Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “plain”

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 “plain”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 6 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

Add Plain-Text Email shows at wp.org #3 but places #14 on merit, a gap of 11 places. Its 100+ installs carry it up the search order; its 5.0★ average from 4 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

Germanized for WooCommerce places #12 on merit, 4.8★ from 496 reviews, but shows at wp.org #19. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Jetpack – AI Agents & MCP, Security, Backup & Analytics 3M+ · 3.7★ (2408) wp.org #2 1 too low 2 Paste As Plain Text By Default 2K+ · 5.0★ (9) wp.org #1 1 too high 3 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #4 ↓1 1 too low 4 Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields 100K+ · 4.8★ (418) wp.org #5 ↓1 1 too low 5 Variation Swatches for WooCommerce 300K+ · 4.8★ (926) wp.org #6 ↑4 1 too low 6 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7322) wp.org #8 ↓2 2 too low 7 Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ · 4.9★ (4940) wp.org #9 ↓4 2 too low 8 Docket Cache – Object Cache Accelerator 20K+ · 4.9★ (50) wp.org #7 ↑1 1 too high 9 Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1397) wp.org #12 ↓3 3 too low 10 Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers 90K+ · 4.9★ (94) wp.org #10 ↓3 11 Postie 10K+ · 4.7★ (139) wp.org #11 12 Germanized for WooCommerce 70K+ · 4.8★ (496) wp.org #19 ↓1 7 too low 13 Conditional Fields for Contact Form 7 100K+ · 4.8★ (166) wp.org #15 ↓3 2 too low 14 Add Plain-Text Email 100+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #3 ↓1 11 too high 15 Variation Swatches for WooCommerce – Color, Image & Size Swatches 200K+ · 4.6★ (51) wp.org #14 ↑1 1 too high 16 Email Address Encoder 100K+ · 4.2★ (160) wp.org #18 ↓2 2 too low 17 Simple Download Monitor 20K+ · 4.7★ (158) wp.org #24 ↓2 7 too low 18 Colorlib 404 Customizer 5K+ · 4.7★ (51) wp.org #21 ↑2 3 too low 19 Real3D Flipbook – 3D Flipbook, PDF Flipbook, PDF Viewer, PDF Embedder 10K+ · 4.5★ (11) wp.org #20 ↑1 1 too low 20 Website LLMs.txt 50K+ · 4.7★ (12) wp.org #23 ↓4 3 too low 21 Classic Visual Editor Options 1K+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #17 ↑3 4 too high 22 Email Addon for Contact Form 7 3K+ · 4.6★ (9) wp.org #22 ↑2 23 Geeky Bot – AI Chatbot & Sales Assistant for WooCommerce 6K+ · 5.0★ (4) wp.org #16 ↑1 7 too high 24 Plaintext for the Newsletter plugin 60+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #13 11 too high

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.