Simple Category Icons vs Better Font Awesome

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

Simple Category Icons

by Bas Schuiling

Health D46

Better Font Awesome

by Mickey Kay

Health C64

Active-install trajectory

Simple Category Icons Better Font Awesome

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	Simple Category Icons	Better Font Awesome
Active installs Modeled from the public "N+" band and recent downloads.	90–100	60K–70K ✓
Install trend Change in active installs across the charted window.	-10% ✓	-14%
Overall health	D · 46	C · 64 ✓
Maintenance How recently the plugin was updated.	3/100	39/100 ✓
Rating quality Volume-adjusted review quality.	78/100	87/100 ✓
Support Share of forum threads marked resolved.	70/100	70/100
Rating (adjusted)	4.10★	4.45★ ✓
Reviews	6	86 ✓
Ranking optimization How well the listing is tuned to rank on wp.org.	36/100	69/100 ✓
Removal risk Maintenance signals that precede a wp.org closure. Not an official status.	High	Low ✓
Last updated	11.8y ago	1.5y ago ✓
Downloads · 30d	152	1.3K ✓
Category	Uncategorized	Uncategorized

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

Release activity

Simple Category Icons Better Font Awesome

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.