Plugin Pulse Beta
← Rankings

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

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 “stay”, we and wp.org disagree on the top plugin, and our order differs from theirs on 12 of the top 20. 5 plugins are 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

Modern Cart – WooCommerce Side Cart & Popup Cart shows at wp.org #7 but places #19 on merit, a gap of 12 places. Its 60K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.9★ average from 16 reviews, plus freshness and upkeep, place it lower on our volume-weighted scale.

Buried gem

AI Engine – MCP Server & AI Chatbot for WordPress, with Claude, ChatGPT & Gemini places #8 on merit, 4.9★ from 874 reviews, but shows at wp.org #16. A smaller install base keeps it further down the default search order than its quality signals alone would.

merit plugin wp.org
1 WP STAGING – Backups & Restore, Migration & Clone Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups 100K+ · 4.8★ (2470) wp.org #2 ↑1 1 too low 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 #4 2 too low 3 Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI 10M+ · 4.8★ (27821) wp.org #5 2 too low 4 Screen Stay Awake 60+ · 5.0★ (6) wp.org #1 3 too high 5 Code Snippets 1M+ · 4.7★ (510) wp.org #3 ↓1 2 too high 6 Forminator Forms – Contact Form, Payment Form & Custom Form Builder 600K+ · 4.8★ (2143) wp.org #10 ↑1 4 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 ↓2 1 too low 8 AI Engine – MCP Server & AI Chatbot for WordPress, with Claude, ChatGPT & Gemini 90K+ · 4.9★ (874) wp.org #16 8 too low 9 Rank Math SEO – AI SEO Tools to Dominate SEO Rankings 4M+ · 4.8★ (7519) wp.org #17 ↓4 8 too low 10 Burst Statistics – Simple WordPress Analytics (Google Analytics Alternative) 200K+ · 4.9★ (186) wp.org #13 ↑6 3 too low 11 Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN 1M+ · 4.8★ (6053) wp.org #18 ↓1 7 too low 12 Better Font Awesome 60K+ · 4.5★ (88) wp.org #9 ↓1 3 too high 13 Cart Abandonment Recovery for WooCommerce – Recover Lost Sales with Automated Emails 300K+ · 4.8★ (625) wp.org #11 ↑5 2 too high 14 Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7323) wp.org #14 ↓2 15 All-in-One WP Migration and Backup 5M+ · 4.5★ (7676) wp.org #23 ↑1 8 too low 16 WPVibe – MCP Server for WordPress, works with Claude, ChatGPT & other AI MCP agents 100K+ · 5.0★ (195) wp.org #21 ↓3 5 too low 17 WooPayments: Integrated WooCommerce Payments 800K+ · 3.4★ (177) wp.org #6 ↑3 11 too high 18 Ninja Forms – Contact Form Builder with Calculators, Quizzes, Signatures & AI Form Builder 500K+ · 4.4★ (1397) wp.org #24 ↓2 6 too low 19 Modern Cart – WooCommerce Side Cart & Popup Cart 60K+ · 4.9★ (16) wp.org #7 12 too high 20 Advanced Form Integration — Connect Forms to 300+ Apps 9K+ · 4.8★ (91) wp.org #19 ↑1 1 too high 21 Automatic YouTube Gallery – Embed Auto-Updating YouTube Video Galleries, Feeds, Playlists & Channels 9K+ · 4.8★ (31) wp.org #15 6 too high 22 Asgaros Forum 10K+ · 4.7★ (210) wp.org #22 ↑1 23 Media Focus Point 6K+ · 5.0★ (10) wp.org #12 ↓2 11 too high 24 No Gutenberg? – Choose Where to Use the Block Editor or the Classic Editor 9K+ · 5.0★ (16) wp.org #20 ↑1 4 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.