wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “many to many”
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 “many to many”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 3 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
WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway shows at wp.org #3 but places #8 on merit, a gap of 5 places. Its 700K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 3.1★ average from 237 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.
Site Kit by Google – Analytics, Search Console, AdSense, Speed 5M+ · 4.2★ (1,014)
wp.org #2 ↑2 3 
AddToAny Share Buttons 300K+ · 4.7★ (1,114)
wp.org #4 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 4 
WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4,834)
wp.org #5 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 5 
UpdraftPlus: WP Backup & Migration Plugin 4M+ · 4.8★ (8,716)
wp.org #6 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 6 
Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2,147)
wp.org #7 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 7 
Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224)
wp.org #9 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 8 WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway 700K+ · 3.1★ (237) low rating, top placement
wp.org #3 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 9 
WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – SMTP for Reliable Email Delivery with Gmail, Outlook, Amazon SES, Brevo, Other SMTP & More 4M+ · 4.8★ (5,211)
wp.org #10 ↑4 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 10 
Payment Plugins for Stripe WooCommerce 100K+ · 4.8★ (303)
wp.org #11 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 11 
Click to Chat – HoliThemes 600K+ · 4.8★ (131)
wp.org #8 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 12 
The Events Calendar 600K+ · 4.2★ (2,463)
wp.org #12 ↑4 13 
Premium Addons for Elementor – AI-Ready Elementor Addons, Widgets & Templates 600K+ · 4.9★ (1,680)
wp.org #15 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 14 
Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7,522)
wp.org #16 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 15 
All-In-One Security (AIOS) – Security and Firewall 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,720)
wp.org #13 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 16 
404 to 301 – Redirect Manager, 301 Redirection, 404 Error Logs & 404 Monitoring 100K+ · 4.7★ (321)
wp.org #14 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 17 
Media File Renamer: Rename Images & Files for SEO (AI-Powered) 40K+ · 4.6★ (448)
wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 18 
Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields 100K+ · 4.8★ (418)
wp.org #20 ↓5 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 19 
FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (413)
wp.org #17 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 20 
Autoptimize 800K+ · 4.7★ (1,429)
wp.org #24 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 21 
Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2,409)
wp.org #18 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 22 
GA Google Analytics – Connect Google Analytics to WordPress 400K+ · 4.9★ (158)
wp.org #22 23 
Simple Custom CSS and JS 600K+ · 4.4★ (104)
wp.org #23 ↓4 24 
Many points on the map 10+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews
wp.org #21 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit Merit ranking caps the install boost at 10M (wp.org leaves it uncapped), replaces the raw star average with a volume-weighted 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.