Parentless Categories vs Category Thumbnail List

Head-to-head on the signals that matter, from the public WordPress.org data.

Parentless Categories

by Scott Reilly

Health C59

Category Thumbnail List

by Johan Jonk Stenström

Health D49

Active-install trajectory

Parentless Categories Category Thumbnail List

Active installs, each indexed to 100 at the start of the window. A line above 100 is growing its install base, below 100 is shrinking.

Metric	Parentless Categories	Category Thumbnail List
Active installs Modeled from the public "N+" band and recent downloads.	10–20	200–300 ✓
Install trend Change in active installs across the charted window.	0% ✓	-33%
Overall health	C · 59 ✓	D · 49
Maintenance How recently the plugin was updated.	46/100 ✓	16/100
Rating quality Volume-adjusted review quality.	65/100	71/100 ✓
Support Share of forum threads marked resolved.	70/100	70/100
Rating (adjusted)	3.60★	3.84★ ✓
Reviews	0	2 ✓
Ranking optimization How well the listing is tuned to rank on wp.org.	74/100 ✓	59/100
Removal risk Maintenance signals that precede a wp.org closure. Not an official status.	Low ✓	Elevated
Last updated	1.4y ago ✓	2.5y ago
Downloads · 30d	58	75 ✓
Category	Uncategorized	Uncategorized

✓ marks the stronger plugin on each row. Rows where they're level show no marker.

Release activity

Parentless Categories Category Thumbnail List

7-day average daily downloads. Downloads spike for about a week after each release as the install base re-downloads, so read this as release cadence, not growth.