The read · 2026-08-31
Google measures WordPress, and everyone else measures around Google
The striking thing about this category isn't that Site Kit leads. It's that the top seven plugins are almost all Google plumbing under different names. Site Kit holds 39% of the category's installs on its own, sitting past 5M, and MonsterInsights, GTM4WP, GA Google Analytics and ExactMetrics are all pipes into the same Google backend. Whatever competition exists here is competition over the interface, not the data.
That makes the two exceptions interesting. WP Statistics and Burst Statistics both sell themselves as the alternative, and both are in good shape, Burst especially, shipping 12 days ago with the best ratings and cleanest maintenance record in the top twelve. Neither has broken 1M installs. Privacy-first analytics has a real constituency in WordPress and it's still an order of magnitude smaller than the Google-shaped one.
Incumbents are working, which closes the door
Most leaders here have shipped inside the last month. Site Kit was updated 7 days ago, PixelYourSite 7, WP Statistics 9. That's not a category being coasted on. The one clear crack is ExactMetrics, which sits at 300K+ installs on 2.5 adjusted stars, by far the worst reception in the top tier despite a release 12 days ago. Users are being served and they don't like it.
Everything moving up is tiny. The fastest climbers went from 30 to 70 installs, or 10 to 40. They cluster around server-side tracking, Meta CAPI, and regional pixel work, things Google's own tooling won't do for you. That's where a newcomer still has room. Head-on GA replacement isn't a business.
A moat, and a strange 30 days
Category downloads fell 30.5% over the window, against 13 million downloads in the last 30 days. A drop that size across 1,025 plugins is more likely a shift in how updates were pushed than a collapse in demand, but the cause isn't visible in the data. Two plugins left the directory: Harbor Order Analytics on 23 August at the author's request, and Saitama Addon Pack on 28 July for reasons wp.org didn't record, taking 1K+ installs with it.
Call this one a moat. Healthy leaders, one dominant plugin, and growth happening only at the hundred-install margins.
Google measures WordPress, and everyone else measures around Google
The striking thing about this category isn't that Site Kit leads. It's that the top seven plugins are almost all Google plumbing under different names. Site Kit holds 39% of the category's installs on its own, sitting past 5M, and MonsterInsights, GTM4WP, GA Google Analytics and ExactMetrics are all pipes into the same Google backend. Whatever competition exists here is competition over the interface, not the data.
That makes the two exceptions interesting. WP Statistics and Burst Statistics both sell themselves as the alternative, and both are in good shape, Burst especially, shipping 12 days ago with the best ratings and cleanest maintenance record in the top twelve. Neither has broken 1M installs. Privacy-first analytics has a real constituency in WordPress and it's still an order of magnitude smaller than the Google-shaped one.
Incumbents are working, which closes the door
Most leaders here have shipped inside the last month. Site Kit was updated 7 days ago, PixelYourSite 7, WP Statistics 9. That's not a category being coasted on. The one clear crack is ExactMetrics, which sits at 300K+ installs on 2.5 adjusted stars, by far the worst reception in the top tier despite a release 12 days ago. Users are being served and they don't like it.
Everything moving up is tiny. The fastest climbers went from 30 to 70 installs, or 10 to 40. They cluster around server-side tracking, Meta CAPI, and regional pixel work, things Google's own tooling won't do for you. That's where a newcomer still has room. Head-on GA replacement isn't a business.
A moat, and a strange 30 days
Category downloads fell 30.5% over the window, against 13 million downloads in the last 30 days. A drop that size across 1,025 plugins is more likely a shift in how updates were pushed than a collapse in demand, but the cause isn't visible in the data. Two plugins left the directory: Harbor Order Analytics on 23 August at the author's request, and Saitama Addon Pack on 28 July for reasons wp.org didn't record, taking 1K+ installs with it.
Call this one a moat. Healthy leaders, one dominant plugin, and growth happening only at the hundred-install margins.
