I’ve decided to start doing plugin reviews on this blog, I get so many questions from people asking “is this a good plugin”, “is that a good one”, “can I trust that plugin”. It’ll probably help a lot more people if I start doing these reviews publicly. So, to start this, I’ve created a form where you can add the plugin you’d like reviewed to the queue. So if you want me to review a certain WordPress plugin, or more than one, fill out the form below:
WordPress Plugin Review
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Excellent idea. I’m always on the lookout for new and useful plugins (and which ones to avoid as well). Are you going to keep this to free plugins or will you also be reviewing paid plugins?
For now I’ll keep it to free plugins. Paid plugins can by a paid review :)
Ha! Spoken like a true entrepreneur. I just submitted my review request for a plugin that works on all my sites but one. Maybe your review can guide me on the right path for using it on that last site. Looking forward to your review. By the way, I created a WordPress setup checklist for my clients that references your SEO setup article. Thanks for being an inspiration!
As a trusted source of all things WordPress, I personally appreciate your opinions. Thanks for everything.
Hi Joost
thanks for the brilliant idea!
looking forward to read your reviews..
Ditto Dave’s comment above.
Great Idea Joost. I hope that you don’t get swamped with requests!
Great idea Joost.
I hope that you don’t get swamped with requests!
Just sent in my suggested plugin for review! This is an awesome idea. I could see this becoming its own website.
As a long time follower, I would be very interested in your thoughts.
To what extent will you review? Will it extend to code analysis to work out if it is doing the ‘right’ thing and ‘reasonab;y’ free from bugs or bad behaviour? I have been bitten in the past by plugins that cleared down a little too much when housekeeping.
Super idea Joost. You really rock! I’m sure this will be a great source and tool for all of us. Appreciate it.
Nice idea, WordPress plugin repository is conquered by useless plugins and most of them do the same job. Some of them were not updated recently and some of them are poorly coded and it’s really hard to find a good plugin among thousands.
I think it would be cool if you’ve added a donation option into the form, you know, sometimes people are kind enough to appreciate a review work.
Cool. I have a host of Plugins that I use and some just sitting on my desktop in a folder waiting to be used but don’t because I’m not sure of how I should optimize the settings quite frankly.
Some plugins are just baffling, at least to me a novice and newbie, such as WP Super Cache….I look at the settings for that and know that I should be changing some of them to better suit me perhaps, but just refuse to do it and leave it sit on my desktop without installation.
Other plugins simply don’t play nice with their brethren and that’s another issue.
This would be a great place to review these especially if you can demystify some of them.
This is s great idea. Writing this comment after having read the first review (QR Code), I’d like to suggest to include a note on the review stating if the plugin is properly i18n’ed or not. The information is usually lacking for the plugins on the repo and can make a world of difference. Still, congratulations and thanks!
Great feedback Zé, will definitely do that. A lot of my own plugins need work there too btw ;-)
Hi Joost!
Glad to see that more people are doing this. With all the plugins that are being promoted, I am glad that a source of unbiased information on WordPress plugins is expanding.
Erik von Werlhof
When you’ve accrued enough reviews, my hope is you list your reviews by category in ‘shootout’ format, so readers/WP users can see at a glance a rundown of the pros & cons in each category.
Your advice will be greatly appreciated.
Great idea!
Hope you will write or list your previewed plugins anywhere…!
Hi, as a plugin developer I would certainly like to create more powerful plugins for wordpress users around the globe, but a good plugin requires time and investment. Where is the money for research is going to come from? I will continue to update my plugin for wordpress users but I also hope that at least wordpress plugin developers can earn some fix monthly income so we can concentrate 100% on what we love to do the most and don’t worry about the money part…
You’re doing it wrong :) I’ve developed and maintain more plugins than most people and I’m certainly able to sell my services by doing that. You should look at your plugins as an investment in your own marketing, rather than as a cost.
Hi, I feel really shock you are online now, thank you for replying me so fast! I actually got big plan to develop more advance wordpress plugin but my only problem is lack of research money, if you can show me a few methods to earn some income from plugin development I will be happy, thanks!
Income is a result of investment, not the other way around…
yes ofcourse we need to invest time and money, but
when will a developer sees his return?
Guess it’s real important to put out plugins that are extraordinary in their functionality.
Excellent idea! I can’t wait to read your reviews.
Yes. This just what I would like to see. But toghether with:
* Functionality
* Usability
* Design (frontend & backend)
* Code Quality
* Support
I would like to see another row describing the SEO impact of the pluggin. Would that be possible?
Thanks.
Great idea! I just submitted a revie request for Nextgen Gallery.
This is an excellent idea. I’ll have some suggestions for you, but can’t wait to read your reviews.
I’m a longtime follower of your site, and although I comment very rarely—I felt compelled to say thank you for your efforts in providing a quality resource for the WordPress community.
Nothing says thank you like a donation, right? Ha, keep up the good work Joost!
I’d love to have a review of my main plugin adding semantic markup, but I’m going to hold off until 1. I get the options pages working with register_settings, without having to fool with $_POST and with keeping all my cool metaboxes (I know this can be done, Pete M. showed me.); and 2. better thickbox popup integration with existing code. I’m rolling my own, and it would be better (maybe not simpler) to use the existing API.
After that, I’d feel _privileged_ to have you rip it apart, Joost.
Great idea. You should also extend this to Theme reviews. It has baffled me why there is no peer code review process or certification for plugins and themes. It would greatly enhance the quality of code that is out there and weed out the cruft.
Thanks for doing this! I’d like to submit a category. I am looking for a good Amazon plug-in (the ones that link to my referral account and display a picture of the book cover or product and all I have to put in is the ISBN or product code). There are several but most have oddities or don’t work right and one that worked perfectly didn’t get updated when WordPress was and all my links broke.
I would love to see several category reviews to help us compare and figure out which ones to avoid and which ones best fit our needs.
Many thanks!
Feel free to submit plugins, even a series :)
At one point you’d mentioned about possibly creating a plugin for affiliate links: http://yoast.com/affiliate-links-cloak-them/ I’d like a review on anything that works as you would have built?