wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “membership plugin for site”
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 “membership plugin for site”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 11 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
WCFM Membership – WooCommerce Memberships for Multivendor Marketplace shows at wp.org #6 but places #13 on merit, a gap of 7 places. Its 10K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.0★ average from 25 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.
Buried gem
Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk places #11 on merit, 4.8★ from 3,224 reviews, but shows at wp.org #22. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.
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.
Simple Membership 40K+ · 4.6★ (476)
wp.org #1 ↑1 2 
Members – Membership & User Role Editor Plugin 300K+ · 4.9★ (1,281)
wp.org #2 ↓1 3 
Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin 200K+ · 4.4★ (1,445)
wp.org #3 4 
Paid Membership Subscriptions – Effortless Memberships, Recurring Payments & Content Restriction 10K+ · 4.7★ (270)
wp.org #4 5 
WP-Members Membership Plugin 50K+ · 4.6★ (272)
wp.org #5 ↑1 6 
Business Directory Plugin – Easy Listing & Member Directories for WordPress 10K+ · 4.6★ (504)
wp.org #8 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 7 
WooCommerce 7M+ · 4.5★ (4,835)
wp.org #9 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 8 
User Registration & Membership – Free & Paid Memberships, Subscriptions, Content Restriction, User Profile, Custom User Registration & Login Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (832)
wp.org #11 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 9 
Groups – Memberships and Access Control 10K+ · 4.8★ (382)
wp.org #12 ↑4 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 10 
GiveWP – Donation Plugin and Fundraising Platform 100K+ · 4.6★ (708)
wp.org #16 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 6 places below merit 11 Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224)
wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 11 places below merit 12 
Download Plugin 60K+ · 4.5★ (27)
wp.org #7 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 13 WCFM Membership – WooCommerce Memberships for Multivendor Marketplace 10K+ · 4.0★ (25)
wp.org #6 ↑3 wp.org ranks it 7 places above merit 14 
Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2,409)
wp.org #14 ↑4 15 
Simply Static – The Static Site Generator 30K+ · 4.5★ (195)
wp.org #19 ↓4 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 16 
NS Cloner – Site Cloner and Multisite Duplicator 6K+ · 4.7★ (279)
wp.org #20 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 17 S Simple Membership After Login Redirection 10K+ · 4.8★ (15) thin reviews
wp.org #10 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 7 places above merit 18 
My Private Site – Make Your Whole Site Private, Force Login & Block Registration Spam 10K+ · 4.5★ (82)
wp.org #18 ↑2 19 
Membership For WooCommerce 700+ · 4.4★ (28)
wp.org #13 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 20 
Membership Plugin – Kadence Memberships 8K+ · 3.1★ (100)
wp.org #15 ↓4 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 21 
WP Plugin Manager – Deactivate plugins per page 3K+ · 4.4★ (23) thin reviews
wp.org #17 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 22 
Memberful – Membership Plugin 900+ · 4.7★ (13) thin reviews
wp.org #23 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 23 
SureMembers – Membership & Content Restriction Plugin 2K+ · 5.0★ (2) thin reviews
wp.org #21 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 24 S Simple Membership MailChimp Integration 900+ · 3.0★ (2) thin reviews
wp.org #24 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.