Some useless facts that might help create an unbelievable “Did you know?” fact about WordPress such as
One percent of WordPress plugins deliver blocks.
Herb Miller, based on some (not so flaky) evidence below.
Figures from Oct 2019
Plugins and Gutenberg blocks
- There are 54,896 plugins. https://wordpress.org/plugins/
- Over 400 plugins provide Gutenberg blocks or extend blocks. https://wordpress.org/plugins/browse/blocks/
- These are the curated plugins.
- From a list of 53,258 blocks, I identified 551 plugins as potentially delivering blocks or somehow enhancing WordPress blocks.
- That’s 150 more than the curated list.
- Assuming each plugin provides 8 blocks per plugin that’s 4,500 blocks.
For more information see bobbingwide/oik-loader#1.
Some other miscellany
WordPress has been around for 16 years.
In October 2019, the new block editor was less than one year old.
- WordPress 5.2 has been downloaded over 76 million times. https://wordpress.org/download/counter
- The Classic editor plugins is installed on 5 million sites. https://wordpress.org/plugins/classic-editor/
Nearly 90K sites are using Gutenberg v6.4 or higher. https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/advanced/ - In My Honest Opinion: Themes should not deliver blocks.
Top 17 or so WordPress plugins
All these plugins have been downloaded over 25 million times.
| Plugin name and description | Plugin links | Version, total downloads, last update, tested |
|---|---|---|
| Yoast SEO Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the Yoast SEO plugin. |
wordpress-seo home |
17.4 366,804,589 October 19, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth Improve your WP security with powerful one-click tools like backup and malware scan. Get essential free tools including stats, CDN and social sharing. |
jetpack home |
10.2.1 249,386,074 October 19, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Akismet 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 |
4.2.1 221,286,994 October 1, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan Secure your website with the most comprehensive WordPress security plugin. Firewall, malware scan, blocking, live traffic, login security & more. |
wordfence home |
7.5.6 214,970,935 October 18, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Contact Form 7 Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. |
contact-form-7 home |
5.5.1 193,889,846 October 11, 2021 5.8.1 |
| WooCommerce WooCommerce is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution. |
woocommerce home |
5.8.0 158,046,919 October 12, 2021 5.8.1 |
| 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 |
4.1.4.4 86,051,028 September 22, 2021 5.8.1 |
| 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 |
8.1.0 101,832,743 September 30, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Elementor Website Builder The Elementor Website Builder has it all: drag and drop page builder, pixel perfect design,… |
elementor home |
3.4.6 136,133,284 October 19, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Contact Form by WPForms – Drag & Drop Form Builder for WordPress The best WordPress contact form plugin. Drag & Drop online form builder that helps you create beautiful contact forms with just a few clicks. |
wpforms-lite home |
1.7.0 84,744,371 October 7, 2021 5.8.1 |
| WP Super Cache A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. |
wp-super-cache home |
1.7.4 38,040,914 September 16, 2021 5.8.1 |
| UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin Backup and restoration made easy. Complete backups; manual or scheduled (backup to Dropbox, S3, Google… |
updraftplus home |
1.16.62 59,810,932 October 4, 2021 5.8.1 |
| WordPress Importer Import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file. |
wordpress-importer home |
0.7 37,308,269 April 4, 2020 5.4.7 |
| WordPress Gallery Plugin – NextGEN Gallery The most popular WordPress gallery plugin and one of the most popular plugins of all… |
nextgen-gallery home |
3.17 34,058,198 September 15, 2021 5.8.1 |
| Page Builder by SiteOrigin Build responsive page layouts using the widgets you know and love using this simple drag and drop page builder. |
siteorigin-panels home |
2.14.3 34,848,062 October 10, 2021 5.8.1 |
| XML Sitemaps This plugin will improve SEO by helping search enginess better index your site using sitemaps. |
google-sitemap-generator home |
4.1.1 28,973,029 March 11, 2021 5.7.3 |
| WordPress Popups for Marketing and Email Newsletters, Lead Generation and Conversions by OptinMonster Create popups, opt-in forms, & floating bars to get more email newsletter subscribers, leads, and increase sales conversion – #1 marketing popup b … |
optinmonster home |
2.6.5 59,417,011 October 7, 2021 5.8.1 |
WordPress SEO is the first plugin to reach over 200 million downloads.
Herb Miller, 17th October 2019
For more information see Top 12 WordPress plugins – October 2019.