I indexed the WordPress.org plugin directory and measured how well it is maintained. The headline: of the 57,383 plugins in the index, 45.6 percent have not shipped an update in 24 or more months. Data is as of June 2026.
Here is the full staleness picture, measured against plugins that report an update date:
- 65 percent: no update in 6+ months
- 56 percent: no update in 12+ months
- 45.6 percent: no update in 24+ months
- 41.2 percent: no update in 36+ months
"Not updated in two years" is the common line for calling a plugin abandoned, and WordPress.org uses a similar signal when it warns you on a plugin page. So nearly half the directory carries that flag.
The interesting part is who goes stale
Abandonment is not evenly spread. It tracks inversely with install count:
| Active installs | Abandoned (no update in 24+ months) |
|---|---|
| 1K to 10K | 23.9 percent |
| 10K to 100K | 10.1 percent |
| 100K to 1M | 2 percent |
| 1M+ | 0 percent |
The very large plugins are maintained. The risk and the opportunity sit in the middle. 192 plugins with 10,000 or more active installs have not been updated in over two years. Each one is a real user base running code nobody is shipping fixes for.
Why a builder should care
A plugin with 30,000 installs and no maintainer is not a dead end. It is a ready-made market. The users already exist, the search demand already exists, and the incumbent has stopped competing. The work is not inventing a category. It is shipping a maintained, modern version of something people already rely on.
That is a very different starting point from a cold launch. You are not asking whether anyone wants the thing. You are looking at the install count and reading the recent one-star reviews to find out exactly what to fix.
How to use this
If you are looking for a side project or a small product to build, abandoned mid-size plugins are a practical place to start. Pick a niche you understand, find a plugin in it with a stuck user base, read its support forum, and confirm the gap before you write any code.
The full report, with the named lists of the most-installed abandoned plugins, the most-installed low-rated plugins, and the largest plugins with the weakest support, is here:
The State of WordPress Plugin Opportunities 2026
The numbers above are measured from live WordPress.org data and the method is stated on the report.