The state of WordPress plugins
Who is winning, who is fading, which markets are already lost, and where there is still an opening. Rebuilt from our own daily data on 47,882 plugins. Comparing 2026-09-01 against 2026-08-02.
The read
- Security is the directory's largest market by download volume, with 997 tracked plugins competing for 25,396,036 downloads a month.
- Security is growing fastest, up 68.6% on the previous window.
- Chat & Support is contracting, down 26.6%.
- AI plugins now number 1641 of the 47,882 tracked, taking 3.3% of all downloads. The median AI plugin is 8 months old.
- The clearest opening is Backup: 62,315 monthly downloads per competing plugin, no dominant incumbent, and an average health of only 70.
Winning
Biggest active-install gains, established plugins (10k+ installs, 10+ reviews, no integrity flags)
Losing
Steepest active-install declines over the same window
How much of the directory is AI now
1641
AI-tagged plugins tracked
4.4M+
active installs
3.3%
of all downloads we track
8 mo
median age
Fastest-growing AI plugins
Where there is still room to build
Categories with real download demand per competing plugin, no incumbent owning the room, and mediocre average health. That combination is an opening; a crowded category with a dominant leader is not.
The competitive landscape
Every tracked category, by monthly download volume. "Consolidated" means one plugin holds 60%+ of a mature category's installs and it isn't growing; a leader in a still-growing category isn't counted.
| Category | Plugins | Downloads · 30d | Per plugin | Leader share | Growth | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security | 997 | 25.4M | 25.5K | 19% | +68.6% | Thin |
| Page Builders | 1274 | 24.0M | 18.9K | 41% | -12.3% | Crowded |
| Forms | 1677 | 20.7M | 12.3K | 41% | +64.5% | Crowded |
| SEO | 1222 | 19.0M | 15.5K | 52% | +11.6% | Crowded |
| eCommerce | 5562 | 16.2M | 2.9K | 32% | +22% | Crowded |
| Backup | 258 | 16.1M | 62.3K | 30% | +42.2% | Open |
| Performance | 1074 | 15.5M | 14.4K | 28% | +31.6% | Crowded |
| Analytics | 1030 | 13.1M | 12.7K | 39% | -16.2% | Crowded |
| Blocks | 1682 | 8.9M | 5.3K | 38% | +19.4% | Crowded |
| AI | 1573 | 7.4M | 4.7K | 48% | +60.3% | Crowded |
| Email & Marketing | 1297 | 6.0M | 4.6K | 31% | +6.1% | Crowded |
| Privacy & Consent | 512 | 5.8M | 11.4K | 17% | +26.5% | Crowded |
| Admin & Utilities | 3791 | 5.3M | 1.4K | 19% | +5.8% | Crowded |
| Media | 2204 | 4.5M | 2.0K | 12% | +23.2% | Crowded |
| Booking & Events | 981 | 3.1M | 3.2K | 24% | +17.1% | Crowded |
| Payments | 1089 | 3.1M | 2.8K | 27% | +38.6% | Crowded |
| Social | 1137 | 2.9M | 2.5K | 19% | -0.6% | Crowded |
| Login & Users | 1443 | 2.4M | 1.6K | 37% | +63.1% | Crowded |
| Multilingual | 286 | 2.1M | 7.4K | 26% | -18.3% | Crowded |
| Chat & Support | 672 | 1.6M | 2.3K | 23% | -26.6% | Crowded |
| Content & Feeds | 777 | 1.5M | 2.0K | 30% | +35.5% | Crowded |
| Search | 608 | 1.1M | 1.9K | 38% | -1.8% | Crowded |
| Membership | 179 | 492.6K | 2.8K | 35% | -2.4% | Crowded |
| Education | 169 | 338.1K | 2.0K | 28% | -15.4% | Crowded |
Breaking out
Biggest install jumps in the last 30 days
Classic Editor 2026-08-30 8M+ → 9M+ Premium Addons for Elementor – Elementor Templates, Widgets & MCP Tools 2026-08-13 600K+ → 700K+ SiteGuard WP Plugin 2026-08-09 500K+ → 600K+ SiteGuard WP Plugin 2026-08-12 500K+ → 600K+ SiteGuard WP Plugin 2026-08-23 500K+ → 600K+ SiteGuard WP Plugin 2026-08-26 500K+ → 600K+ Redis Object Cache 2026-08-28 400K+ → 500K+ Floating Chat Widget: Contact Chat Icons, Telegram Chat, Line Messenger, WeChat, Email, SMS, Call Button – Chaty 2026-08-06 300K+ → 400K+ SureRank SEO – Meta Tags, Social Preview, XML Sitemap, Schema & Open Graph 2026-08-24 300K+ → 400K+ Head & Footer Code 2026-08-05 100K+ → 200K+Rotting in place
Big install bases running on code untouched for over two years
Template Kit – Import 400K+ 2y stale Health Check & Troubleshooting 300K+ 2y stale Limit Login Attempts 300K+ 3y stale Layout Grid Block 200K+ 3y stale WP Downgrade | Specific Core Version 100K+ 3y stale AddQuicktag 100K+ 5y stale WooSidebars 100K+ 2y stale Search & Replace 100K+ 2y stale Easy Google Fonts 100K+ 5y stale Heartbeat Control 80K+ 3y staleWhat WordPress itself runs on
via wordpress.org · refreshed 2d agoThe PHP, WordPress, database and language split across every install that reports to wp.org. This is the environment a plugin has to survive in, not the one on the developer's laptop.
- 39% of WordPress installs run a PHP version that no longer gets security fixes. Dropping support for old PHP means dropping that share of the market.
- 0% are already on WordPress 7.2; the rest trail by anything from one release to a decade.
- MariaDB has overtaken MySQL as WordPress's database: 60% vs 40%.
- 53% of WordPress runs in a language other than English. An untranslated plugin is invisible to that share.
PHP version
WordPress version
Database
Language
Built from Plugin Pulse's own daily crawl of the top 47,882 plugins. Momentum figures compare active-install counts between the two dates above. Plugins carrying an integrity flag are excluded from the winners board, since manufactured installs are not growth. How this works.