Open the WordPress Plugin Analyzer when you have a slug (or a directory URL) and need a scored snapshot before making a decision about installing, keeping, or replacing a plugin.
It belongs to WordPress.org Ops, the Tools.town cluster for directory and core lookups.
What we fetch
When you submit a slug, the analyzer makes three server-side requests:
-
plugins/info/1.2?action=plugin_information&slug={slug}— the full plugin listing. This is the same endpoint that powers your wp-admin plugin search. It returns name, author, version, requires WordPress, requires PHP, tested up to, active install bucket, rating, num_ratings, support threads, resolved threads, last_updated, added, and the versions map. Cached 12 hours. -
stats/plugin/1.0/downloads.php?slug={slug}&limit=30&format=json— 30 days of daily download counts. This is what the WordPress.org stats page shows. It counts zip downloads from the update server, not active installs. Cached 6 hours. -
The current WordPress.org core version (fetched once per hour by the proxy, shared across all users) — so the “tested up to” field in the plugin listing can be compared against the current WordPress release rather than against a string you have to look up yourself.
Scoring is pure TypeScript on the JSON that comes back. We never call your site.
The six tabs
Overview
The Overview tab shows the raw listing facts in a structured layout:
- Author — linked to the WordPress.org profile
- Version — current version in the listing
- Active installs — the bucket (e.g.,
5+ million), never a precise count - Requires WordPress — minimum core version the author declared
- Tested up to — highest WordPress version the author says it works with (this is self-reported, not tested by WordPress.org staff)
- Requires PHP — minimum PHP version for this plugin
- Last updated — the listing’s
last_updatedstring, shown as both an absolute date and a relative age (“14 months ago”) - Support threads — open vs resolved counts from the directory
Health
The Health tab renders the Tools.town 100-point score with the five component slices broken down so you can see which dimension is dragging the overall number. A full explanation lives in the health score guide.
Short version: each of the five slices is worth 20 points. A plugin that was updated last week, is tested to the current WordPress release, has a million-plus installs, has hundreds of ratings averaging above 4 stars, and has a high support resolution rate can approach 100. A plugin that has not been touched in three years, is tested three major versions behind, has 100 installs, zero ratings, and multiple unresolved threads will be near the bottom.
Activity
The Activity tab shows a single label — Likely active, Low activity, or Potentially abandoned — plus the reasoning behind it. The label combines last_updated age with the active install bucket.
The logic is intentional: a plugin with 5 million installs that has not had a listing update in 18 months is not abandoned — it is either stable and moving slowly, or the author updates privately and pushes to wp.org less often. We call that “low activity.” Only a plugin that is both significantly old and has a small install bucket earns “potentially abandoned.” Read the use-case guide for how to act on these labels.
Zips
The Zips tab lists every entry in the versions map: a version string and the direct zip URL at downloads.wordpress.org. Note that these entries have no timestamp — the map is a version-to-URL lookup, not a dated release timeline. If you want the current zip URL for CI use, the Download URL tool is a faster entry point.
Changelog
The Changelog tab fetches the sections.changelog field from the plugin info API. That field is HTML (WordPress readme markup rendered through a parser). We strip the HTML to plain text and display it verbatim. If an author writes a detailed changelog with version headers, you will see them here. If they write “Various improvements,” you will see that too — we do not add content.
Downloads
The Downloads tab renders the 30-day daily series as a sparkline. Below it you see the 7-day total and the prior-7-day total, so you can see whether the download volume has risen or fallen since the previous week. This is useful for launch monitoring and for understanding whether a plugin is still being picked up by new sites even if the listing is old.
Tabs by mode
When you land on a tool that is the analyzer in a specific mode — Health Check, Abandoned Check — the same payload is shared. The difference is which tab opens first and which label is most prominent in the header. All six tabs are still available; the mode just chooses the starting context.
What the analyzer cannot tell you
- Whether the plugin is secure — the analyzer reads public listing data, not PHP source. It has no access to vulnerability databases, CVE feeds, or code analysis. For security data use Patchstack, WPScan, or the Wordfence Intelligence API.
- Whether it will conflict with your setup — compatibility depends on your theme, other plugins, PHP version, and WordPress version. The analyzer tells you what the author declared as minimum requirements; it cannot simulate your environment.
- Whether auto-updates are safe for this version — the analyzer shows what is in the directory. Whether upgrading from your current version is a breaking change requires reading the changelog.
- Who actually uses it — the install bucket is a lower bound that WordPress.org updates infrequently. It does not reflect sites that self-host the plugin outside the directory, enterprise users on managed platforms, or sites that have deactivated but not deleted the plugin.