If WordPress themes are all about the layout of your website, WordPress plugins are all about its features and functionality. Plugins are programs made up of one or multiple functions that integrate with a WordPress site to enhance it with new features.
But this definition, while accurate, doesn’t even begin to give you an idea of what your website can become by using plugins on top of WordPress. You can do pretty much anything you like. You can install booking systems for your hotel, allow users to create an account and access a private area on your site, create a forum for your community…
Currently there are 55k of free plugins that are hosted on the WordPress.org Repository. With the most popular plugins being:
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NOTE: This doesn’t include over 9k retired WordPress plugins in the repository that are no t listed and no longer available for download.
There are also an additional 8k of free WordPress plugins that are not listed in the repository. This is mostly due to the strict plugin submission requirements by the WordPress plugin review team. This mainly includes forks of other plugins on Github and self-hosted Sass plugins.
Currently there are over There are also an additional 8k of free WordPress plugins that are not listed in the repository. This is mostly due to the strict plugin submission requirements by the WordPress plugin review team. This are mainly includes forks of other plugins and Sass plugins.
The exact number of premium WordPress plugins is impossible to get but we did our research and we think we’re pretty close.
There are over 15k Premium WordPress Plugins in the web.
Most of them is hosted on marketplaces and here are the most notable ones:
CodeCanyon is part of the Envato Marketplace and the most popular online marketplace for premium WordPress plugins, due to its big community and hard process of becoming an author. At the moment of writing this article, CodeCanyon had 7.100+ WordPress plugins.
MojoMarketplace is well known for its unique premium themes but it’s 81 WordPress plugins are also worth noting.
CodeGrape (84 plugins) was lunched almost at the same time as CodeCanyon as a cheaper alternative for authors due to it’s lower commission rates.
Except the marketplaces, there are also thousands of premium WordPress plugins that are sold on standalone websites, so-called “WordPress Plugin Shops”. Here are the most notable ones:
Yithemes really made a name for themselves in the WooCommerce niche, offering over 300 premium WooCommerce addons.
WPMUDev is one of the oldest standalone stores offering premium WordPress plugins. they mostly specialize in the MultiSite/Network niche and have over 100 premium plugins.
PluginsBay was rebranded from WhoWP back in 2016 and is has over 50 unique both free & premium WordPress plugins.
To sum up, in 2020 there are more than 80k WordPress Plugins, and almost 90% of those are Free WordPress plugins.