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Honest rankings: “membership”

WordPress.org search rewards raw install count with no ceiling, so the biggest install bases float to the top regardless of quality signals. Here's what searchers actually see, next to a merit ranking that caps the install factor and weights ratings by review volume. How this works →

Install-weight distortion

WCFM Membership – WooCommerce Memberships for Multivendor Marketplace sits at wp.org #7 but earns only #21 on merit , 97% of its ranking comes from install count alone, on 10K+ installs at just 4.0★.

Buried gem

CleanTalk Anti-Spam. Spam Firewall & Bot protection deserves #2 on merit but wp.org shows it at #18 , 4.8★ from 3196 reviews, buried by lower-quality plugins with bigger install counts.

wp.org merit plugin Δ
1 #11 Simple Membership 40K+ · 4.6★ (472) +10 2 #3 Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1263) +1 3 #6 Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin 200K+ · 4.4★ (1445) +3 4 #12 Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction 10K+ · 4.7★ (264) +8 5 — #5 User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (825) 0 6 #1 WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4809) -5 7 #21 WCFM Membership – WooCommerce Memberships for Multivendor Marketplace 10K+ · 4.0★ (25) +14 8 #22 Simple Membership Custom Messages 7K+ · 5.0★ (4) +14 9 — #9 WP-Members Membership Plugin 50K+ · 4.6★ (272) 0 10 #17 Simple Membership After Login Redirection 10K+ · 4.8★ (15) +7 11 #23 Simple Membership WP user Import 4K+ · 5.0★ (2) +12 12 #4 MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation 500K+ · 4.4★ (1423) -8 13 — #13 Kit (formerly ConvertKit) – Email Newsletter, Email Marketing, Membership, Subscribers and Landing Pages 40K+ · 4.8★ (90) 0 14 #18 Membership For WooCommerce 900+ · 4.4★ (28) +4 15 #20 Membership Plugin – Kadence Memberships 9K+ · 3.1★ (99) +5 16 #10 WP User Manager – User Profile Builder & Membership 10K+ · 4.7★ (349) -6 17 #15 Paid Membership Plugin, Ecommerce, User Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile & Restrict Content – ProfilePress 100K+ · 3.1★ (936) -2 18 #2 CleanTalk Anti-Spam. Spam Firewall & Bot protection 200K+ · 4.8★ (3196) -16 19 #24 Simple Membership MailChimp Integration 900+ · 3.0★ (2) +5 20 #7 Relevanssi – A Better Search 100K+ · 4.8★ (404) -13 21 #16 MembershipWorks – Membership, Events & Directory 2K+ · 4.4★ (37) -5 22 #14 Youzify – BuddyPress Community, User Profile, Social Network & Membership Plugin for WordPress 5K+ · 4.9★ (193) -8 23 #8 Import and export users and customers 70K+ · 4.7★ (256) -15 24 #19 Memberful – Membership Plugin 1K+ · 4.7★ (13) -5

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.