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← Rankings

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

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 “cacheable”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 4 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

Bender – Mosaic Image Protection shows at wp.org #10 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 4 places. Its — installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 1 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

merit plugin wp.org
1 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #1 2 GTM4WP – A Google Tag Manager (GTM) plugin for WordPress 700K+ · 4.5★ (155) wp.org #2 3 Proxy Cache Purge 50K+ · 4.4★ (26) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 WP Remove Query Strings From Static Resources 3K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #3 1 too high 5 Holiday Mode for WooCommerce 700+ · 4.6★ (5) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 Warmer – Cache Warmer and Cache Preload Crawler 80+ · 4.3★ (8) wp.org #6 7 Seekmodo Search — · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #11 4 too low 8 Code and core Headless Fast API – Standalone, cacheable REST endpoints that skip the core load cycle — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 1 too high 9 KineticHub Page Loader – Preloader & Branded Loading Screen 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 1 too high 10 CDNTR – Image Optimization, Next-Gen Images (WebP/AVIF) & CDN Cache — · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #14 4 too low 11 Juliet Just Masks 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #9 2 too high 12 MHM Currency Switcher 10+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #15 ↑1 3 too low 13 A Add on for Sendinblue(brevo) on Gravity Forms 60+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #12 1 too high 14 Bender – Mosaic Image Protection — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #10 4 too high 15 Simple Post Preview & Review 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 2 too high 16 Datalayer Tracking via DATA Reshape for WooCommerce 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 ↓1 17 URLs Most Wanted for LiteSpeed LScache — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 Live Product Search for WooCommerce – Gatemi — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 19 SVG Forge Icon Manager — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 20 SCP Dynamics ESI Bridge — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 21 Flexa Wishlist for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 22 Wishmio — Wishlist for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓1 23 LW Simple Forms 20+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 ↑2 24 {eac}Doojigger Simple CDN Extension for WordPress — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24 ↓1

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.