Grade B

Easy Video Player

Name: Easy Video Player
Rating: 4.2 (57 reviews)
Author: Noor Alam

⤓ Download v1.2.2.13 on WordPress.org ↗

by Noor Alamupdated 2026-05-24🌿The Dependable Sort

A lightweight player with a heavy watermark problem.

HealthyDeclining

62/100

The plugin is simple to use but the permanent watermark and breaking updates cause significant user frustration.

Loved22/40

Trustworthy11/15

Fair & Honest9/15

Maintained18/18

Momentum2/12

✂️

You might not need this plugin. Its core job is small enough to live in your theme's functions.php.

Show the snippet

add_shortcode( 'evp_embed_video', function( $atts ) {
	$a = shortcode_atts( [
		'url'      => '',
		'poster'   => '',
		'width'    => '100%',
		'autoplay' => 'false',
		'loop'     => 'false',
		'muted'    => 'false',
		'preload'  => 'metadata',
	], $atts );

	if ( empty( $a['url'] ) ) {
		return '';
	}

	$autoplay = filter_var( $a['autoplay'], FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN ) ? ' autoplay' : '';
	$loop     = filter_var( $a['loop'],     FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN ) ? ' loop'     : '';
	$muted    = filter_var( $a['muted'],    FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN ) ? ' muted'    : '';
	$poster   = $a['poster'] ? ' poster="' . esc_url( $a['poster'] ) . '"' : '';
	$width    = esc_attr( $a['width'] );

	return sprintf(
		'<video style="width:%s;height:auto;" controls preload="%s"%s%s%s%s><source src="%s" type="video/mp4"></video>',
		$width,
		esc_attr( $a['preload'] ),
		$poster,
		$autoplay,
		$loop,
		$muted,
		esc_url( $a['url'] )
	);
} );

Keep in mind:The snippet covers the core shortcode; the MediaElement skin, user-only videos, video schema, and right-click disable add-ons are not included.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~25,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+

Rating

4.2★

57 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

-43%

Declining fast

95 → 54 installs/day

What to watch out for

MINORdownloads down 43% vs a year ago

Downloads over time

real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend

2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03

organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median

Declining fast · -43% in the last year

95/day a year ago→54/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Easy Video Player is a lightweight, easy-to-use HTML5 video plugin with a generally positive reputation for simplicity and setup, but it is held back by a persistent third-party watermark that users cannot remove and a history of breaking changes between major versions.

What people like

+Lightweight and simple to embed videos without complex configuration×4
+Handles multiple videos on the same page reliably
+Easy setup with clear instructions and good customization options×2
+Responsive and helpful support team

Common complaints

−A third-party (FlowPlayer) watermark with a referral link is embedded in the player and cannot be removed without also hiding the controls×3
−Missing basic features such as resolution/quality settings
−A major version update (to EVP2) broke existing videos and required re-encoding all content, with no migration path
−Documentation site is overloaded with ads, causing browser lockups
−Compatibility issues reported with at least one theme (Divi)
−Some users report video not displaying at all (black square / no picture)×2
−Scripts load on every page by default, potentially slowing down the site

Review trustMostly organic

4.24★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.20★
5%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
past spikeReview timing — up to 50% of all reviews landed in a single month

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

2025-02-092025-10-072026-06-04

5★ reviews1–4★ reviews

All-time ratings · 57 total

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 57 analyzed

2025-10-20★★★★★It does what it is supposed to do, quick and easy to use!pungvar
2025-01-31★★★★★Best Of the Best MrPhunin
2023-04-03★★★★★Excellent support for a cool video player singaporeartgalleryguide
2023-03-27★★★★★Thank you, for that good plugin!Harold Wright
2022-10-25★★★★★Great video plugins wplike75
2022-03-22★★★★★Very Useful For Video Embed tahme
2021-08-30★★★★★Thanks Joshua
2021-02-01★★★★★Very Flexible and Easy to Use Himanshu Anil Shah
2021-02-01★★★★★Excellent, awesome // of course really INCREDIBLE!dglite
2020-06-12★★★★★Enable plugin ONLY on specific pages trde

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2020-08-09v1.1.8
2019-02-01v1.1.7
2017-11-17v1.1.6
2017-03-20v1.1.5
2017-03-11v1.1.4
2016-08-27v1.1.3
2016-06-09v1.1.2
2015-12-14v1.1.1

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For developers & the curious

the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary above

Download 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.

Baseline · median of last 7 organic days

Prior 7-day baseline

Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days

Mean release-day peak (30d)

Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)

-1.8%

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.

50%

Max month share · biggest single 30-day window

2.74

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

74%

5★ share in analyzed sample

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

4.19 → 4.24★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered