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Honest rankings: “cache”

WordPress.org search rewards raw install count with no ceiling, so the biggest install bases float to the top regardless of quality signals. Here's what searchers actually see, next to a merit ranking that caps the install factor and weights ratings by review volume. How this works →

Install-weight distortion

Aruba HiSpeed Cache sits at wp.org #16 but earns only #21 on merit , 97% of its ranking comes from install count alone, on 100K+ installs at just 3.0★.

Buried gem

atec Cache APCu deserves #16 on merit but wp.org shows it at #24 , 4.9★ from 20 reviews, buried by lower-quality plugins with bigger install counts.

wp.org merit plugin Δ
1 — #1 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2761) 0 2 — #2 WP Fastest Cache – WordPress Cache Plugin 1M+ · 4.9★ (4220) 0 3 #5 W3 Total Cache 900K+ · 4.4★ (5419) +2 4 #6 Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 60K+ · 4.8★ (499) +2 5 #7 Redis Object Cache 400K+ · 4.5★ (175) +2 6 #3 WP-Optimize – Cache, Compress images, Minify & Clean database to boost page speed & performance 1M+ · 4.8★ (2593) -3 7 #4 WP Super Cache 1M+ · 4.3★ (1343) -3 8 #12 Breeze Cache 400K+ · 3.6★ (125) +4 9 #8 SQLite Object Cache 10K+ · 5.0★ (50) -1 10 — #10 WP REST Cache 10K+ · 4.9★ (42) 0 11 #9 Cache Enabler 90K+ · 4.3★ (139) -2 12 #15 Docket Cache – Object Cache Accelerator 20K+ · 4.9★ (50) +3 13 #14 Clear Cache for Me 40K+ · 4.8★ (29) +1 14 #13 SpeedyCache – Cache, Optimization, Performance 600K+ · 4.5★ (29) -1 15 #11 Hyper Cache 8K+ · 4.5★ (82) -4 16 #21 Aruba HiSpeed Cache 100K+ · 3.0★ (10) +5 17 #18 CLP Varnish Cache 10K+ · 5.0★ (7) +1 18 #17 Nginx Cache 10K+ · 4.6★ (23) -1 19 #20 The Cache Purger 1K+ · 4.5★ (6) +1 20 #24 Automatic Cache Flusher for W3 Total Cache 4K+ · 5.0★ (1) +4 21 #19 WPGraphQL Smart Cache 7K+ · 5.0★ (4) -2 22 — #22 Pantheon Advanced Page Cache 10K+ · 5.0★ (1) 0 23 — #23 Ergonet Cache 2K+ · 5.0★ (1) 0 24 #16 atec Cache APCu 3K+ · 4.9★ (20) -8

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.