An Analysis of 18,087 WordPress.org Plugins

A few days ago I started brainstorming some ideas for my first WordPress plugin. After going back and forth with some options, I decided to see if there is some public plugin data that I could use in my research. And what better source than the official WordPress.org plugin repository?

My first roadblock was a weird WordPress.org website issue in the Plugins section: there is no easy way to access a list of the Latest/Newest plugins that were added to the repository. You can do it for Themes, but not for Plugins.

On the main Plugins page, you can see a list of Block-Enabled Plugins, Featured Plugins, Beta Plugins and Popular Plugins, but no Latest Plugins block. No worries though, a minor issue like this won’t stop us.

All these pages have the URL in the form of https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/[blocks|featured|beta|popular]/. All we have to do is manually type in the URL https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/new/, so now we can see the most recent plugins and how well they are doing.

Using Public WordPress.org Plugin Data

I decided to go through some existing WordPress.org plugins and see if I could spot some common characteristics of popular plugins. Some plugin stats are publicly available, so maybe there is something useful there.

For example let’s take a look at the Social Icons Widget by WPZOOM plugin.

The data that we could use for our brainstorming session is:

• Last updated;
• Active installations;
• Ratings – total number of reviews and the average rating score (1 to 5 stars);
• Support – total number of support threads in the forum.

With this in mind, I created a small PHP script that would gather and parse this public data. With my script ready, I decided to analyze all plugins that were added to the directory in the past 36 months (2016/04/15 – 2019/04/15).

Maybe the results of my findings can be useful to other developers, so let’s get on with it.

WordPress.org Plugin Stats

I have decided to exclude from my stats the plugins that were published in the last 14 days, as most of them have no objective data.

I will be looking at: plugin active installations, total number of downloads, number of ratings, number of support threads (in the last 2 months). At the end of the article I have a list of 100 most used words in plugin names, so those keywords could be worth looking into.

Quick Stats

• Date range: [2019-04-16 – 2016-04-15].
• Total number of published plugins: 18,262.
• Total number of published plugins included in stats: 18,087.
• ~18.3% of plugins have never been updated.
• Only 30 plugins out of 18,087 (0.16%) have surpassed 100,000+ active installations.
• ~68% of plugins released in the last 3 years have less than 100 of active installations.
• ~57% of plugins have never been rated (no reviews).
• ~76% of plugins have a homepage link.
• ~47% of plugins have a donate link.

Top 50 Plugins with the highest number of active installations

Currently there are only 30 plugins that have reached 100,000+ of active installations.

1. Classic Editor – 4,000,000+ active installations.
2. Elementor Page Builder – 2,000,000+ active installations.
3. Duplicate Page – 800,000+ active installations.
4. Limit Login Attempts Reloaded – 800,000+ active installations.
5. WooCommerce Services – 600,000+ active installations.
6. Mailchimp for WooCommerce – 500,000+ active installations.
7. WooCommerce Blocks – 500,000+ active installations.
8. WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway – 500,000+ active installations.
9. Ocean Extra – 400,000+ active installations.
10. Orbit Fox by ThemeIsle – 300,000+ active installations.
11. File Manager – 300,000+ active installations.
12. Contact Form 7 Database Addon – CFDB7 – 200,000+ active installations.
13. Disable Gutenberg – 200,000+ active installations.
14. Gutenberg – 200,000+ active installations.
15. API KEY for Google Maps – 100,000+ active installations.
16. Astra Starter Sites – Elementor, Beaver Builder & Gutenberg Templates – 100,000+ active installations.
17. Essential Addons for Elementor – 100,000+ active installations.
18. Facebook for WooCommerce – 100,000+ active installations.
19. Header, Footer & Blocks for Elementor – 100,000+ active installations.
20. Health Check & Troubleshooting – 100,000+ active installations.
21. MailPoet – emails and newsletters in WordPress – 100,000+ active installations.
22. Mesmerize Companion – 100,000+ active installations.
23. Official Facebook Pixel – 100,000+ active installations.
24. PHP Compatibility Checker – 100,000+ active installations.
25. Post SMTP Mailer/Email Log – 100,000+ active installations.
26. Premium Addons for Elementor – 100,000+ active installations.
27. ThemeGrill Demo Importer – 100,000+ active installations.
28. WP GDPR Compliance – 100,000+ active installations.
29. WP Reset – Best WordPress Reset Plugin – 100,000+ active installations.
30. Contact Form 7 Redirection – 100,000+ active installations.
31. Conditional Fields for Contact Form 7 – 90,000+ active installations.
32. Click to Chat for WhatsApp Chat – 90,000+ active installations.
33. iThemes Sync – 90,000+ active installations.
34. Theme Check – 90,000+ active installations.
35. Contact Form, Drag and Drop Form Builder for WordPress – Everest Forms – 80,000+ active installations.
36. Invisible reCaptcha for WordPress – 80,000+ active installations.
37. WooCommerce Square – 80,000+ active installations.
38. Clearfy – WordPress optimization plugin and disable ultimate tweaker – 70,000+ active installations.
39. Elementor Addons & Templates – Sizzify Lite – 70,000+ active installations.
40. Fast Velocity Minify – 70,000+ active installations.
41. Page and Post Clone – 70,000+ active installations.
42. Re-add text underline and justify – 70,000+ active installations.
43. reSmush.it Image Optimizer – 70,000+ active installations.
44. Elementor Addon Elements – 60,000+ active installations.
45. Amazon Associates Link Builder – 60,000+ active installations.
46. Breeze – WordPress Cache Plugin – 60,000+ active installations.
47. Custom Twitter Feeds – 60,000+ active installations.
48. FameTheme Demo Importer – 60,000+ active installations.
49. GDPR Cookie Compliance – 60,000+ active installations.
50. Hummingbird – Speed Up WordPress – 60,000+ active installations.

Top 20 Plugins with the highest number of downloads

Currently there are only 20 plugins that have surpassed the 1M+ downloads count.

1. Elementor Page Builder – 10,000,000+ downloads.
2. Classic Editor – 1,000,000+ downloads.
3. Companion Auto Update – 1,000,000+ downloads.
4. Constant Contact Forms – 1,000,000+ downloads.
5. Duplicate Page – 1,000,000+ downloads.
6. Essential Addons for Elementor – 1,000,000+ downloads.
7. Fast Velocity Minify – 1,000,000+ downloads.
8. Gutenberg – 1,000,000+ downloads.
9. Limit Login Attempts Reloaded – 1,000,000+ downloads.
10. Mailchimp for WooCommerce – 1,000,000+ downloads.
11. MailPoet – emails and newsletters in WordPress – 1,000,000+ downloads.
12. Ocean Extra – 1,000,000+ downloads.
13. Premium Addons for Elementor – 1,000,000+ downloads.
14. Theme Check – 1,000,000+ downloads.
15. ThemeGrill Demo Importer – 1,000,000+ downloads.
16. Orbit Fox by ThemeIsle – 1,000,000+ downloads.
17. WooCommerce Blocks – 1,000,000+ downloads.
18. WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway – 1,000,000+ downloads.
19. WooCommerce Services – 1,000,000+ downloads.
20. File Manager – 1,000,000+ downloads.

Top 50 Plugins with the highest number of ratings

These are the top 50 most reviewed WordPress.org plugins that have been published in the last 3 years.

1. Elementor Page Builder – 3,105 ratings.
2. Gutenberg – 2,684 ratings.
3. Contact Form 7 Database Addon – CFDB7 – 748 ratings.
4. Classic Editor – 600 ratings.
5. File Manager – 472 ratings.
6. MailPoet – emails and newsletters in WordPress – 447 ratings.
7. Hummingbird – Speed Up WordPress – 403 ratings.
8. Essential Addons for Elementor – 388 ratings.
9. Disable Gutenberg – 381 ratings.
10. SEOPress – 320 ratings.
11. Ajax Search for WooCommerce – 263 ratings.
12. Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder – Lite – 257 ratings.
13. Google Fonts for WordPress – 243 ratings.
14. Product Feed PRO for WooCommerce – 234 ratings.
15. WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math – 232 ratings.
16. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce – 231 ratings.
17. WooCommerce Live Sales Notification (Recent Sales Popups) – 229 ratings.
18. Premium Addons for Elementor – 215 ratings.
19. User Menus – Nav Menu Visibility – 211 ratings.
20. Custom Login Page Customizer | LoginPress – 201 ratings.
21. Custom Twitter Feeds – 192 ratings.
22. Theme Check – 192 ratings.
23. wpForo Forum – 179 ratings.
24. Migrate Guru: Migrate & Clone WordPress Free – 177 ratings.
25. Media Cleaner – 170 ratings.
26. 10Web Facebook Feed – Custom Facebook Feed Plugin – 170 ratings.
27. Schema – 164 ratings.
28. WhatsHelp Chat Button – 158 ratings.
29. Ivory Search – WordPress Search Plugin – 154 ratings.
30. Mailchimp for WooCommerce – 153 ratings.
31. WordPress Social Sharing Plugin – Social Warfare – 151 ratings.
32. Coming Soon, Under Construction & Maintenance Mode By Dazzler – 148 ratings.
33. Portfolio Gallery – Image Gallery WordPress Plugin – 148 ratings.
34. WooCommerce Variation Swatches – 148 ratings.
35. WooCommerce Wishlist Plugin – 141 ratings.
36. Justified Gallery – 135 ratings.
37. WP Telegram (Auto Post and Notifications) – 135 ratings.
38. Temporary Login Without Password – 134 ratings.
39. Clearfy – WordPress optimization plugin and disable ultimate tweaker – 133 ratings.
40. WP Reset – Best WordPress Reset Plugin – 131 ratings.
41. Site Offline Or Coming Soon Or Maintenance Mode – 129 ratings.
42. Orbit Fox by ThemeIsle – 129 ratings.
43. CMP – Coming Soon & Maintenance Plugin by NiteoThemes – 128 ratings.
44. Easy Sidebar Menu Widget – 125 ratings.
45. Video Gallery – YouTube Playlist, Channel Gallery by YotuWP – 125 ratings.
46. Post SMTP Mailer/Email Log – 122 ratings.
47. Fast Velocity Minify – 121 ratings.
48. MailOptin – Popups, Email Optin Forms & Newsletters for MailChimp, Aweber etc. – 120 ratings.
49. Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks – 120 ratings.
50. Discount Rules for WooCommerce – 120 ratings.

Top 50 Plugins with the highest number of support threads

These are the top 50 WordPress.org plugins ranked by the number of support threads created in the last 2 months. Ten of these plugins are related to WooCommerce.

1. Elementor Page Builder – 381 support threads.
2. Product Feed PRO for WooCommerce – 115 support threads.
3. Gutenberg – 113 support threads.
4. MailPoet – emails and newsletters in WordPress – 109 support threads.
5. Directorist – Business Directory Plugin – 82 support threads.
6. WordPress SEO Plugin – Rank Math – 81 support threads.
7. WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway – 79 support threads.
8. WooCommerce Wallet – credit, cashback, refund system – 78 support threads.
9. Super Progressive Web Apps – 71 support threads.
10. Customer Reviews for WooCommerce – 69 support threads.
11. WooCommerce Multivendor Marketplace – 68 support threads.
12. Kadence WooCommerce Email Designer – 66 support threads.
13. Advanced Classifieds & Directory Pro – 64 support threads.
14. PayPal Plus for WooCommerce – 60 support threads.
15. Gutenberg Blocks – Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg – 59 support threads.
16. Site Reviews – 58 support threads.
17. Modern Events Calendar Lite – 56 support threads.
18. WebP Express – 55 support threads.
19. Forminator Contact Form, Poll & Quiz Builder – 53 support threads.
20. Perfect WooCommerce Brands – 53 support threads.
21. Essential Addons for Elementor – 52 support threads.
22. Post SMTP Mailer/Email Log – 51 support threads.
23. Booking Package – Appointment Booking Calendar System – 49 support threads.
24. Fast Velocity Minify – 48 support threads.
25. Swift Performance Lite – 48 support threads.
26. SEOPress – 48 support threads.
27. Conditional Fields for Contact Form 7 – 46 support threads.
28. Kadence Blocks – Gutenberg Page Builder Toolkit – 45 support threads.
29. User Registration – Custom Registration Form, Login And User Profile For WordPress – 45 support threads.
30. Easy Contact Form – Form Builder Plugin – Forms for WordPress – 44 support threads.
31. RSS for Yandex Turbo – 44 support threads.
32. wpForo Forum – 43 support threads.
33. CMP – Coming Soon & Maintenance Plugin by NiteoThemes – 42 support threads.
34. WebPace Portfolio Photo Gallery – Responsive Image Gallery WordPress Plugin – 42 support threads.
35. Appointment Hour Booking – WordPress Booking Plugin – 41 support threads.
36. Visual Portfolio – 41 support threads.
37. Direct Stripe – 40 support threads.
38. Contact Form to Manage and respond to conversations with customers — HappyForms – 40 support threads.
39. WooCommerce Frontend Manager – WC Marketplace, WC Vendors & Dokan with Bookings & Listings – 40 support threads.
40. Classic Editor – 39 support threads.
41. Rate my Post – WP Post Rating – 39 support threads.
42. ProfileGrid – User Profiles, Groups and Communities – 36 support threads.
43. Responsive Photo Gallery – Images Gallery for WordPress – 35 support threads.
44. GDPR Cookie Compliance – 34 support threads.
45. Complianz | GDPR Cookie Consent – 32 support threads.
46. Mailchimp for WooCommerce – 32 support threads.
47. WooCommerce Advanced Shipment Tracking – 32 support threads.
48. ShopConstruct – Product catalog, shopping cart and eCommerce solution for store – 31 support threads.
49. Product Options and Price Calculation Formulas for WooCommerce – Uni CPO – 31 support threads.
50. Nimble Page Builder – 30 support threads.

Top 50 Authors with the highest number of published plugins

1. @shawfactor – 59 plugins.
2. @rubengc – 50 plugins.
3. @algoritmika – 47 plugins.
4. @nikschavan – 40 plugins.
5. @access-keys – 37 plugins.
6. @wponlinesupport – 36 plugins.
7. @coffee4dev – 34 plugins.
8. @nsthemes – 29 plugins.
9. @sellcomet – 28 plugins.
10. @phoeniixx – 25 plugins.
11. @josevega – 25 plugins.
12. @farvehandleren – 25 plugins.
13. @awordpresslife – 24 plugins.
14. @wpcalc – 24 plugins.
15. @seosbg – 24 plugins.
16. @clearcodehq – 23 plugins.
17. @makewebbetter – 22 plugins.
18. @feedmymedia – 22 plugins.
19. @tawhidurrahmandear – 22 plugins.
20. @everpress – 22 plugins.
21. @ifourkuldeep1 – 20 plugins.
22. @dholovnia – 20 plugins.
23. @dadevarzan – 20 plugins.
24. @crmperks – 20 plugins.
25. @katsushi-kawamori – 19 plugins.
26. @rajkakadiya – 18 plugins.
27. @wbcomdesigns – 18 plugins.
28. @jsmoriss – 18 plugins.
29. @weblizar – 18 plugins.
30. @raihancse – 18 plugins.
31. @quantumcloud – 18 plugins.
32. @enituretechnology – 17 plugins.
33. @wpclever – 17 plugins.
34. @venutius – 17 plugins.
35. @premmerce – 17 plugins.
36. @logicrays – 17 plugins.
37. @cyberlord92 – 17 plugins.
38. @nootheme – 17 plugins.
39. @samdani – 17 plugins.
40. @pickplugins – 17 plugins.
41. @mrt3vn – 16 plugins.
42. @quadlayers – 16 plugins.
43. @themebon – 16 plugins.
44. @dots – 16 plugins.
45. @azexo – 16 plugins.
46. @webtoffee – 16 plugins.
47. @cedcommerce – 16 plugins.
48. @munger41 – 16 plugins.
49. @nayon46 – 15 plugins.
50. @tigroumeow – 15 plugins.

Plugin Active Installations

~68% of plugins released in the last 3 years have less than 100 of active installations.
Only 373 plugins out of 18,087 (2.06%) have surpassed 10,000+ active installations.
Only 30 plugins (0.16%) have surpassed 100,000+ active installations.

• 0 active installations – 5,646 plugins (31.22%)
• 10 active installations – 2,871 plugins (15.87%)
• 20 active installations – 1,020 plugins (5.64%)
• 30 active installations – 726 plugins (4.01%)
• 40 active installations – 558 plugins (3.09%)
• 50 active installations – 450 plugins (2.49%)
• 60 active installations – 338 plugins (1.87%)
• 70 active installations – 278 plugins (1.54%)
• 80 active installations – 272 plugins (1.50%)
• 90 active installations – 213 plugins (1.18%)
• 100 active installations – 1,415 plugins (7.82%)
• 200 active installations – 704 plugins (3.89%)
• 300 active installations – 432 plugins (2.39%)
• 400 active installations – 325 plugins (1.80%)
• 500 active installations – 219 plugins (1.21%)
• 600 active installations – 215 plugins (1.19%)
• 700 active installations – 171 plugins (0.95%)
• 800 active installations – 157 plugins (0.87%)
• 900 active installations – 137 plugins (0.76%)
• 1,000 active installations – 709 plugins (3.92%)
• 2,000 active installations – 315 plugins (1.74%)
• 3,000 active installations – 154 plugins (0.85%)
• 4,000 active installations – 122 plugins (0.67%)
• 5,000 active installations – 100 plugins (0.55%)
• 6,000 active installations – 57 plugins (0.32%)
• 7,000 active installations – 40 plugins (0.22%)
• 8,000 active installations – 41 plugins (0.23%)
• 9,000 active installations – 29 plugins (0.16%)
• 10,000 active installations – 192 plugins (1.06%)
• 20,000 active installations – 59 plugins (0.33%)
• 30,000 active installations – 32 plugins (0.18%)
• 40,000 active installations – 18 plugins (0.10%)
• 50,000 active installations – 16 plugins (0.09%)
• 60,000 active installations – 13 plugins (0.07%)
• 70,000 active installations – 6 plugins (0.03%)
• 80,000 active installations – 3 plugins (0.02%)
• 90,000 active installations – 4 plugins (0.02%)
• 100,000 active installations – 16 plugins (0.09%)
• 200,000 active installations – 3 plugins (0.02%)
• 300,000 active installations – 2 plugins (0.01%)
• 400,000 active installations – 1 plugin (0.01%)
• 500,000 active installations – 3 plugins (0.02%)
• 600,000 active installations – 1 plugin (0.01%)
• 800,000 active installations – 2 plugins (0.01%)
• 2,000,000 active installations – 1 plugin (0.01%)
• 4,000,000 active installations – 1 plugin (0.01%)

Plugin Total Download Count

• 1+ downloads – 11 plugins (0.06%)
• 10+ downloads – 1,551 plugins (8.58%)
• 100+ downloads – 10,701 plugins (59.16%)
• 1,000+ downloads – 4,438 plugins (24.54%)
• 10,000+ downloads – 1,186 plugins (6.56%)
• 100,000+ downloads – 180 plugins (0.99%)
• 1,000,000+ downloads – 19 plugins (0.10%)
• 10,000,000+ downloads – 1 plugin (0.005%)

Average Plugin Rating Score

• No rating – 10,334 plugins (57.13%)
• 5.0 stars (perfect score) – 5,108 plugins (28.24%)
• 4.5 stars – 1,189 plugins (6.57%)
• 4.0 stars – 755 plugins (4.17%)
• 3.0 – 3.5 stars – 422 plugins (2.33%)
• 2.0 – 2.5 stars – 72 plugins (0.4%)
• 1.0 – 1.5 stars – 207 plugins (1.14%)

Amount of Plugin Ratings

• No ratings – 10,334 plugins (57.13%)
• 1 rating – 3,133 plugins (17.32%)
• 2 ratings – 1,459 plugins (8.07%)
• 3 ratings – 771 plugins (4.26%)
• 4 ratings – 512 plugins (2.83%)
• 5 ratings – 316 plugins (1.75%)
• 6 ratings – 241 plugins (1.33%)
• 7 ratings – 177 plugins (0.98%)
• 8 ratings – 133 plugins (0.74%)
• 9 ratings – 112 plugins (0.62%)
• 10 ratings – 86 plugins (0.48%)
• 11-15 ratings – 270 plugins (1.49%)
• 16-20 ratings – 128 plugins (0.70%)
• 21-30 ratings – 152 plugins (0.84%)
• 31-40 ratings – 63 plugins (0.34%)

Top 100 Most used Words in Plugin Names

1. woocommerce – 1,945
2. widget – 480
3. post – 470
4. custom – 420
5. form – 410
6. simple – 390
7. page – 381
8. easy – 336
9. product – 325
10. image – 322
11. contact – 316
12. gateway – 288
13. payment – 281
14. google – 273
15. builder – 265
16. slider – 262
17. social – 259
18. manager – 245
19. gallery – 240
20. forms – 233
21. admin – 229
22. woo – 222
23. posts – 222
24. login – 216
25. content – 211
26. integration – 200
27. lite – 198
28. user – 188
29. search – 182
30. menu – 179
31. advanced – 162
32. media – 154
33. responsive – 152
34. block – 151
35. elementor – 150
36. seo – 148
37. shortcode – 146
38. blocks – 143
39. button – 142
40. free – 140
41. analytics – 140
42. email – 138
43. facebook – 138
44. popup – 137
45. order – 136
46. chat – 135
47. gutenberg – 134
48. video – 134
49. add – 126
50. live – 126
51. feed – 125
52. disable – 121
53. share – 118
54. api – 112
55. gravity – 111
56. ultimate – 109
57. editor – 109
58. bar – 105
59. category – 104
60. theme – 104
61. auto – 102
62. pro – 100
63. link – 99
64. checkout – 99
65. products – 99
66. cart – 98
67. shipping – 98
68. list – 96
69. remove – 96
70. digital – 94
71. web – 93
72. generator – 93
73. pages – 91
74. images – 89
75. widgets – 88
76. mobile – 88
77. wc – 87
78. from – 87
79. your – 87
80. shortcodes – 86
81. text – 86
82. booking – 85
83. comments – 85
84. dashboard – 85
85. hide – 85
86. map – 84
87. display – 84
88. featured – 84
89. fields – 83
90. links – 83
91. visual – 82
92. portfolio – 79
93. add-on – 79
94. code – 79
95. redirect – 78
96. embed – 78
97. css – 78
98. carousel – 77
99. youtube – 76
100. import – 76

I hope that this data will be useful to other people too. Feel free to share and distribute this data, but I would appreciate if you link back to this article as the source.

Are there any other metrics that you think it would be interesting to look at? Please comment below and I might update this article with the data.