wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “machine”
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 “machine”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 15 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
Archiveo – Importer for the Wayback Machine shows at wp.org #6 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 18 places. Its 200+ 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.
Buried gem
Titan Anti-spam & Security – Brute Force Protection, 2FA & Spam Filter places #11 on merit, 4.5★ from 370 reviews, but shows at wp.org #20. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.
Translate WordPress with GTranslate 900K+ · 4.9★ (4962)
wp.org #1 2 
Polylang 900K+ · 4.7★ (3004)
wp.org #3 ↑1 1 too low 3 
Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ · 4.9★ (4940)
wp.org #7 4 too low 4 
Translate WordPress – Google Language Translator 100K+ · 4.7★ (620)
wp.org #9 5 too low 5 
LocoAI – Auto Translate for Loco Translate 70K+ · 4.9★ (642)
wp.org #12 ↓2 7 too low 6 
WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway 700K+ · 3.1★ (237) low rating, top placement
wp.org #4 ↓1 2 too high 7 
WPML Multilingual & Multicurrency for WooCommerce 100K+ · 4.2★ (454)
wp.org #11 4 too low 8 
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer 1K+ · 3.8★ (8) thin reviews
wp.org #2 6 too high 9 
Smart COD for WooCommerce 30K+ · 4.6★ (52)
wp.org #10 ↑5 1 too low 10 
AI Translation For TranslatePress 10K+ · 4.8★ (69)
wp.org #13 ↑1 3 too low 11 Titan Anti-spam & Security – Brute Force Protection, 2FA & Spam Filter 50K+ · 4.5★ (370)
wp.org #20 ↑1 9 too low 12 
hCaptcha for WP 70K+ · 4.6★ (88)
wp.org #15 ↓3 3 too low 13 
Broken Link Checker 500K+ · 3.8★ (605)
wp.org #16 ↑3 3 too low 14 
SQLite Object Cache 10K+ · 5.0★ (51)
wp.org #18 4 too low 15 
WP Super Cache 1M+ · 4.3★ (1346)
wp.org #24 9 too low 16 
Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102)
wp.org #21 ↑1 5 too low 17 
Translate and boost SEO – Automatic AI translation – wpLingua 2K+ · 4.9★ (33)
wp.org #17 ↓1 18 
Page Builder: Pagelayer – Drag and Drop website builder 400K+ · 3.9★ (104)
wp.org #22 ↑2 4 too low 19 
Post/Page Specific Custom Code 6K+ · 4.6★ (42)
wp.org #23 4 too low 20 
Royal MCP – Secure AI Connector for Claude, ChatGPT & any LLM via MCP 10K+ · 5.0★ (7) thin reviews
wp.org #14 ↓1 6 too high 21 
Time Machine 40+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews
wp.org #5 16 too high 22 
JSM Screenshot Machine Shortcode 20+ · 5.0★ (3) thin reviews
wp.org #8 14 too high 23 
Resizable Sidebar for the Gutenberg Block Editor 3K+ · 4.6★ (9) thin reviews
wp.org #19 ↓2 4 too high 24 Archiveo – Importer for the Wayback Machine 200+ · 5.0★ (1) thin reviews
wp.org #6 18 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.