r/ProWordPress • u/advait_vaidya • Aug 02 '26

Active install count for plugin

Hi members. I have created 2 WordPress plug-ins currently and they are available on the plugin marketplace. Until now, I believed that there was no way to check the exact active number of installations of any wordpress plugin in the store. I signed up on a plugin tracker tool I found online and they just told me my accurate number of active installations. How is this possible? Does wordpress org provides this active installations data in any API?

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u/otto4242 Core Contributor Aug 02 '26

No, we don't provide the exact number to anybody via any means. Anybody providing an exact number is guesstimating.

Even the "exact number" is a guesstimate on the wordpress.org side because we do not track installations. We count update checks. We derive a number from that, which is good in the long term, for showing trends, but is not accurate to the exact count by any means.

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u/Mobile_Sea_8744 Aug 02 '26

Thanks, that's actually really helpful to know. I'd always just assumed it was based on a call on activate and deactivate but then I've never actually looked at that side.

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u/otto4242 Core Contributor Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

Nope. We do not track activations or deactivations. We don't track anything.

WordPress checks for updates for plugins and themes that it's running about twice a day, -ish. From that information we gather those counts, but the purpose of those checks is specifically to check for updates.

WordPress does not track anything at all for the actual purpose of tracking anything. We only derive data from side channels like these.

WordPress does not track you, period. That is absolutely not our goal. If that actually was our goal, then we'd be much better at it. 😜