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 |
16.8 345,020,138 July 27, 2021 5.8 |
| 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 |
10.0 241,938,466 August 3, 2021 5.8 |
| 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 |
4.1.10 203,208,018 July 6, 2021 5.8 |
| 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 |
7.5.4 205,443,448 July 15, 2021 5.8 |
| Contact Form 7 Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible. |
contact-form-7 home |
5.4.2 188,105,782 July 14, 2021 5.8 |
| WooCommerce WooCommerce is the world’s most popular open-source eCommerce solution. |
woocommerce home |
5.5.2 149,550,081 July 23, 2021 5.7.2 |
| 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 |
4.1.3.1 81,728,957 August 4, 2021 5.8 |
| MonsterInsights – Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress (Website Stats Made Easy) The best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. See how visitors find and use your website, so you can keep them coming back. |
google-analytics-for-wordpress home |
7.18.0 96,283,179 July 15, 2021 5.8 |
| Elementor Website Builder The Elementor Website Builder has it all: drag and drop page builder, pixel perfect design, mobile responsive editing, and more. Get started now! |
elementor home |
3.3.1 119,977,678 July 20, 2021 5.8 |
| 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 |
1.6.8.1 79,065,309 July 21, 2021 5.8 |
| WP Super Cache A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. |
wp-super-cache home |
1.7.4 37,545,252 July 8, 2021 5.7.2 |
| UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin Backup and restoration made easy. Complete backups; manual or scheduled (backup to Dropbox, S3, Google Drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email + others). |
updraftplus home |
1.16.59 56,244,774 July 16, 2021 5.8 |
| WordPress Importer Import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file. |
wordpress-importer home |
0.7 36,663,712 April 4, 2020 5.4.6 |
| 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 |
3.13 33,243,030 August 4, 2021 5.7.2 |
| 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 |
2.13.1 33,638,327 August 3, 2021 5.8 |
| XML Sitemaps This plugin will improve SEO by helping search enginess better index your site using sitemaps. |
google-sitemap-generator home |
4.1.1 28,797,462 March 11, 2021 5.7.2 |
| WordPress Popups for Marketing and Email Marketing, 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 p … |
optinmonster home |
2.5.1 54,419,217 July 30, 2021 5.8 |
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.