wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “newsletter spam delete”
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 “newsletter spam delete”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 8 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
weMail – Email Marketing, Newsletters Builder & Email Automations for WooCommerce shows at wp.org #14 but places #20 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 10K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.0★ average from 31 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.
Buried gem
WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More places #7 on merit, 4.8★ from 14,389 reviews, but shows at wp.org #12. 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.
Anti-Spam, Spam FireWall by CleanTalk 200K+ · 4.8★ (3,224)
wp.org #1 2 
Newsletter – Send awesome emails from WordPress 200K+ · 4.6★ (1,205)
wp.org #2 3 
Zero Spam for WordPress 20K+ · 4.1★ (143)
wp.org #3 4 
FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (413)
wp.org #5 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 5 
oopspam Anti-Spam: Spam Protection for WordPress Forms & Comments (No CAPTCHA) 6K+ · 4.9★ (51)
wp.org #4 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 6 
Newsletters 2K+ · 4.7★ (246)
wp.org #7 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 7 WPForms – AI Form Builder for WordPress – Contact Forms, Payment Forms, Survey Form, Quiz & More 5M+ · 4.8★ (14,389)
wp.org #12 wp.org ranks it 5 places below merit 8 
Post SMTP – Complete Email Delivery and SMTP Solution with Email Logs, Alerts, Backup SMTP & Mobile App 300K+ · 4.7★ (528)
wp.org #10 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 9 
Invisible Anti-Spam & CAPTCHA — reCAPTCHA Alternative for All Forms 5K+ · 4.8★ (50)
wp.org #6 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 10 
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) – Email Subscribers, Email Newsletter, Email Marketing, Landing Pages and Membership 40K+ · 4.8★ (90)
wp.org #8 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 11 
Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1,398)
wp.org #11 ↓1 12 
Sender – Newsletter, SMS and Email Marketing Automation for WooCommerce 6K+ · 4.8★ (83)
wp.org #9 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 13 
MetForm – Contact Form, Survey, Quiz, Conditional Forms, Form Templates & Custom Form Builder for Elementor 500K+ · 4.7★ (509)
wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 14 
UsersWP – Front-end login form, User Registration, User Profile & Members Directory plugin for WP 20K+ · 4.7★ (183)
wp.org #16 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 15 
Everest Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form, Quiz, Survey & Custom Form Builder with AI 90K+ · 4.9★ (375)
wp.org #22 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 16 
Fluent Forms – Customizable Contact Forms, Survey, Quiz, & Conversational Form Builder 800K+ · 4.8★ (808)
wp.org #20 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 17 
Groundhogg — CRM, Newsletters, and Marketing Automation 2K+ · 4.8★ (150)
wp.org #18 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 18 
Arigato Autoresponder and Newsletter 500+ · 4.7★ (34)
wp.org #13 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 19 
hCaptcha for WP 70K+ · 4.6★ (88)
wp.org #24 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 5 places below merit 20 weMail – Email Marketing, Newsletters Builder & Email Automations for WooCommerce 10K+ · 4.0★ (31)
wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 21 
Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools 8K+ · 4.1★ (15) thin reviews
wp.org #21 ↓2 22 
Anti Spam and list cleaner – AcyChecker 400+ · 5.0★ (4) thin reviews
wp.org #17 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 23 
My Newsletter 10+ · 5.0★ (3) thin reviews
wp.org #19 ↑4 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 24 
Postalion – Newsletter, Email Marketing & Automation 200+ · 5.0★ (1) thin reviews
wp.org #23 ↓2 wp.org ranks it 1 place 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.