Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “feedbacks”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 7 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

Gutena Forms – Contact Form, Survey Form, Feedback Form, Booking Form, and Custom Form Builder shows at wp.org #9 but places #17 on merit, a gap of 8 places. Its 20K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.5★ average from 11 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Quiz and Survey Master (QSM) – Quiz Maker & Survey Maker places #12 on merit, 4.7★ from 1282 reviews, but shows at wp.org #17. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Code Snippets 1M+ · 4.7★ (510) wp.org #1 2 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2144) wp.org #3 ↑1 1 too low 3 kk Star Ratings – Rate Post & Collect User Feedbacks 70K+ · 3.9★ (171) wp.org #2 1 too high 4 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 UserFeedback – Create Interactive Feedback Form, User Surveys, and Polls in Seconds 200K+ · 4.8★ (309) wp.org #4 ↓1 1 too high 6 Customer Reviews for WooCommerce 80K+ · 4.8★ (1539) wp.org #6 7 Strong Testimonials 80K+ · 4.8★ (614) wp.org #8 ↑1 1 too low 8 MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor 500K+ · 4.7★ (509) wp.org #7 1 too high 9 Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) 3M+ · 4.9★ (8869) wp.org #11 ↑5 2 too low 10 MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation 500K+ · 4.4★ (1435) wp.org #12 2 too low 11 Comments – wpDiscuz 60K+ · 4.7★ (581) wp.org #13 ↓1 2 too low 12 Quiz and Survey Master (QSM) – Quiz Maker & Survey Maker 40K+ · 4.7★ (1282) wp.org #17 5 too low 13 SVG Support 1M+ · 4.8★ (356) wp.org #10 ↓2 3 too high 14 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7322) wp.org #18 ↑2 4 too low 15 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7520) wp.org #22 ↑1 7 too low 16 Rate My Post – Star Rating Plugin by FeedbackWP 20K+ · 4.7★ (159) wp.org #16 ↓1 17 Gutena Forms – Contact Form, Survey Form, Feedback Form, Booking Form, and Custom Form Builder 20K+ · 4.5★ (11) wp.org #9 ↑2 8 too high 18 Marker.io – Visual Website Feedback 4K+ · 5.0★ (44) wp.org #24 6 too low 19 Feedbucket – Website Feedback Tool 1K+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #14 ↓1 5 too high 20 Helpful – Article Feedback Plugin 600+ · 4.4★ (8) wp.org #21 ↑1 1 too low 21 Testimonial Customer Feedback 1K+ · 4.0★ (4) wp.org #15 ↓1 6 too high 22 SurveyX Builder – Survey, Poll, Quiz & Feedback Form 2K+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #20 ↑1 2 too high 23 Feedback Button – Jotform 600+ · 4.0★ (3) wp.org #19 4 too high 24 Business Reviews – build trust with real customer feedback 1K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #23 1 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.