Finding & Choosing WordPress Plugins

I recently asked folks on Twitter how they choose WordPress plugins:

Hey WordPress pals, how do you choose plugins? What info do you look for? Have your searching or browsing techniques changed since you started making sites?

— Mel Choyce (@melchoyce) June 14, 2019

I received over 20 replies, many of which listed the same few factors. Here they are, ranked by mentions:

1. Recent updates: 11
2. Active installs: 7
3. Documentation: 7
4. Ratings: 6
5. Reviews: 6
6. Support forum response: 6
7. Read code: 5
8. Description: 5
9. Recommendations (word of mouth, twitter, facebook, meetup): 5
10. Developer name recognition: 4
11. Test the plugin: 3
12. Google: 2
13. Screenshots: 2
14. No upsells: 1
15. Check for security vulnerabilities: 1
16. Available on WordPress.org: 1
17. Unbranded: 1
18. Reviews outside of WordPress.org: 1
19. Simplicity: 1

The top 8 are all featured either in the plugin cards, or detail pages. So I wondered: what’s missing? What information would people like to see in order to better evaluate the plugins they’re installing?

Follow-up — what information would you *like* to see when choosing a plugin, that isn't currently exposed? https://t.co/rYdgtNWT3a

— Mel Choyce (@melchoyce) June 15, 2019

I received a ton of great ideas:

• Does a plugin have dependencies
• Multisite compatible
• GitHub link
• Easy way to look at code before downloading
• Incompatible plugins
• List of hosting providers where the plugin was tested
• Link to external (direct) support
• Link to external documentation
• Link to external quick-start guide
• Link to issue tracker
• Related plugins
• Plugins users have also installed
• All WordPress versions on which the plugin is active
• Ability to test the plugin without downloading it

“GitHub link” was mentioned several times:

I often like to take a look at the code/activity/issues. It’s usually somewhere, but just not in a consistent place. I may be an outlier on that though.

— Michael Bishop (@miklb) June 17, 2019

Yeah – would be helpful to see who the developers, what the open issues are, and how active development is. Those are all things I usually look for when finding plugins.

— Hugh Lashbrooke (@hlashbrooke) June 17, 2019

Surfacing developer reputation was a big suggestion:

Some ideas:
– # of releases or patches they’ve contributed to WordPress core, or that they are a component maintainer (very high signal of quality)
– Above average activity in the support forums outside their plugin
– IRL: meetup host, WordCamp organizer/speaker/attendee

— Andrew Nacin (@nacin) June 17, 2019

Pretty much all of my responses were from WordPress power users and developers, so the results are obviously very biased towards that.

Anything missing from these lists?