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← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “brush”

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 “brush”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 7 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

AllTerrain Photo Editor – Crop, Resize, Paint & Photo Filters shows at wp.org #11 but places #22 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 10+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.0★ average from 2 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 AI Engine – MCP Server & AI Chatbot for WordPress, with Claude, ChatGPT & Gemini 90K+ · 4.9★ (874) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 M Mesmerize Companion 50K+ · 4.4★ (51) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 Graphina – Charts and Graphs For Elementor 9K+ · 4.1★ (16) wp.org #3 4 JetFormBuilder — Dynamic Blocks Form Builder 80K+ · 4.2★ (72) wp.org #7 3 too low 5 O One Page Express Companion 10K+ · 4.7★ (11) wp.org #5 6 M Materialis Companion 6K+ · 4.7★ (10) wp.org #6 7 Shape Dividers Plus for Elementor 2K+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #2 ↓1 5 too high 8 Genolve – AI Business Graphics, Images & Video 100+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #9 1 too low 9 Awesome Guten Text – 8 Powerful Blocks for Gutenberg 200+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #10 1 too low 10 Project Pages – Portfolio Template, Portfolio Maker, Work Context Explorer! 30+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 AI Image Generator – Easy image creation with AI 100+ · 4.5★ (8) wp.org #19 8 too low 12 Imajinn – Magical AI Image Generation 200+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #14 ↑1 2 too low 13 SyntaxHighlighter Evolved: SASS Brush 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 5 too high 14 Bright Addons for Elementor 30+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #15 ↑2 1 too low 15 Kogility Image Editor for WooCommerce 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #12 ↑1 3 too high 16 MoxKit Addons for Elementor 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↑5 17 WunderPaint – The Dynamic Design and Automation Studio 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 ↓1 18 R Rakugaki Block — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 19 Visuaro – Product Designer for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 ↑3 1 too low 20 Mixer Dynamic Cursor — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↓1 1 too low 21 Precise Expressions Product Customiser 3D Lite — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 1 too low 22 AllTerrain Photo Editor – Crop, Resize, Paint & Photo Filters 10+ · 4.0★ (2) wp.org #11 ↑1 11 too high 23 Forma Grid Gallery — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 24 Wille GEO – AI Crawler Stats, llms.txt & AI Visibility — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24

Merit ranking caps the install boost at 1M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted Bayesian 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.