Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “ewww”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 5 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

S3 Image Optimizer shows at wp.org #9 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 100+ 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 EWWW Image Optimizer 1M+ · 4.8★ (1842) wp.org #1 2 Perfect Images: Regenerate Thumbnails, Image Sizes, WebP & AVIF 60K+ · 4.8★ (279) wp.org #3 1 too low 3 WP Offload Media Lite for Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, and Google Cloud Storage 30K+ · 3.7★ (115) wp.org #2 1 too high 4 FileBird – WordPress Media Library Folders & File Manager 200K+ · 4.7★ (1125) wp.org #6 ↑1 2 too low 5 WebP Express 300K+ · 4.4★ (162) wp.org #4 1 too high 6 Seraphinite Accelerator 50K+ · 4.8★ (476) wp.org #7 ↓1 1 too low 7 Smart Image Resize for WooCommerce 7K+ · 4.6★ (82) wp.org #5 ↑3 2 too high 8 a3 Lazy Load 80K+ · 4.3★ (148) wp.org #10 2 too low 9 Advanced Media Offloader – Offload Media to Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces & More 7K+ · 4.7★ (48) wp.org #8 ↓3 1 too high 10 Media Cloud Sync 1K+ · 4.9★ (13) wp.org #11 1 too low 11 Infinite Uploads – Offload, Optimize & Organize Your Media Library 800+ · 4.4★ (20) wp.org #13 ↓1 2 too low 12 Anti-Cache Kit 10+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #19 7 too low 13 ABCode Cache Warmer 100+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #12 ↑1 1 too high 14 S3 Image Optimizer 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #9 5 too high 15 Auto WebP Converter & Logger 100+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 3 too low 16 Zamok – Security and Site Tools 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #14 2 too high 17 neo Optimize – Resize and cache images – the original remains untouched 30+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #15 ↑1 2 too high 18 Nahnu Cache Connector for Bunny.net 30+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 2 too low 19 Zealot Bulk Image Assign by SKU for WooCommerce 20+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #16 ↑1 3 too high 20 ColorBreezy — CMYK to sRGB Converter — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 ↑1 1 too low 21 CloudSync Master – Offload Media to S3, Cloudflare R2 & Google Cloud 20+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #17 ↓2 4 too high 22 I ImOptimizer – Optimize Images — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 ↓1 23 in1me CDN & Backups with pCloud — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 24 LoviPix – Local Image Optimizer & WebP — · 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.