64
Hello Dolly
Nostalgia for the veterans but irritation at the bloat.
WordPress.org
64/100
Veterans love the nostalgia while most users find the default installation useless.
Active installs
~650,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 600k+
Rating
4.4★
176 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-2%
Holding steady
2,192 → 2,147 installs/day
Warnings
- Distributed from inside WordPress.org's main product — growth is partly captive.
What to watch out for
- MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time
- MINORnot updated in 7 months
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
Holding steady · -2% in the last year
2,192/day a year ago→2,147/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayHello Dolly is a beloved but polarizing WordPress tradition — cherished by some as a charming, educational boilerplate and a symbol of open-source culture, but widely criticized by others as a pointless default plugin that should never ship with a fresh installation.
What people like
- +Valued as a learning resource and boilerplate for new plugin developers, demonstrating core WordPress hooks and functions in minimal code×3
- +Seen as a nostalgic, feel-good symbol of WordPress's open-source roots and community spirit×3
Common complaints
- −Widely regarded as serving no practical purpose for the vast majority of users and developers×4
- −Repeatedly criticised for being bundled as a default plugin on new WordPress installations, which users consider inappropriate×3
- −At least one user associated its unexpected presence on their site with a security compromise, causing alarm
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.52★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.40★
- 36%One-shot reviewers — single-review accounts (common for popular plugins, but worth noting)
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-07-202025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 176 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-02-11★★★★★A tribute to the plugin that started it allmikelane1-shot
- 2025-10-21★★★★★A Classic Piece of WordPress Historyshadowheezy
- 2025-07-22★★★★★“Easy to install, worked perfectly. Helped me learn WordPress plugin structurmanideep makkina
- 2025-05-13★★★★★Re-added this plugintapsuccess
- 2024-08-18★★★★★Nice Biolerplate code plugindimkiriakos
- 2024-07-14★★★★★My site was hacked. Found this was addedforeverozone
- 2024-05-13★★★★★what a wonderful world!duca22446688
- 2024-05-06★★★★★OG plugin for OG wp designers and developersstrahoten
- 2024-01-19★★★★★Bloatwarestevenblakesley1-shot
- 2023-12-19★★★★★ignore the naysayersmtonumaa
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.
2,350
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
2,177
Prior 7-day baseline
1,815
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
2,409
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+7.9%
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.
15%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
1.62
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
83%
5★ share in analyzed sample
36%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.60 → 4.52★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered