page listing exactly what was removed on the last admin page load — so you can verify it’s working

Why this plugin exists

When StellarWP / Liquid Web acquired Kadence, they began pushing a “Liquid Web” menu in WordPress admin under the guise of a software-update manager. For agencies and lifetime-license holders, this menu is unwanted promotional surface area in client dashboards — and the only built-in way to hide it is to write PHP.

This plugin packages that fix as a one-click install with a config UI, plus a defensive fallback in case Kadence rebrands the menu in a future release.

Installation

Option 1: Standard WordPress install (recommended for distribution)

Download the latest release ZIP.
In WordPress admin: Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
Choose the ZIP and click Install Now, then Activate.
Visit Tools → Hide Liquid Web to confirm settings (defaults are fine for most users).

Option 2: Bulk install via WP-CLI (for agencies)

wp plugin install /path/to/siteengine-hide-liquid-web.zip --activate

Across many sites:

for SITE in /home/*/public_html; do
    wp --path="$SITE" plugin install /path/to/siteengine-hide-liquid-web.zip --activate --allow-root
done

Option 3: Auto-loaded mu-plugin (for full enforcement on managed sites)

If you manage a fleet of sites and want this plugin enforced server-wide where clients cannot deactivate it, drop the main plugin file (just siteengine-hide-liquid-web.php, not the folder) into each site’s wp-content/mu-plugins/ directory. The settings page will still appear under Tools, but the plugin loads automatically and cannot be disabled from the Plugins screen.

A reference deploy script for syncing mu-plugins across multiple WordPress installs on the same server is documented separately — ask your developer or see the SiteEngine agency deployment notes.

Settings

All settings live at Tools → Hide Liquid Web.

What to hide

Setting	Default	What it does
Liquid Web admin menu	On	Removes the menu item with slug `lw-software-manager`. The verified target.
Pattern-match fallback	On	Also removes any admin menu containing “liquid” in its slug or title. Catches future renames.
Dashboard widgets	On	Removes dashboard widgets whose ID contains “liquid” or “stellar”.

Advanced

Setting	What it does
Additional menu slugs to remove	One slug per line. Nukes other vendor menus (e.g. `yoast-nag`, `elementor-getting-started`).
Additional pattern-match keywords	One keyword per line. Extends the pattern-match fallback to other vendor names (e.g. `stellarwp`).

Status box

The settings page shows what was removed on the last admin page load — slug, title, and which method caught it (verified_slug, extra_slug, or pattern_match:keyword). Useful for verification and for tracking when Kadence ships a rename.

How to find a menu slug

If you want to add a vendor menu to the Additional menu slugs list:

Hover over the unwanted menu item in WordPress admin.
Look at the URL in your browser’s status bar — it will look something like …/admin.php?page=THE-SLUG.
Copy THE-SLUG into the textarea, one per line.

Alternatively, via WP-CLI:

wp eval 'global $menu; foreach ($menu as $m) echo $m[2] . " — " . $m[0] . "\n";'

Requirements

WordPress 5.5+
PHP 7.4+
A user with the manage_options capability (i.e. an administrator) to change settings

No external dependencies. No phone-home. No tracking. No upsells.

FAQ

Will this break Kadence?
No. The plugin only removes the promotional admin menu and dashboard widgets. Kadence Blocks, Kadence Theme, and Kadence Pro continue to work normally. Your licenses still validate.

What if Kadence/Liquid Web renames the menu slug?
The pattern-match fallback (on by default) catches anything with “liquid” in the slug or title. If they rename it to something without “liquid” in it (e.g. solid-central), add the new slug or keyword to the Advanced fields and you’re covered.

Is it safe to remove dashboard widgets containing “stellar”?
StellarWP is the parent brand that owns Kadence, GiveWP, The Events Calendar, SolidWP, and others. The plugin’s widget cleanup catches StellarWP-branded promotional widgets but does not affect any of those plugins’ actual functionality. If you’re worried, disable the Dashboard widgets setting — the menu cleanup still runs.

Does this work on multisite?
Yes. Activate network-wide and each site gets the menu and widget cleanup. Settings are stored per-site (each subsite’s admin can configure their own settings).

Can I deploy this across many sites without clicking through every admin?
Yes — either bulk-install via WP-CLI (see Installation Option 2) or deploy it as an mu-plugin (Option 3) for sites where you don’t want clients to be able to disable it.

What happens when I delete the plugin?
All settings and status data are removed. Clean uninstall via uninstall.php.