I wanted to help people find overlooked plugins.

Some developers make useful plugins and struggle to find users. Good work can be hard to find in a directory this large.

So I had this idea: what if I changed up the plugins shown in the “Featured” tab regularly? Rotate them out, give different developers exposure, help people discover great tools that were flying under the radar.

I was excited. I sat down to start researching which plugins should go in the featured tab, ready to curate the best hidden gems for users.

And that’s when I hit a wall.

What I found

Trying to find “hidden gems” in the WordPress plugin directory? It’s actually really hard.

The directory mostly shows popular plugins with millions of installs. They’re familiar choices, but they don’t need more exposure. They’re doing just fine.

I wanted to find the good plugins that nobody knew about yet. The ones with stellar ratings but tiny install counts. The undiscovered gems.

Turns out, the directory isn’t really built for that kind of discovery.

So I did what any developer would do: I turned to my buddy Claude and said, “Help me figure this out.”

Building Hidden Gems

Hiddengems

Together, we built a plugin to find promising tools I couldn’t easily find by browsing.

Here’s how it works:

The plugin fetches the 500 newest plugins from WordPress.org and asks one key question about each one: “Is this a hidden gem?”

A hidden gem, by our definition, is a plugin that:

  • Has good ratings
  • BUT has low installation counts

It’s looking for quality over popularity.

How the filter works

Think about it in three categories:

Bad plugins with low installs → Not shown (they’re just bad)
Good plugins with high installs → Not shown (they’re already popular)
Good plugins with low installs → 💎 HIDDEN GEM!

Let me give you a real-world example:

  • Plugin A: 4 stars, 2 million installs → Too popular, everyone knows about it
  • Plugin B: 1 star, 100 installs → Poor quality, there’s a reason it’s unknown
  • Plugin C: 4 stars, 500 installs → 🎯 THIS IS WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR!

Plugin C has good ratings but few installs.

Filtering the results

Once you’ve got a list of hidden gems, you can filter them by:

  • Max installs: “Show me only plugins with under 10K installs”
  • Quality threshold: “Show me only 4+ star plugins”
  • Search terms: “Find gems related to ‘ecommerce'”

This means you can fine-tune your discovery based on exactly what you’re looking for.

Why This Matters

Most people discover plugins the same way:

  1. Browse the popular plugins (already widely adopted)
  2. Search for specific keywords (might miss amazing alternatives)

The Hidden Gems plugin flips this approach entirely. It finds the good plugins that nobody knows about yet, giving you a competitive advantage. You get to discover useful tools before they become mainstream.

It’s like finding an incredible restaurant before it gets crowded. You know that feeling? That’s what this is, but for WordPress plugins.

What This Means for Developers

If you’re a plugin developer reading this, here’s what excites me: this creates a pathway for quality to be recognized, even without a massive marketing budget. Your excellent plugin with 500 installs and 4.8 stars? It deserves to be found. And now it can be.

What This Means for Users

If you’re someone who uses WordPress, you’re about to gain access to tools your competitors haven’t discovered yet. Fresh perspectives. Innovative solutions. Quality plugins before they hit the mainstream.

What I want it to do

I started this to help developers find users. Now I have a tool I can use to look for their work.

And honestly? I couldn’t be more excited about where this goes.

I’d like to help those developers reach more people.

Check it out here.

Try Hidden Gems if you want to find less familiar plugins.