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IntenseDebate Comments

by Automattic · Login & Users

Also makes 78 other plugins · 18.2M+ installs across the portfolio →

IntenseDebate comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog. Build your reader community, increase your comments, & boost pageviews.

Try it live opens a temporary test site in your browser, which can take about 20 seconds to load. Plugins that rely on outside services or a full server may not work completely there.

⚠ Stale⚠ Likely abandoned⚠ Few reviews

Health

F 38/100

Stale · Likely abandoned · Few reviews

Active installs

500+

≈550 estimated

Momentum

+7%

downloads vs prior 30d

Biggest opportunity: “avatars”, “community” and “profile” aren't earning a slot. You list them, but you're not in the first 24 results for those searches. WordPress.org counts only your first five tags, so free the slot for a search you can win.

How scoring works →
38 Health · F
Maintenance 5/100
Rating quality 54/100
Support 70/100

38 health vs 61 average across 2,203 Login & Users plugins

Install conversion

How it's measured →

0.1%

of downloads still active

At least 500 of 592.3K lifetime downloads are still running, below its category: the median Login & Users plugin keeps 0.7%, across 1,476 plugins.

Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other Login & Users plugins, not across the directory. wp.org reports active installs as the bottom of a band, so the real rate is this or higher.

Removal-risk signals

53/100

Maintenance and integrity signals that tend to precede a WordPress.org removal. Not an official status, a heads-up to act.

  • Long abandoned. No update in 3+ years — the top precursor to removal once a vulnerability is found.
  • Falling behind WordPress. Tested up to WordPress 6.1.16.

Details

Version
2.10.2
Last updated
3.7y ago
Added
2008-11-12 · 17 yrs old
Requires WP
5.0
Tested up to
6.1.16
Requires PHP
—

Directory ranking optimization

How it's scored →

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

51 / 100

Room to improve

Most to gain: Update recency

Update recency 11/100

Updated 1348 days ago, past the ~180 days where wp.org starts discounting

WP compatibility 46/100

Tested up to WordPress 6.1.16; the current branch is 6.8

Rating quality 57/100

2.2★ over 9 reviews, smoothed to 3.81★ and held back under 25 reviews

Listing tuning 100/100

5 of 5 tags set · short description in place

To rank higher: Last updated 1348 days ago — ship an update; wp.org decays a listing's search weight after ~180 days.

Get the full rank-higher report →

Daily downloads

Since 5 Oct 2022 · 1,488 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive

+7% vs prior 30d
1131 Oct 2026

30-day downloads

Rolling 30-day volume · peak 6.1K · peaks are release surges

33831 Oct 2026

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

IntenseDebate Commen · #8964youMeks Smart Author Wi · #1686ProfileGrid · #3167Avatar Manager · #3172

Rating trend

Star average over time · dips mark rough releases

2.231 Oct 2026

Health trend

Composite health score, snapshotted daily

3831 Oct 2026

Update activity

How busy the existing users are, measured as downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites. A spike means a new release everyone's pulling; a long, slow decline means an aging user base that updates less.

67631 Oct 2026

Release cadence

No release in a year
from wp.org release tags

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

0

releases in the last 12 months

3.7y ago

latest release · v2.10.2 · 21 Feb 2023

25

tagged releases on record

Recent releases

2.10.2 · 21 Feb 20232.10.1 · 23 Nov 20222.10.0 · 23 Nov 20222.9.11 · 12 May 20222.9.10 · 7 Dec 20182.9.9 · 7 Dec 20182.9.8 · 30 Nov 20182.9.7 · 28 Jul 20162.9.6 · 4 Jun 20152.9.5 · 4 Sep 20142.9.4 · 19 May 20122.9.3 · 28 Dec 20112.9.2 · 7 Dec 20112.9.1 · 20 May 2011

What its installed base runs

via wordpress.org

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 60% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

v2.10 60%
v2.9 40%

Estimated active installs

The public count shows “500+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.

tracked estimate
500–600 ≈550

Crossed into this band 10 months ago; a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, which places it about 50% of the way through.

Install history since 8 Nov 2016

50031 Oct 2026

Recent reviews

All reviews on wp.org ↗
  1. ★★★★★ doniking
    3.7y ago

    the plugin was successfuly installed. But then I couldn’t enter the comment section. I registered, the registration email went to spam folder 🙂 and connect my WP installation with their API, ok now I can go to comment section, but it then still requires me to connect with their API. After connecting for the second time, an error page showed up saying “Connection refused”.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  2. ★★★★★ Dan Roundhill
    3.8y ago

    Thanks to whoever added the plugin icon. Much better!

    Read on wp.org ↗
  3. ★★★★★ Sabinooo
    10.7y ago

    My honest opinion, IntenseDebate was something awesome in the start, but sadly Automattic gave up on it, and with every month IntenseDebate is becoming something of the past. Now, there is no way to contact the support team, the development is abandoned, and the number of bugs is growing. I recently checked my website’s apache error log: GAZILLIONS of serious errors caused by incorrect SQL behaviour on the intensedebate end. This was terrible. Time to give up on it, adieu, this is a pity.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  4. ★★★★★ rafajaques
    10.8y ago

    The plugin works fine, even with the latest release of WordPress. But it does not work very well (intensedebate login) when using Rocket Loader (JS).

    Read on wp.org ↗
  5. ★★★★★ Ham Sammich
    11.5y ago

    Can’t log into my comments page in the WP admin to moderate comments – keeps asking me to log in to IntenseDebate no matter how many times I do. Tried resetting the plugin, reimporting comments, and then finally deleting and reinstalling the plugin entirely. Now it just sits there saying “Queued, waiting for import” on the settings page. I tried contacting support at IntenseDebate.com, but received no reply. Going to look into switching to Disqus, I guess.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  6. ★★★★★ happyorright
    11.8y ago

    I had to quickly disable this plugin. I don’t remember the exact error but it was unusable. Chimacintosh

    Read on wp.org ↗
  7. ★★★★★ Elmagnifico
    12.9y ago

    I am so sorry, but i will not let you generate traffic using my site and redirecting my users to your site! this system is for small and trial sites that doesn’t care about their name or reputation, not for sites that cares who visits them, i looked everywhere for an option that lets me disable the ‘view intense database profile’ and it was nowhere to be found! i think it’s really unprofessional to have that, i’m sorry but you don’t deserve more than one star for this move. Uninstalled and forgotten.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  8. ★★★★★ p.law
    13.1y ago

    Some html parsing is broken (don’t try putting an image tag after a link in the same comment), prone to seemingly random errors, only a tiny handful of plugins, terrible documentation, the list goes on and on.

    Read on wp.org ↗

Behavioral tests

via WP Hive

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 8.1.12 · WP 6.1.1

✓ Low memory footprint
✓ Low page-speed impact
✓ Runs on latest PHP + WP
✓ No PHP errors
✓ No JS errors
✓ Activates cleanly
✓ No resource errors
✓ No external HTTP errors
✓ Optimized database use
✕ Frequently updated

Languages

via translate.wordpress.org

Translated into 1 language, 0 at 90% or more

Ukrainian 25%

AI assistants

How it's measured →

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.

Readme readiness

4 of 8 pass · checked 25 Oct 2026

Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.

  • ✓ Says what it does "IntenseDebate comments enhance and encourage conversation on your blog. Build your reader community, increa..."
  • ✓ Has a FAQ 4 questions in the FAQ.
  • ✓ FAQ asks real questions 4 of 4 read like questions a user would type.
  • ! Names who it is for Never says who the plugin is for or what they use it for.
  • ✓ Names what it works with Mentions Twitter.
  • ! Headings and lists 0 headings and 0 lists; assistants quote headed sections and bullet lists, not paragraphs.
  • ! Enough to quote 659 characters of description; under 1,000 there is little to quote.
  • ! Tags match the text Only 1 of 5 tags appear in the text ("avatars", "profile", "spam", "widget" missing).

Growth timeline

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

  1. 2026-01-15 600+ → 500+ down after 32 days in tier
  2. 2025-12-14 500+ → 600+ up after 11 days in tier
  3. 2025-12-03 600+ → 500+ down after 369 days in tier
  4. 2024-11-29 700+ → 600+ down after 253 days in tier
  5. 2024-03-21 800+ → 700+ down after 1 days in tier
  6. 2024-03-20 700+ → 800+ up after 1 days in tier
  7. 2024-03-19 800+ → 700+ down after 1 days in tier
  8. 2024-03-18 700+ → 800+ 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 IntenseDebate Comments into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

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Preview card ↗

IntenseDebate Comments: 500+ active installs, 2.2★ (9 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/intensedebate

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