Grade D

flowpaper

Name: flowpaper
Rating: 2.7 (36 reviews)
Author: getflowpaper

⤓ Download v2.0.7 on WordPress.org ↗

by getflowpaperupdated 2026-04-20⚠️The Handle-With-Care

A stylish flipbook that struggles if your PDF is too heavy.

GrowingPoor rating

51/100

The interface looks great but reliability issues and file size limits cause frustration.

Loved18/40

Trustworthy10/15

Fair & Honest9/15

Maintained18/18

Momentum11/12

Composite 66, adjusted to 51 (×0.78) for a low verified rating or signs of review manipulation.

✂️

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( 'flipbook', function( $atts ) {
    $a = shortcode_atts( [
        'pdf'    => '',
        'width'  => '100%',
        'height' => '600px',
        'theme'  => 'dark',
        'title'  => '',
        'header' => 'Loading viewer',
        'lightbox' => 'false',
        'cover'  => '',
    ], $atts );

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

    $pdf   = esc_url( $a['pdf'] );
    $w     = esc_attr( $a['width'] );
    $h     = esc_attr( $a['height'] );
    $theme = esc_attr( $a['theme'] );
    $title = esc_attr( $a['title'] );

    return sprintf(
        '<iframe src="https://online.flowpaper.com/embed/?pdf=%s&theme=%s&title=%s" width="%s" height="%s" style="border:none;" allowfullscreen></iframe>',
        rawurlencode( $pdf ), $theme, $title, $w, $h
    );
} );

Keep in mind:This uses FlowPaper's hosted embed URL; the real plugin loads its own JS viewer locally and supports lightbox, cover image, and branding options that would need extra work to replicate.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~15,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 10k+

→ on track for 20k+in ~1 year

Rating

3.3★

36 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

+27%

Growing fast

39 → 50 installs/day

What to watch out for

MAJORverified rating is 2.74★

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

Growing fast · +27% in the last year

39/day a year ago→50/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Flowpaper is praised for its attractive, easy-to-use interface but is widely criticized for reliability issues, slow performance, and poor support.

What people like

+Easy to use
+Attractive appearance and nice UI (carousel, animations)×2
+Looks great when it works×3

Common complaints

−Fails to recognize valid PDF URLs, showing error pop-ups×2
−15 MB file size limit truncates pages and is not clearly communicated
−Double-page spread documents display only half the pages and confuse the carousel
−Requires PDFs to be publicly accessible; does not work on development servers
−Very slow loading times for PDFs×2
−Navigation quirks: arrows needed to flip pages, clicking magnifies instead
−Poor or unresponsive support from the developer×3
−Deeplinking feature does not work as promised
−Full version is a cloud service, not a true WordPress plugin
−Relies on external flowpaper.com service; if the site is down the plugin fails×2
−Incompatible with certain themes/plugins (e.g., Thrive Apprentice) and SSL handshakes

Review trustMixed — some inflation

2.74★Verified rating — drops from 3.30★ once one-shot reviewers are removed
36%One-shot reviewers — single-review accounts (common for popular plugins, but worth noting)
past spikeReview timing — up to 33% of all reviews landed in a single month

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

2023-10-182025-02-092026-06-04

5★ reviews1–4★ reviews

All-time ratings · 36 total

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 36 analyzed

2024-05-20★★★★★SO BAD PLUGIN minhykorean
2023-11-17★★★★★disable sharing and displaying a PDF aattouchi1-shot
2023-09-28★★★★★Limited to 15 MB E-text S.r.l.
2022-07-28★★★★★Thanks for a great plugin!dsonarobe771-shot
2022-03-18★★★★★Does not work – does not recognize pdf's Solution-Clinic
2021-07-15★★★★★Works great, when it works ajharbison
2021-02-26★★★★★Looks great but sadly doesn't work – shame baldgyt
2020-09-29★★★★★Waste of time tomeek76
2020-09-22★★★★★works well!gokifoj9701-shot
2020-09-09★★★★★thanks!pomiwad7351-shot

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2026-04-20v2.0.7

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

197

Mean release-day peak (30d)

Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)

+16.0%

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

3.16

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

47%

5★ share in analyzed sample

36%

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

3.33 → 2.74★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered