wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “long 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 “long form”, 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 #15 but places #23 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.
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.
WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14387)
wp.org #1 2 
Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (808)
wp.org #2 3 
Ultra Addons for Contact Form 7 60K+ · 4.8★ (108)
wp.org #3 4 
Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1397)
wp.org #4 5 
Bit Form – Contact Form, Payment Forms, Multi Step Forms, Calculator & Custom Form Builder 10K+ · 5.0★ (259)
wp.org #5 6 
Formidable Forms – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Payment, Calculator Form & Custom Form Builder 300K+ · 4.8★ (1388)
wp.org #9 3 too low 7 
MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor 500K+ · 4.7★ (509)
wp.org #7 8 
CF7 Apps – Addons for Contact Form 7 (Honeypot, Database, Redirection, Webhook, etc.) 300K+ · 3.8★ (135)
wp.org #6 2 too high 9 
SureForms – Contact Form Builder, AI Forms, Payment Form, Survey & Quiz 500K+ · 4.8★ (102)
wp.org #8 1 too high 10 
Form Maker by 10Web – Mobile-Friendly Drag & Drop Contact Form Builder 30K+ · 4.5★ (778)
wp.org #13 3 too low 11 
Contact Form by Supsystic – Drag & Drop Form Builder with Templates & Form Statistics 6K+ · 4.7★ (92)
wp.org #10 1 too high 12 
Form Vibes – Save Contact Form 7 & Elementor Form Entries to Database 10K+ · 4.9★ (133)
wp.org #14 2 too low 13 
Essential Addons for Elementor – Popular Elementor Templates & Widgets 1M+ · 4.9★ (4132)
wp.org #23 ↑1 10 too low 14 
Table of Contents Plus – Automatic Table of Contents for Posts & Pages 200K+ · 4.5★ (187)
wp.org #16 2 too low 15 
Webheadcoder Multi-Step Forms for Contact Form 7 50K+ · 4.2★ (49)
wp.org #11 4 too high 16 
LukasApps CAPTCHA tools for Contact Form 7 100K+ · 4.1★ (48)
wp.org #12 4 too high 17 
Contact Form by BestWebSoft – Advanced WP Contact Form Builder for WordPress 30K+ · 4.0★ (292)
wp.org #21 ↓1 4 too low 18 
Subscribe Forms – Beautiful Email Forms, Embedded Newsletter Forms & MailChimp Form 2K+ · 4.7★ (60)
wp.org #17 1 too high 19 
Easy Form Builder by WhiteStudio – Drag & Drop Form Builder 1K+ · 5.0★ (70)
wp.org #22 ↓1 3 too low 20 
Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408)
wp.org #24 ↓1 4 too low 21 
Conditional Fields for Elementor Form – Apply Conditional Logic 10K+ · 4.7★ (32)
wp.org #19 ↓1 2 too high 22 
CF7 Mate – Contact Form 7 Styler, Multi-Step Forms & Conditional Logic 20K+ · 3.9★ (46)
wp.org #18 4 too high 23 Gutena Forms – Contact Form, Survey Form, Feedback Form, Booking Form, and Custom Form Builder 20K+ · 4.5★ (11) thin reviews
wp.org #15 8 too high 24 
Hash Form – Drag & Drop Form Builder 3K+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews
wp.org #20 ↓1 4 too high Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (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.