WordPress 2.8 is out now. It is my favourite blogging platform and my blog runs on it. It has more than 13 million users in total and the self-hosted WordPress.org has been downloaded more than 5 million times. See a guide on how to install WordPress.
WordPress plugins are a big part of the community. Over the years I have used many of the best WordPress plugins. WordPress plugins help you make a better blog and get more reader interaction. There are in total 4,245 plugins and these have been downloaded 22,152,788 times.
Best WordPress plugins
This post is a tribute to the top 18 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever (Akismet is not included as it comes with the default installation). Each of these 18 has been downloaded a minimum of 200,000 times.
- All in One SEO Pack – Automatically optimizes your blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization) – Downloads 1,603,368
- Google XML Sitemaps – Create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your blog – Downloads 954,459
- NextGEN Gallery – A full integrated Image Gallery WordPress plugin with a Flash slideshow option – Downloads 715,819
- WP.com Stats – You can have simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server by plugging into WP.com’s stat system – Downloads 712,71
- WP Super Cache – A very fast caching engine that produces static html files – Downloads 492,637
- Contact Form 7 – Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible – Downloads 393,916
- Automatic upgrade – Allows a user to automatically upgrade the installation to the latest one – Downloads 288,600
- Sociable – Automatically adds links to your favorite social bookmarking sites to your posts, pages and RSS feed - Downloads 284,117
- Viper’s Video Quicktags – Allows easy and XHTML valid posting of videos from various websites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and more – Downloads 254,807
- Simple Tags – The successor of Simple Tagging Plugin and is THE perfect tool to perfectly manage your WP tags – Downloads 254,353
- WP-DB-Backup – On-demand backup of your database – Downloads 250,795
- Google Analytics – Adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics – Downloads 239,837
- Google Analyticator – Same as the one above, enables Google Analytics tracking - Downloads 229,970
- Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button – Helps readers share, save, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and over 100 more – Downloads 226,056
- WP-Polls – Adds an AJAX poll system to your blog. You can also easily add a poll into your blog post / page – Downloads 222,196
- Sidebar Widgets – Adds “Sidebar Widgets” panel under Presentation menu – Downloads 221,024
- podPress – A dream WordPress plugin for podcasters – Downloads 207,491
- WP-PageNavi – Adds a more advanced paging navigation your blog – Downloads 204,005
Wisdom of the crowds?
“Automatic upgrade” and “Sidebar Widgets” are the classics which are no longer needed as they are a part of software now.
From the top 18 WordPress plugins I currently only use Google XML Sitemaps, WP Super Cache and Contact Form 7 on my blog. All in one SEO Pack and Google Analytics are also very important but my Thesis theme has these functions built-in.
What do you think about the wisdom of the crowds in case of WordPress plugins? Are these the best plugins? Do you still use any of them?
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Great list of the best of the best wordpress plugins downloaded. i also use quite a few of these too. cheers mate.
Hi Marko,
I use some of the plugins from the list you mentioned in the post. Well, the ultimate must is WP-DB-Backup, that’s for sure. Also, I think WP Super Cache is great plugin, but I am yet to use it. I replaced All in One SEO Pack with Platinum SEO Pack because it has more features.
All in all great set of plugins, majority of them should be installed on every blog.
Regards,
Zoran
Marko,
Impressive share, more surprising is how popular a post like this can become. I love it. Way to rock it bro!
Best,
-Mig
I have so many of those it isn’t even funny.
Marko
Seems as if my trackback did not make it onto your list. Thanks for this post, I linked to it and added my 20+ plugins with explanations why I use them, etc.
Keep up the good work.
Urs
Hi Dev,
Thanks for the list … excellent compilation. Plugins I use, are in your list. At the moment I’m using 5 plugins.
I use quite a few of these, however I would like to mention one other that I think is awesome. Headspace2.
I use it instead of the All In One SEO Pack and like it a little better.
i am currently using a few, but would certainly look into some of the other ones. thanks for posting this! very helpful.
Wow.. Thanks for the list.. very nice
I've just put up my first blog in a long time and I need to go install some of those ASAP
The SEO one will be the first one I install, but I think I should definitely give the rest a look.
Sean
I like All in One SEO.
This is the best Plugin for SEO.
Complete list is full with best plugins.
woow.. Thanks for the list, nice collection
Amazing! Thank you! Will definitely be checking some of these out on my blog!
Great list of plugins. Some I am already using and one I just installed because of the list (All-in-on-SEO pack)
Good list of plugins! I think the all-in-one seo pack is the best of them all.I don´t like the auto-upgrade plugin because it makes some plugins you have installed not to work anymore.
Thanks for the list of the plugins! plus providing a blog to help bloggers, looking forward reading more from your blog
Wow,very nice plugins,interesting.
really nice plugins list.
I have been meaning to add some more plugins to my websites. I think I will start with just a couple today and keep working at it.
thanks for the list.
I’d say that All-in-One SEO is no longer needed as well, as long as you’re using Thesis.
Yeah, I don’t use All-in-One anymore as Thesis has all the meta options I needed.
Yes, Thesis is already loaded with SEO options as a part of theme. More importantly, thats working nicely.
Thanks for the info! I actually use at least 12 of those on my blog.
I would put Riffly up there in the top ten.
Riffly lets your visitors leave audio or video comments about your posts.
All in one SEO is really nice. It helps so much do to all that boring SEO staff on the blog.
Nice Post.
I like the way top downloaded plugins have been put here.
On my blogs that don’t use Thesis, I use the All in One Seo plugin. I also couldn’t live without YARPP (Yet Another Related Post Plugin), probably my favorite plugin of all. I use a lot of the ones you mentioned, actually.
I use the plugin Smart Links on a few of my blogs, but I don’t really know if it’s a good idea to or not. I’ve been researching, trying to find out if seo experts like this plugin or not but I can’t find any information. I love that it points readers to related topics, but if it’s bad for seo, it’ll have to go!
Thank you so much for all of your hard work! I just found your site and I have learned so much. I appreciate this so much.
Thanks again,
Michele
thanks, i’m going to test it now, thanks
Thanks for this great list. To be frank, I have moved over my blog to Wordpress from Blogger a little ago, so I am really in search of great plug-ins.
Your list has helped me very much, I got some really good ones here.
Do you think WP-Poll is better than Polldaddy plug-in. I was using the latter but I have installed WP-Poll too.
Really good list..thanks for sharing.
Cheers
Thanks for the info! I actually use at least 10 of those on my blog.
nothing much can do if shit happen to ur site.
do not take trivial, wp-db-backup is what u need to concern most.
just expect the unexpected.
btw, great list. thumbs up!
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