WordPress.org Plugin Directory Census
=====================================
Snapshot: 2026-08-17T03:35:14+00:00
Publisher: JNK Plugins (https://jnkplugins.com)
Write-up: https://jnkplugins.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-directory-census-2026/

WHAT THIS IS
------------
One row for every plugin listed in the WordPress.org plugin directory at the
snapshot time. 69,838 plugins, no sampling.

FILES
-----
wordpress-plugin-census-2026-08.csv   69,838 rows + header
wordpress-plugin-census-2026-08.json  the same data, plus crawl metadata

Both files carry identical fields. Use whichever suits your tooling.

COLUMNS
-------
slug                       directory slug, unique, the primary key
name                       display name (HTML entities as returned by the API)
added                      date the plugin was added to the directory (date only)
last_updated               timestamp of the most recent release ("... GMT")
version                    current version string
tested                     WordPress version the author claims to have tested
requires                   minimum WordPress version, empty if undeclared
requires_php               minimum PHP version, empty if undeclared
active_installs            ROUNDED bucket (10, 20, ... 10000000). Never exact.
downloaded                 cumulative download count
rating                     0-100 scale, NOT 0-5
num_ratings                number of ratings
support_threads            threads in the TRAILING TWO MONTHS, not all time
support_threads_resolved   of those, how many are marked resolved
author_profile             wordpress.org profile URL of the author

HOW IT WAS COLLECTED
--------------------
api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.2/?action=query_plugins
with request[browse]=new, request[per_page]=250, pages 1..280.
Rows keyed by slug so duplicates cannot inflate any count.
Result: 69,838 unique slugs against the API's own reported total of 69,838,
zero failed pages, zero unparseable dates.

LIMITATIONS YOU SHOULD CARRY INTO ANY ANALYSIS
----------------------------------------------
1. active_installs is bucketed by WordPress.org. Anything derived from it is
   approximate by construction.
2. support_threads / support_threads_resolved cover a rolling two-month window.
   They are not lifetime totals. WordPress.org renders this on plugin pages as
   "Issues resolved in last two months".
3. Only OPEN plugins appear. Closed or removed plugins vanish from the API, so
   any "stale" or "abandoned" share computed here understates the real figure.
4. The directory has no official total. Asking the API for browse=popular
   reports 65,739 plugins; browse=new reports 69,838. This census counted the
   "new" listing, which is the more complete of the two and, unlike "popular",
   has a stable enough ordering to paginate to the end.
5. "Never updated" analyses in the write-up use added == last_updated (same
   calendar day) as a proxy. It is validated in the article, but it is a proxy.

LICENCE
-------
The underlying facts come from the public WordPress.org API. This compilation is
released for free use, including commercial use, with attribution.

CITATION
--------
WordPress.org Plugin Directory Census, JNK Plugins, 17 August 2026, n=69,838.
https://jnkplugins.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-directory-census-2026/

If you rerun the collection and get a materially different result, we would like
to hear about it.
