Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “manifest.json”

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 “manifest.json”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 2 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.

merit plugin wp.org
1 PWA — easy way to Progressive Web App 1K+ · 4.8★ (26) wp.org #1 2 Better Robots.txt – AI-Ready Crawl Control & Bot Governance 5K+ · 4.5★ (102) wp.org #4 2 too low 3 Text To Speech TTS Accessibility 4K+ · 4.8★ (92) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 AI for Home Services 800+ · 5.0★ (3) wp.org #2 2 too high 5 Markdown for Agents and Statistics 200+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #3 2 too high 6 WhoKnew Signal – Self-Hosted Web Push Notifications & PWA 30+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #9 3 too low 7 PWA – Progressive Web App Builder by WPCodeQuill 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #6 1 too high 8 WP DevOps Dashboard 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #8 9 RVS Database Doctor 10+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #7 2 too high 10 CodingFreaks Cookie Manager 10+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #10 11 OJapp PWA Marketing — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #11 12 NexraOne Agent 40+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #13 1 too low 13 Portabrief — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #14 1 too low 14 Website Recovery Importer — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 1 too low 15 Adflipr for WooCommerce — · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #12 3 too high 16 DMK Animation Engine for Elementor — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #16 17 IPS Cart&Checkout for WooCommerce — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #17 18 Bildirim — Web Push Notifications — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 19 OneEuroLabs Site Migration & Backup — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #19 20 Vantus Widget — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #20 21 Botailor ModelContext Integrator for AI — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #21 22 TrueSift Ad Detect — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #22 23 Veridis News Desk – Editorial Workflow & Newsroom — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #23 24 Undelly – Backup & Restore — · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #24

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.