Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “gated”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 16 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

Gated Downloads – Lead Capture & Content Locker shows at wp.org #7 but places #23 on merit, a gap of 16 places. Its 40+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots places #10 on merit, 4.8★ from 142 reviews, but shows at wp.org #19. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Download Monitor 80K+ · 4.5★ (525) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Age Gate 40K+ · 4.6★ (64) wp.org #3 ↑2 1 too low 3 Easy Digital Downloads – eCommerce Payments and Subscriptions made easy 40K+ · 4.7★ (592) wp.org #9 6 too low 4 User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (832) wp.org #10 6 too low 5 Popup Builder & Popup Maker for WordPress – OptinMonster Email Marketing and Lead Generation 1M+ · 4.3★ (821) wp.org #8 3 too low 6 Pixel Manager for WooCommerce – Conversion Tracking, Google Ads, GA4, TikTok, Dynamic Remarketing 40K+ · 4.9★ (399) wp.org #14 8 too low 7 Royal MCP – Secure AI Connector for Claude, ChatGPT & any LLM via MCP 10K+ · 5.0★ (7) wp.org #4 ↓1 3 too high 8 FluentSnippets – High-Performance Code Snippets, Header & Footer Code, Custom CSS & PHP Code Manager 50K+ · 4.7★ (78) wp.org #12 ↑4 4 too low 9 ActiveLayer Anti-Spam: Spam Protection for Forms & Comments 10K+ · 4.9★ (10) wp.org #6 3 too high 10 Better Messages – Chat Rooms, Group Chat, Private Messages & AI Chat Bots 10K+ · 4.8★ (142) wp.org #19 ↑1 9 too low 11 Email Gated Downloads 100+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #1 10 too high 12 CatFolders Document Gallery & PDF Library 3K+ · 4.5★ (15) wp.org #11 ↑4 1 too high 13 Contact Form 7 Gated Content 700+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #5 ↓1 8 too high 14 Enable Abilities for MCP 5K+ · 5.0★ (17) wp.org #18 ↓2 4 too low 15 Memberful – Membership Plugin 1K+ · 4.7★ (13) wp.org #15 ↓1 16 EU Withdrawal and Legal Guarantee Compliance 1K+ · 5.0★ (17) wp.org #20 ↑1 4 too low 17 WP Mautic 5K+ · 4.9★ (8) wp.org #13 4 too high 18 Export WordPress Pages to Static HTML & PDF — Static Site Export 4K+ · 3.8★ (51) wp.org #21 ↑2 3 too low 19 Serial Codes Generator and Validator with WooCommerce Support 700+ · 4.6★ (13) wp.org #24 5 too low 20 WP-EMail 1K+ · 4.5★ (11) wp.org #23 ↑1 3 too low 21 Agent Abilities for MCP – Connect Claude and ChatGPT with Permission Controls and Audit Log 800+ · 4.8★ (5) wp.org #16 ↓5 5 too high 22 Hyvor Talk – Comments, Newsletters, Memberships 90+ · 5.0★ (5) wp.org #17 ↓1 5 too high 23 Gated Downloads – Lead Capture & Content Locker 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #7 16 too high 24 Restrictions for BuddyPress 300+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #22 2 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.