wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “disable new user registration emails”
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 “disable new user registration emails”, 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
ProfilePress – Paid Membership, Online Courses (LMS), Ecommerce, User Registration & Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content shows at wp.org #10 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 4 places. Its 100K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 3.1★ average from 938 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.
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.
User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (832)
wp.org #1 2 
Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224)
wp.org #4 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 3 
Disable Emails 30K+ · 5.0★ (20) thin reviews
wp.org #2 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 4 
Newsletter – Send awesome emails from WordPress 200K+ · 4.6★ (1,205)
wp.org #5 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 5 
New User Approve 20K+ · 4.3★ (131)
wp.org #3 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 6 
User Frontend – Membership, User Registration, User Profile, User Directory & Content Restriction with Frontend Post Submission 20K+ · 4.1★ (537)
wp.org #6 7 
RegistrationMagic – Custom Registration Forms, User Registration, Payment, and User Login 7K+ · 4.5★ (459)
wp.org #7 8 
Post SMTP – Complete Email Delivery and SMTP Solution with Email Logs, Alerts, Backup SMTP & Mobile App 300K+ · 4.7★ (528)
wp.org #8 9 
All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,720)
wp.org #9 ↑2 10 
Admin and Site Enhancements (ASE) 200K+ · 5.0★ (423)
wp.org #11 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 11 
Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1,281)
wp.org #13 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 12 
UsersWP – Front-end login form, User Registration, User Profile & Members Directory plugin for WP 20K+ · 4.7★ (183)
wp.org #12 13 
User Submitted Posts – Enable Users to Submit Posts from the Front End 10K+ · 4.8★ (913)
wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 14 ProfilePress – Paid Membership, Online Courses (LMS), Ecommerce, User Registration & Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content 100K+ · 3.1★ (938)
wp.org #10 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 15 
Simple CAPTCHA with Cloudflare Turnstile 200K+ · 4.7★ (262)
wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 16 
FluentCRM – Email Newsletter, Automation, Email Marketing, Email Campaigns, Optins, Leads, and CRM Solution 80K+ · 4.8★ (251)
wp.org #17 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 17 
Loginizer 1M+ · 4.8★ (1,033)
wp.org #18 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 18 
Noptin – Newsletter, New Post Notifications & Email Automation 10K+ · 4.5★ (120)
wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 19 
Open User Map – Interactive Leaflet Maps 10K+ · 5.0★ (70)
wp.org #16 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 20 
Complianz GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,668)
wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 21 
Events Manager – Calendar, Bookings, Tickets, Appointments and more! 60K+ · 4.2★ (551)
wp.org #21 22 
Manage Notification E-mails 100K+ · 4.8★ (56)
wp.org #20 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 23 
Customer Email Verification for WooCommerce 8K+ · 4.8★ (47)
wp.org #23 24 
Event Genius – Event Calendar, Event Registration, and Attendee Management 600+ · 4.8★ (17) thin reviews
wp.org #24 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.