Definition
This measure takes every plugin in the top 12,500 at the end of the report month whose most recent version on WordPress.org is at least a year old, and asks what happened to its downloads. It compares the plugin's downloads per day in the report month with its downloads per day in the month before, using WordPress.org's own per-day download counts. It reports how many such plugins exist, how many gained, how many lost, the median change, and the plugins with the largest gains, both in downloads per day and in proportion.
Population and window
Rivale measures it across the top 12,500 plugins as they stood at the end of the report month. A plugin counts as silent when the date of its latest version, as WordPress.org states it, is on or before the same day a year earlier. The download comparison covers the full report month against the full previous month, per day, for plugins with download counts in both months and a previous month above zero.
How it is computed
Plugins in the top 12,500 at month end whose latest version on WordPress.org dates from a year or more before month end, counted by whether their downloads per day in the report month exceeded, matched or fell short of the previous month, with the median change and the plugins that gained the most.
How to read it
The count of silent plugins is a share of the top 12,500, so read it next to the update rate for the same month. The list of largest gains in proportion applies a floor of 1,000 downloads in the previous month so that a very small base does not lead the table; the list of largest gains in downloads per day has no floor. A gain in downloads says nothing about why a plugin was downloaded.
What it is not
This measure does not say whether a plugin works, is maintained outside WordPress.org, or is safe to install. It does not count plugins outside the top 12,500. It does not treat a plugin whose version date is missing as silent. It is not a measure of install growth, only of downloads.