I thought I’d do a little experiment… find the top 10 WordPress plugins just before Christmas, then again a week later. The top ten, in terms of average growth per day since mid August 2012, are now…
| Plugin name and description | Plugin links | Version, total downloads, last update, tested |
|---|---|---|
| Contact Form 7 Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. |
contact-form-7 home |
5.8 285,150,686 6th August 2023 6.3.1 |
| Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth Improve your WP security with powerful one-click tools like backup, WAF, and malware scan. Get essential free tools including stats, CDN and social sh … |
jetpack home |
12.6.1 355,169,576 21st September 2023 6.3.1 |
| All in One SEO – Best WordPress SEO Plugin – Easily Improve SEO Rankings & Increase Traffic The original WordPress SEO plugin. Improve your WordPress SEO rankings and traffic with our comprehensive SEO tools and smart SEO optimizations! |
all-in-one-seo-pack home |
4.4.6 126,655,535 14th September 2023 6.3.1 |
| Yoast SEO Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the Yoast SEO plugin. |
wordpress-seo home |
21.2 589,820,060 19th September 2023 6.3.1 |
| Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection The best anti-spam protection to block spam comments and spam in a contact form. The most trusted antispam solution for WordPress and WooCommerce. |
akismet home |
5.3 299,841,721 13th September 2023 6.3.1 |
| XML Sitemap Generator for Google Generate multiple types of sitemaps to improve SEO and get your website indexed quickly. |
google-sitemap-generator home |
4.1.13 36,131,094 11th August 2023 6.3.1 |
| WordPress Gallery Plugin – NextGEN Gallery The most popular WordPress gallery plugin and one of the most popular plugins of all time with over 31 million downloads. |
nextgen-gallery home |
3.39 38,110,234 13th September 2023 6.3.1 |
| MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy) The best free Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. See how visitors find and use your website, so you can grow your business. |
google-analytics-for-wordpress home |
8.19 161,890,344 23rd August 2023 6.3.1 |
| gtrans | No info available | |
| WordPress Importer Import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file. |
wordpress-importer home |
0.8.1 46,935,304 28th April 2023 6.2.2 |
Notes:
- The top three exceed 10,000 downloads per day.
- The first seven exceed 6,000 downloads per day.
- All in one SEO pack is still the most popular: with over 13 million downloads
- Akismet is second, with over 12.5 million.
Personally:
- I’ve stopped using Contact Form 7; I noticed that the CAPTCHA images don’t display in Chrome any more.
- I’m now using Jetpack for a simple contact form.
- I install WordPress SEO more often than All in one SEO.
- I rarely use the Nextgen-gallery or gtrans.