Announcing the Featured Plugins Experiment

Welcome!

The WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:

Found a bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority.? Create a ticket in the bug tracker.

Want to contribute? Get started quickly with tickets marked as good first bugs for new contributors or join a bug scrub. There’s more on the reports page, like patches needing testing, and on feature projects page.

Other questions? Here is a detailed handbook for contributors, complete with tutorials.

I pitched this to Matt directly and have been given the go ahead to pave the way here. This post begins that process and documents the Featured Plugins experiment currently underway on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/. The goal is to surface newer plugins in the directory that meet a defined quality bar but have limited visibility. Eight plugins are selected every two weeks.

Eligibility
To be considered, a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. must meet all of the following baseline requirements:

Active installs: fewer than 10,000
Age: listed in the directory for 12 months or less
No open security vulnerabilities
Compatible with the current major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope. of WordPress
Updated within the last 6 months

Selection Criteria
Plugins that pass the eligibility requirements are evaluated against three categories of criteria.

Technical standards
Code is human-readable and follows WordPress coding standardsWordPress Coding Standards The Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. May also refer to The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the PHP coding standards.
Proper use of escaping, sanitization, and nonces
No unnecessary bundling of libraries or WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. functionality
Plugin readme accurately describes what the plugin does

Ecosystem fit
Addresses a problem not already well-served by existing plugins
Provides functionality with genuine utility to WordPress users

Developer engagement
Developer is responsive in the support forums
UXUX User experience reflects care and intentionality in the implementation

How Decisions Are Made
Plugin selection is currently handled by Nick Hamze. The process and governance around selections will be reassessed as the experiment develops.

How Plugins Are Considered
All plugins that meet the eligibility requirements are automatically included in the pool for consideration. No submission is required.

Plugin authors who want to provide additional context about their plugin — or make a case for its inclusion — can do so in the #featuredplugins channel on the Make WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.

Tracking Progress
This experiment is tracked openly. Feedback on the criteria, the process, or specific selections can be shared in the #featuredplugins Slack channel. The process and governance around selections will be reassessed as the experiment develops. Right now, the aim is to experiment first with a small scope to ensure it’s meaningful for end users, plugin authors, and contributors. As the work evolves, more documentation and any necessary process can be added so future contributors can join.

Neil Murray 10:01 pm on March 8, 2026

Great to see this happening.
Lovro Hrust 10:02 pm on March 8, 2026

Being one of the authors of showcased plugins, I thank you for the opportunity to raise pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.’s visibility and discuss users needs with broader audience.
Hudson Atwell 10:42 pm on March 8, 2026

Awesome. Developers need all the love they can get.

The difficulty of gaining exposure through pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. search today is very high, and the system does not seem to favor new entries. That leaves one of the hardest parts of product development, exposure and traffic, largely in the hands of the creator.

Most developers never set out to become marketers. But if they want their work to be discovered, especially if they hope for any economic recognition, they quickly learn that marketing becomes part of the job — and for an introvert, that is exhausting and can feel impossible. Lots of islands out there.

I like to do a spin on Kennedy’s phrase. “Ask not what developers can do for you, but what you can do for developers.”
tskk 12:09 am on March 9, 2026

If possible, how about showing a row of new plugins at top of search results for that search, currently a dev has to build a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. and then spend money on marketing to get any free users, they might as well build their own CMS/SaaS and market it instead.
Saskia Teichmann 7:32 am on March 9, 2026

Love it! Thanks a lot for all of your dedicated work, Plugins Review Team!
Pascal Birchler 9:02 am on March 9, 2026

Regarding tracking, are you measuring changes to active installations and support requests for the featured plugins? In other words: how are you measuring success of this experiment?
- Nick Hamze 1:32 pm on March 12, 2026
  
  Yes — active installs and support request volume are both on the radar, and the first cohort report will dig into those. That said, I think you’re right that the bar for success here is pretty low in the best possible way. The old approach had a ceiling we’d already hit. Even a modest improvement across any of the metrics makes continuing a no-brainer, and I genuinely can’t construct an argument for going back to a static list of 8.
Justin Tadlock 6:56 pm on March 11, 2026

Overall, I like this direction. I do question whether following WP Coding Standards should be part of the criteria. Those are standards set for WP CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and there are much more widely accepted standards in the larger PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher world, such as the PHP Standards Recommendations: https://www.php-fig.org/psr/

I just wanted to make sure that developers who veer from the WP Coding Standards aren’t being left out for what is largely a trivial technicality that has no impact on the quality of their work.
- Nick Hamze 1:30 pm on March 12, 2026
  
  Totally fair point, and agreed — I’d never knock someone out of the running over something that trivial. WP Coding Standards were more of a shorthand for “writes clean, consistent code” than a strict checkbox. PSR is absolutely legitimate, and honestly any developer worth considering probably has their own coherent style regardless of which spec they follow. The spirit of it matters, not which flavor of curly brace placement they prefer.
  - Justin Tadlock 2:45 pm on March 17, 2026
    
    Awesome! And thanks for the clarification.
dansart 3:42 pm on March 26, 2026

Great change! It helped me already to discover a great new pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. (Event Genius)
Alan Smodic 3:02 am on April 6, 2026

Thank you for this effort — have already found a number of new plugins because of it.

Welcome!

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