72
Debug Bar
Useful for developers but currently stuck in a PHP time warp.
HealthyGrowing
72/100
It remains a useful developer tool despite growing complaints about compatibility issues and lack of maintenance.
Active installs
~25,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+
Rating
4.1★
69 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+137%
Growing fast
631 → 1,493 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 · +137% in the last year
631/day a year ago→1,493/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayDebug Bar is a long-standing WordPress debugging utility that developers find genuinely useful for plugin support and troubleshooting, but it is widely seen as neglected and increasingly broken on modern WordPress and PHP versions.
What people like
- +Useful for debugging custom plugins and investigating support issues×4
- +Simple and straightforward to use×2
Common complaints
- −PHP errors and compatibility breakage on WordPress 6.7 (since 6.7)×2
- −Perceived as abandoned or severely under-maintained, with no meaningful updates in over a year×2
- −Requires WP_DEBUG to be enabled, making it unsuitable for production environments
- −Deprecated constructor warnings reported on PHP 7.1 (since 0.8.3)
- −Some users report very limited information is displayed, with poor or missing usage instructions×2
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.09★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.10★
- 3%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-08-192025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 69 total
Latest reviews · 69 analyzed
- 2026-03-27★★★★★Simple and easyLene
- 2025-11-14★★★★★Works perfectlyMichael Galli
- 2025-07-11★★★★★Seemingly abandonedJames Hunt
- 2025-05-23★★★★★Getting translation errors in WP 6.7Traci Larson
- 2023-11-22★★★★★it must be!Marcin Pietrzak
- 2023-07-29★★★★★Helpful toolMehedi Hasan
- 2023-06-04★★★★★Where is the debug?Fellipe Sanches
- 2022-12-21★★★★★ne fonctionne pasfanfan531-shot
- 2021-11-24★★★★★I couldn't do without itRasso Hilber
- 2021-10-12★★★★★We are using it in our plugin supportTrustindex
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.
1,327
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
1,787
Prior 7-day baseline
1,170
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
1,821
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-25.7%
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.
17%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.20
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
73%
5★ share in analyzed sample
3%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.12 → 4.09★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered