Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “bbpress captcha add on”

wp.org orders by popularity, so a plugin a host bundled onto millions of sites, or a big-brand one that's slow and mediocre, can sit at the top. Our ranking is built to answer a different question: which of these is actually worth installing. How this works →

For “bbpress captcha add on”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 of the top 20.

wp.org search ranks on

Install count (uncapped), the raw star average, freshness, and support. Popularity dominates, so the biggest install base usually wins regardless of how it got there.

We add

A cap on the install boost, volume-weighted ratings, and signals wp.org can't see: whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

Kitgenix CAPTCHA for Cloudflare Turnstile shows at wp.org #8 but places #18 on merit, a gap of 10 places. Its 700+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 6 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor places #8 on merit, 4.7★ from 738 reviews, but shows at wp.org #15. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

How this rank is calculated

Each plugin's merit score multiplies these inputs together: how recently it was updated, how current its "tested up to" WordPress version is, its install base (log scale, capped at 10 million), its support thread resolution rate, and a rating score. The rating score weights the star average by review volume against a sitewide prior, then scales it by the lower bound of the share of 4 and 5 star reviews. A plugin with 3.7 stars from tens of thousands of reviews can still outscore a 4.9 with a few dozen, because the small sample carries less certainty.

A health factor between 0.4 and 1.15 then adjusts that score for what wp.org's search can't see: PHP fatals or failed activations on a test install, PHP and WordPress compatibility, memory and page-speed footprint, suspicious review patterns, closure risk, and a large install base with very few reviews. Clean, adopted plugins earn a small lift.

A keyword ranking starts from wp.org's search order for the term, weighting each position by 1 divided by its place, then applies the merit correction and health factor above. Relevance to the keyword stays in the result, so the order can differ from the all-categories list on /best, which scores plugins with no search term.

Hover a row to see the main reason for its position.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 200K+ · 4.7★ (262) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224) wp.org #4 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 3 WPBruiser Security – No CAPTCHA Anti-Spam & Login Protection 10K+ · 4.6★ (213) wp.org #3 4 SilentShield – Captcha & Anti-Spam for WordPress (CF7, WPForms, Elementor, WooCommerce) 10K+ · 4.7★ (24) wp.org #2 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 5 reCaptcha by BestWebSoft 100K+ · 3.9★ (391) wp.org #6 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 6 WP Armour – Honeypot Anti Spam 400K+ · 5.0★ (1,475) wp.org #12 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 7 All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,720) wp.org #10 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 8 User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor 40K+ · 4.7★ (738) wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 9 CAPTCHA 4WP – Antispam CAPTCHA solution for WordPress 100K+ · 3.2★ (269) wp.org #7 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 10 Invisible Anti-Spam & CAPTCHA — reCAPTCHA Alternative for All Forms 5K+ · 4.8★ (50) wp.org #9 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 11 Captcha by BestWebSoft – Advanced Spam Protection, Math & OCR-Friendly Captcha for Site Forms 10K+ · 4.1★ (21) wp.org #5 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 12 hCaptcha for WP 70K+ · 4.6★ (88) wp.org #13 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 13 Hide My WP Ghost – Security & Firewall 100K+ · 4.5★ (373) wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 14 UsersWP – Front-end login form, User Registration, User Profile & Members Directory plugin for WP 20K+ · 4.7★ (183) wp.org #18 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 15 LearnPress – WordPress LMS Plugin for Create and Sell Online Courses 70K+ · 4.3★ (597) wp.org #21 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 16 WP Hide & Security Enhancer 50K+ · 4.3★ (275) wp.org #20 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 17 ReCaptcha Integration for WordPress 9K+ · 4.4★ (95) wp.org #23 ↓5 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 18 Kitgenix CAPTCHA for Cloudflare Turnstile 700+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #8 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 10 places above merit 19 Anti-spam Reloaded 1K+ · 5.0★ (14) wp.org #17 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 20 ActiveLayer Anti-Spam: Spam Protection for Forms & Comments 10K+ · 4.9★ (10) wp.org #24 ↓4 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 21 Easy Spam Filter – Privacy-Friendly CAPTCHA Alternative with Turnstile for Contact Form 7, WPForms, BuddyPress, Elementor 1K+ · 4.0★ (7) wp.org #11 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 10 places above merit 22 reCAPTCHA for bbPress 700+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #16 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 23 Hizzle CAPTCHA – Protect your forms from spam 500+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 9 places above merit 24 Gatekeep – Universal CAPTCHA & Anti-Spam for All Forms & Comments 30+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted score and a Wilson lower bound, and keeps wp.org's own freshness and compatibility decays. Method from the plugin-directory source; see Meta Trac #8298. Positions are tracked daily from the first visit to a keyword, so the small arrows show movement since tracking began.