wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “post from front end”

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 “post from front end”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 5 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

Easy Post Submission – Frontend Posting, Guest Publishing & Submit Content for WordPress shows at wp.org #17 but places #24 on merit, a gap of 7 places. Its 4K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.5★ average from 6 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.

merit plugin signals wp.org

Front End PM 4K+ · 4.8★ (220) wp.org #1 2

Post Types Order 600K+ · 4.5★ (296) wp.org #2 3

Custom Post Type UI 1M+ · 4.6★ (276) wp.org #3 ↑3 4

User Submitted Posts – Enable Users to Submit Posts from the Front End 10K+ · 4.8★ (913) wp.org #6 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 5

Simple Custom Post Order 300K+ · 4.8★ (588) wp.org #5 ↑2 6

Yoast Duplicate Post 3M+ · 4.7★ (538) wp.org #4 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 7

Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI 10M+ · 4.8★ (27,820) wp.org #8 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 8

TranslatePress – Translate Multilingual sites with AI Translation 400K+ · 4.7★ (1,667) wp.org #7 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 9

Ultimate Member – User Profile, Registration, Login, Member Directory, Content Restriction & Membership Plugin 200K+ · 4.4★ (1,445) wp.org #10 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 10

Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2,146) wp.org #11 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 11

UsersWP – Front-end login form, User Registration, User Profile & Members Directory plugin for WP 20K+ · 4.7★ (183) wp.org #9 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 12

Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7,522) wp.org #15 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 13

Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7,322) wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 14

The Post Grid – Shortcode, Gutenberg Blocks and Elementor Addon for Post Grid 100K+ · 4.8★ (265) wp.org #12 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 15

Import and export users and customers 70K+ · 4.7★ (259) wp.org #13 ↑2 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 16

User Profile Builder – Beautiful User Registration Forms, User Profiles & User Role Editor 40K+ · 4.7★ (738) wp.org #20 ↑1 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 17

Code Snippets 1M+ · 4.7★ (510) wp.org #16 ↓4 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 18

Content Views – Post Grid & Filter (Shortcode, Blocks, Elementor Widgets) 100K+ · 4.8★ (333) wp.org #21 ↓1 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 19

Peter's Post Notes – Admin Notes for Posts and Pages 3K+ · 4.9★ (26) wp.org #24 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 21

Advanced Post Block – Display Your Posts Exactly How You Want 10K+ · 4.2★ (17) thin reviews wp.org #22 ↓3 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 22

Post Type Transfer 2K+ · 5.0★ (7) thin reviews wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 23

Jamie's Front-End Editor for Content Teams 100+ · 4.6★ (8) thin reviews wp.org #18 wp.org ranks it 5 places above merit 24

Easy Post Submission – Frontend Posting, Guest Publishing & Submit Content for WordPress 4K+ · 4.5★ (6) thin reviews wp.org #17 wp.org ranks it 7 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.