Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “cloudflare”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 10 of the top 20. 2 plugins are pushed down for signals wp.org ignores: errors, a host-installed base, or removal risk.

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 it throws errors on current PHP, 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

WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More places #10 on merit, 4.8★ from 14387 reviews, but shows at wp.org #20. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 200K+ · 4.7★ (262) wp.org #1 2 Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 70K+ · 4.8★ (517) wp.org #2 ↑1 3 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #4 ↓2 1 too low 4 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #6 ↑1 2 too low 5 Cloudflare 200K+ · 3.5★ (181) wp.org #3 ↑1 2 too high 6 Flexible SSL for CloudFlare 100K+ · 4.8★ (51) wp.org #5 ↑1 1 too high 7 WP Fastest Cache – WordPress Cache Plugin 1M+ · 4.9★ (4228) wp.org #12 ↑2 5 too low 8 Advanced Media Offloader – Offload Media to Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces & More 7K+ · 4.7★ (48) wp.org #7 ↑1 1 too high 9 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2143) wp.org #18 9 too low 10 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387) wp.org #20 ↓1 10 too low 11 Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ · 4.9★ (4940) wp.org #11 ↑1 12 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #14 ↑8 2 too low 13 Essential Addons for Elementor – Popular Elementor Templates & Widgets 1M+ · 4.9★ (4132) wp.org #21 8 too low 14 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #23 9 too low 15 Offload, AI & Optimize with Cloudflare Images 1K+ · 4.9★ (33) wp.org #15 16 GTM4WP – A Google Tag Manager (GTM) plugin for WordPress 700K+ · 4.5★ (155) wp.org #22 ↓2 6 too low 17 App for Cloudflare® 1K+ · 4.7★ (14) wp.org #9 8 too high 18 Kitgenix CAPTCHA for Cloudflare Turnstile 700+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #8 ↑2 10 too high 19 Enable Turnstile (Cloudflare) for Gravity Forms 1K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #10 ↑1 9 too high 20 Super Preloader for Cloudflare 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #13 7 too high 21 Cloud Maestro – WAF Security Suite for Cloudflare 70+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #16 ↑1 5 too high 22 ES Football Bypass for Cloudflare 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #17 ↑4 5 too high 23 SuperFlare Cache – Cloudflare Cache & Auto-Purging 70+ · 4.4★ (9) wp.org #24 1 too low 24 CPW Media Offload for Cloudflare R2 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #19 5 too high

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.