Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “providers”, we agree with wp.org on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 9 of the top 20. 1 plugin is pushed down for signals wp.org ignores: errors, a host-installed base, or removal risk.

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 it throws errors on current PHP, whether the install base is organic or host-pushed, and its risk of being pulled.

Ranked above its merit

AI Provider for Anthropic shows at wp.org #4 but places #18 on merit, a gap of 14 places. Its 70K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 0.0★ average from 0 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

WP STAGING – Backups & Restore, Migration & Clone Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups places #9 on merit, 4.8★ from 2470 reviews, but shows at wp.org #14. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7519) wp.org #1 2 WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – SMTP for Reliable Email Delivery with Gmail, Outlook, Amazon SES, Brevo, Other SMTP & More 4M+ · 4.8★ (5209) wp.org #3 1 too low 3 SureMail – SMTP and Email Logs Plugin with Amazon SES, Postmark, and Other Providers 200K+ · 4.7★ (25) wp.org #2 1 too high 4 Widgets for Google Reviews 1M+ · 4.9★ (2667) wp.org #5 1 too low 5 Translate WordPress with GTranslate 900K+ · 4.9★ (4962) wp.org #6 ↓1 1 too low 6 Loco Translate 1M+ · 4.8★ (453) wp.org #7 ↓1 1 too low 7 FluentSMTP – WP Mail SMTP Plugin with Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Cloudflare, toSend, Gmail and Any SMTP 700K+ · 4.8★ (410) wp.org #8 ↓1 1 too low 8 LiteSpeed Cache 7M+ · 4.8★ (2778) wp.org #10 ↓1 2 too low 9 WP STAGING – Backups & Restore, Migration & Clone Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups 100K+ · 4.8★ (2470) wp.org #14 ↓1 5 too low 10 WPvivid — Backup, Migration & Staging 900K+ · 4.9★ (1568) wp.org #11 ↓1 1 too low 11 Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ · 4.9★ (4940) wp.org #9 ↓1 2 too high 12 Two Factor 100K+ · 4.7★ (209) wp.org #16 ↑1 4 too low 13 Really Simple Security – Simple and Performant Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) 3M+ · 4.9★ (8869) wp.org #24 11 too low 14 Nextend Social Login and Register 200K+ · 4.9★ (446) wp.org #22 8 too low 15 WP Store Locator 40K+ · 4.8★ (312) wp.org #23 8 too low 16 IP Location Block 10K+ · 4.5★ (35) wp.org #21 5 too low 17 WebAuthn Provider for Two Factor 2K+ · 4.6★ (11) wp.org #12 ↓1 5 too high 18 AI Provider for Anthropic 70K+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #4 14 too high 19 AI 60K+ · 4.2★ (10) wp.org #20 ↓2 1 too low 20 AI Provider For DeepSeek 400+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #13 ↓1 7 too high 21 AI Provider for Ollama 300+ · 5.0★ (2) wp.org #17 ↓1 4 too high 22 AI Provider for Google 50K+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #15 ↓1 7 too high 23 AI Provider for OpenAI 60K+ · 0.0★ (0) wp.org #18 ↑1 5 too high 24 AI Provider for OpenRouter 400+ · 5.0★ (1) wp.org #19 ↑1 5 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.