FV Gravatar Cache

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

Directory searches this plugin turns up in, and which way each one is moving. WordPress.org publishes no history of search positions, so this starts the day we first tracked a keyword and never backfills.

wp.org is where the directory puts the plugin for that search. On merit is where it would sit if results were ranked on rating, support and updates, without the install boost. The last column is how far the wp.org position moved, from our first reading in the last 90 days to the latest.

6 searches this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 2 listed. 4 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words). 2 of its tags aren't in the top 24 for their own search.

Directory rank vs rivals

wp.org popularity rank over time · higher is better · when a rival's line climbs above yours, they've overtaken you

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 62% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

Crossed into this band 4 months ago; a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, which places it about 68% of the way through.

1. ★★★★★ roam92

   5.8y ago

   Out of the box, the WordPress commenting system is not very performant. For each comment – which could be dozens on a single page load – WordPress makes an uncached call to an external site (gravatar.com) to load the commenter’s avatar image. This happens even for the default (and most common) case that the commenter has no gravatar, and it happens repeatedly even if the same person comments multiple times on a single page. My site was getting flagged for this slow drain in profiling tools like GTmetrix and Pingdom… But I did not want to give over my commenting content to third-party companies like Disqus. About a year ago, I discovered FV Gravatar Cache, which vastly reduces this back-and-forth and automatically maintains a fast cached copy of all commenter’s gravatars. I installed the plugin and after waiting a little while for it to cache the needed gravatars (which it works through methodically in the background via cron, be patient), my site’s metrics and performance scores improved correspondingly. Thank you for this helpful plugin! WordPress really should have something like this built in.

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ grafis

   6.7y ago

   Nothing cached according to GTMetrix. The plugin settings page “cache information” shows 19 email addresses as the cached objects. The plug created six random user profile PNG files here, did not create cached versions of default Gravatar icons: /wp-content/uploads/fv-gravatar-cache Hmmm….

   Read on wp.org ↗
3. ★★★★★ christinaleans

   7.6y ago

   I installed this plugin on 3 blogs with three different hosts, and three different themes. It has the exact same problem on all three sites: it only caches about 3-10% of the Gravatars. Posted in their support forum but they responded (politely, to their credit) that they would only look into it if I paid them…even though it’s clearly an issue with their plugin.

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ Anonymous

   9.2y ago

   Been using this plugin for several years now. It just sits in the background doing what it does, year after year. Trouble-free and reliable.

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ Gulshan Kumar

   9.3y ago

   I deactivated plugin but still contains elements in Database

   Read on wp.org ↗
6. ★★★★★ gokuldeepak

   10.3y ago

   This plugin works well and increases speed but the problem is it only caches images for the registered users. I want to cache for every user who comments on my page. (They Don’t need to login to comment on my website instead giving their name and email id is enough)

   Read on wp.org ↗
7. ★★★★★ semperaye

   10.5y ago

   Not sure if it’s working, the settings are showing no gravatar’s in cache.

   Read on wp.org ↗
8. ★★★★★ xantius

   10.7y ago

   This plugin was super helpful for reducing the amount of requests my most popular web pages made (pages with over 150 comments) and helped clean up my scores on website analyzers. Thanks!

   Read on wp.org ↗

Whether ChatGPT and Claude name this plugin when asked the category question, and whether the readme gives them something to quote.

Not measured yet for this plugin’s topics. Its tracked searches are not among the measured topics. See the topics measured so far.

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

1. 2026-07-10 700+ → 600+ down after 248 days in tier
2. 2025-11-04 800+ → 700+ down after 3 days in tier
3. 2025-11-01 700+ → 800+ up after 2 days in tier
4. 2025-10-30 800+ → 700+ down after 2 days in tier
5. 2025-10-28 700+ → 800+ up after 1 days in tier
6. 2025-10-27 800+ → 700+ down after 311 days in tier
7. 2024-12-20 900+ → 800+ down after 2 days in tier
8. 2024-12-18 800+ → 900+ up after 1 days in tier

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

Embed this report card

Drop a live Pulse card for FV Gravatar Cache into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

FV Gravatar Cache: 600+ active installs, 3.9★ (11 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-11-02. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/fv-gravatar-cache