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

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 “form”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 9 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

Gutenverse Form – Contact Form Builder, Block Form & Booking Form shows at wp.org #13 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 10K+ 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 Contact Form 7 10M+ · 4.0★ (2186) wp.org #1 ↑1 2 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2144) wp.org #2 ↓1 3 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387) wp.org #3 4 Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (807) wp.org #4 5 Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1397) wp.org #5 ↑3 6 Database Addon for Contact Form 7 – CFDB7 600K+ · 5.0★ (1875) wp.org #8 ↑1 2 too low 7 Ultra Addons for Contact Form 7 60K+ · 4.8★ (108) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor 500K+ · 4.7★ (509) wp.org #7 ↑4 1 too high 9 Calculated Fields Form – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact, Payment, Quote, Quiz & More 40K+ · 4.9★ (973) wp.org #10 ↓5 1 too low 10 Bit Form – Contact Form, Payment Forms, Multi Step Forms, Calculator & Custom Form Builder 10K+ · 5.0★ (259) wp.org #9 ↑10 1 too high 11 Formidable Forms – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Payment, Calculator Form & Custom Form Builder 300K+ · 4.8★ (1388) wp.org #14 ↓2 3 too low 12 WS Form LITE – Drag & Drop Contact Form Builder 10K+ · 5.0★ (322) wp.org #15 3 too low 13 User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor 40K+ · 4.7★ (738) wp.org #19 6 too low 14 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3221) wp.org #23 ↓9 9 too low 15 SureForms – Contact Form Builder, AI Forms, Payment Form, Survey & Quiz 500K+ · 4.8★ (102) wp.org #12 ↓2 3 too high 16 Everest Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form, Quiz, Survey & Custom Form Builder with AI 90K+ · 4.9★ (375) wp.org #20 4 too low 17 Form Maker by 10Web – Mobile-Friendly Drag & Drop Contact Form Builder 30K+ · 4.5★ (778) wp.org #22 ↓2 5 too low 18 CF7 Apps – Addons for Contact Form 7 (Honeypot, Database, Redirection, Webhook, etc.) 300K+ · 3.8★ (135) wp.org #11 ↓4 7 too high 19 Database for Contact Form 7, WPforms, Elementor forms 60K+ · 4.8★ (124) wp.org #18 ↓1 1 too high 20 Contact Form by Supsystic – Drag & Drop Form Builder with Templates & Form Statistics 6K+ · 4.7★ (92) wp.org #16 4 too high 21 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #21 22 Webheadcoder Multi-Step Forms for Contact Form 7 50K+ · 4.2★ (49) wp.org #17 ↓1 5 too high 23 Advanced Form Integration — Connect Forms to 300+ Apps 9K+ · 4.8★ (91) wp.org #24 ↓3 1 too low 24 Gutenverse Form – Contact Form Builder, Block Form & Booking Form 10K+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #13 11 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.