81
Companion Auto Update
Granular control meets a growing silence from the developer.
HealthyGrowing
81/100
Granular control saves time but recent maintenance gaps and unresponsive support are major red flags.
Active installs
~55,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 50k+
Rating
4.8★
105 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+270%
Growing fast
91 → 337 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +270% in the last year
91/day a year ago→337/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayCompanion Auto Update is a well-liked auto-update management plugin praised for its fine-grained control and time-saving value, but it carries a real caveat around maintenance gaps, unresponsive support, and at least one serious server performance issue.
What people like
- +Saves significant time and effort, especially when managing multiple websites×5
- +Granular control over what gets updated (plugins, themes, core) and when, including update delay/timing options×4
- +Helps protect sites from malware vulnerabilities by keeping software current×2
- +Free plugin with features beyond what WordPress core auto-updates offer×2
- +Author is responsive to suggestions and has added useful features over time
Common complaints
- −Plugin has not been updated in an extended period, raising concerns about active maintenance and long-term compatibility×3
- −Support is unresponsive — forum posts go unanswered×2
- −Caused severe, persistent site-wide slowdowns on at least one server, which was difficult to diagnose
- −Blocked legitimate licensed third-party plugin updates (specifically WPML), leading to version-gap issues across multiple sites
- −Bugs accumulating with no support response
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.74★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.80★
- 4%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 33% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-12-172025-03-112026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 105 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2025-05-19★★★★★Great plugindashmore
- 2024-06-14★★★★★Thanks for this plug-insankari
- 2023-12-01★★★★★GREATHermann Matthias
- 2023-05-29★★★★★Great pluginbhtvdmeer1-shot
- 2023-02-07★★★★★Wonderful plugin albeit a past hiccuptekgirlymama
- 2022-06-22★★★★★Looks like it's no longer maintainedJon York
- 2022-06-14★★★★★Super easy for my staging enviremontDave Loodts
- 2022-06-13★★★★★Muito bomlucaslima28
- 2022-01-29★★★★★Doesn't workWendihihihi
- 2022-01-24★★★★★Very good and freeideaWeb
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
303
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
325
Prior 7-day baseline
299
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
303
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-6.8%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
33%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
3.06
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
89%
5★ share in analyzed sample
4%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.76 → 4.74★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered