wp.org search vs our merit ranking: “wp rest twitter”
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 “wp rest twitter”, we agree with wp.org 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
Social Media Auto Poster – Schedule & Publish to Buffer shows at wp.org #12 but places #18 on merit, a gap of 6 places. Its 7K+ installs carry it up the search order; its 4.5★ average from 125 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.
WP Super Cache 1M+ · 4.3★ (1,346)
wp.org #1 2 
All-in-One WP Migration and Backup 5M+ · 4.5★ (7,676)
wp.org #2 3 
Custom Twitter Feeds – A Tweets Widget or X Feed Widget 100K+ · 4.8★ (401)
wp.org #3 4 
Super Page Cache – Cloudflare Cache, Page Speed & Core Web Vitals 70K+ · 4.8★ (518)
wp.org #4 5 
SEOPress – AI SEO Plugin & On-site SEO 300K+ · 4.8★ (1,268)
wp.org #5 6 
WP Table Builder – Drag & Drop Table Builder 50K+ · 4.8★ (681)
wp.org #6 7 
WP Hide & Security Enhancer 50K+ · 4.3★ (275)
wp.org #7 8 
WP RSS Aggregator – RSS Import, Feed to Post, Autoblogging, AI Content 40K+ · 4.5★ (565)
wp.org #9 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 9 
Elementor Website Builder – more than just a page builder 10M+ · 4.5★ (7,322)
wp.org #10 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 10 
Newsletter – Send awesome emails from WordPress 200K+ · 4.6★ (1,205)
wp.org #11 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 11 
Wp Social Login and Register Social Counter 70K+ · 4.6★ (67)
wp.org #8 wp.org ranks it 3 places above merit 12 
Complianz GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner 1M+ · 4.7★ (1,668)
wp.org #14 wp.org ranks it 2 places below merit 13 
WP User Manager – Registration Form, Login Form, User Profile Builder & Member Directory 10K+ · 4.7★ (350)
wp.org #16 wp.org ranks it 3 places below merit 14 
TablePress – Tables in WordPress made easy 600K+ · 5.0★ (4,625)
wp.org #21 wp.org ranks it 7 places below merit 15 
All in One SEO – AI SEO Plugin to Boost SEO Rankings & Traffic (Schema, Local SEO, Sitemap & SEO Insights) 2M+ · 4.7★ (5,233)
wp.org #19 wp.org ranks it 4 places below merit 16 
Imagify Image Optimization: Optimize Images | Compress & Convert to WebP/AVIF 900K+ · 4.3★ (1,657)
wp.org #15 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 17 
WP Maintenance 60K+ · 4.7★ (98)
wp.org #13 wp.org ranks it 4 places above merit 18 Social Media Auto Poster – Schedule & Publish to Buffer 7K+ · 4.5★ (125)
wp.org #12 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 19 
Strong Testimonials 80K+ · 4.8★ (614)
wp.org #24 wp.org ranks it 5 places below merit 20 
WP Social Ninja – Embed Social Feeds, User Reviews & Chat Widgets 30K+ · 4.8★ (71)
wp.org #18 wp.org ranks it 2 places above merit 21 
WP Socializer – Simple & Easy Social Media Share Icons 10K+ · 4.5★ (128)
wp.org #20 wp.org ranks it 1 place above merit 22 
SVG Support 1M+ · 4.8★ (356)
wp.org #23 wp.org ranks it 1 place below merit 23 
CoCart – Headless REST API for WooCommerce 900+ · 4.9★ (21) thin reviews
wp.org #17 wp.org ranks it 6 places above merit 24 
WP Post Author – Author Box, Multiple Authors, Guest Authors & Custom Avatars 10K+ · 4.2★ (22) thin reviews
wp.org #22 wp.org ranks it 2 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.