Top 12 WordPress plugins – October 2019

Today, 17 October 2019, according to WordPress.org there are 54,927 plugins on WordPress.org.

That’s an increase of over 6,700 plugins (was 48,166) in just under 3 years.

But it’s a lot slower increase than when I last looked in December 2016.

TOTAL DOWNLOADS: 3,492,183,046

In terms of Total Downloads, the top 12 plugins table, with a new column added for 2019, is:

Position move plugin 2015 2016 2019
1 up 2 wordpress-seo 23888967 37219578 200003006
2 up 3 jetpack 20854957 30883469 145400172
3 down 2 akismet 41870866 54086058 143368588
4 up 2 wordfence 10655259 22199987 135853274
5 down 3 contact-form-7 33264457 45014223 120953178
6 up 1 woocommerce 11542164 18968270 77295568
7 down 3 all-in-one-seo-pack 25340154 31222282 61769477
8 up 3 google-analytics-for-wordpress 10436289 12697215 55572355
9 new entry elementor ? ? 36652008
10 new entry wpforms-lite ? ? 31610889
11 up 1 wp-super-cache 9031498 11313369 30856575
12 new entry updraftplus ? ? 29920099
  • WordPress SEO is the first plugin to reach over 200 million downloads.
  • Akismet has been knocked into third place by Jetpack
  • Wordfence is rising fast
  • Contact Form 7, is the last of the 5 plugins with over 100 million downloads.
  • There are 3 new entries: elementor, wpforms-lite and updraftplus.
  • nextgen-gallery, wordpress-importer and google-sitemap-generator have fallen out of the top 12.

GROUPED BY TOTAL DOWNLOADS

Total downloads 2015 2016 2019
1->10 167 137 12
10->100 2405 1815 729
100->1000 15307 18017 9621
1000->10000 16919 19826 17105
10000->100000 5938 6799 7742
100000->1000000 1118 1379 2023
1000000->10000000 127 180 357
10000000->100000000 11 12 38
100000000->-1000000000 5

The top 1,000 plugins have all achieved at least one third of a million downloads. They account for over 80% of the total downloads.

The top 400 plugins, with over 1 million downloads each, account for 73% of the total downloads.

MOST RECENT UPDATES

Summary of when the plugin was last updated.

Last updated 2015 2016 2019
2019 12582
2018 4655
2017 3420
2016 16996 3624
2015 16149 7292 3138
2014 6602 5429 2626
2013 4462 4092 1864
2012 3955 3773 1824
2011 3325 3235 1371
2010 3174 3121 1004
2009 2392 2349 749
2008 1265 1247 343
2007 430 420 121
2006 61 61 15
2005 143 143 24
2004 7 7 5

WORDPRESS VERSION COMPATIBILITY

Versions of WordPress – minimum required versions and tested up to.

Version Requires 2015 Requires 2016 Tested 2015 Tested 2016
4.8 2 32
4.7 38 2 4477
4.6 226 3 5115
4.5 72 3753
4.4 57 726 3755 2962
4.3 306 552 5186 2246
4.2 342 540 3504 2334
4.1 445 675 2749 2070
4.0 1668 3069 2430 1945
3.0 to 3.9 13205 1438 15167 14131
0.70 to 2.9 23848 25222 7426 7323
Other+ 40 41 68 95
Other 2081 2269 1628 1682

STAR RATINGS

Stars 2015 2016 2019
5 12626 15275 14834
4 3810 4702 5108
3 1828 2184 2085
2 538 610 480
1 988 1119 714
0 22182 24275 14411

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS?

Number Factoid
419 Plugins using the keyword block
441 Plugins with login in their name
2500 Plugins with widget in their name
10% Percentage of plugins using “wp” in their name

CAVEATS

  • The 2019 figures were determined for 37,632 plugins.
  • The published API doesn’t enable wordpress.org from giving up all its secrets.
  • But you can ask for an extract.