83
Simple Local Avatars
Ditch Gravatar easily until the next update breaks your site.
HealthyGrowing
83/100
The plugin provides useful local avatar management but suffers from stability issues and plugin conflicts.
Active installs
~150,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+
Rating
4.6★
89 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+109%
Growing fast
441 → 922 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time
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 · +109% in the last year
441/day a year ago→922/day today
Reviews
what people actually saySimple Local Avatars is a well-regarded plugin for managing user avatars locally without relying on Gravatar, but it has a history of update-related breakage and inconsistent support responsiveness.
What people like
- +Allows local avatar uploads without requiring users to set up a Gravatar account, making it easier for non-technical clients×2
- +Supports the WordPress REST API, which is rare among avatar plugins
- +Works correctly when properly configured, with the note that Avatars must be enabled in Settings > Discussion×2
- +Extends WordPress avatar capabilities while still allowing Gravatar to coexist×2
Common complaints
- −A plugin update broke avatar display entirely — avatars stopped showing on blog comments after activation (since 2.7.8)×2
- −After a recent update, all users receive the same generic Identicon avatar regardless of their Gravatar or locally uploaded image
- −Setting the 'local only' option resets all existing avatars to the same avatar instead of copying them locally from Gravatar
- −Avatar upload field or uploaded image does not display correctly in the WordPress back end (broken image, not visible in user profile settings)×2
- −Conflict with Elementor Pro: activating the plugin breaks the ability to add images in Elementor, with JavaScript errors related to media-audiovideo.min.js
- −Image cropping fails
- −Support responses do not always resolve issues, with users reporting follow-up questions going unanswered×2
- −Concerns raised that the plugin is no longer under active development
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.56★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.60★
- 1%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-09-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 89 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2025-02-25★★★★★Simple and Effective for Managing Local AvatarsMCD Diseño Web
- 2025-01-15★★★★★Идеально!oshurkov
- 2024-11-04★★★★★So good!Pineapple is DISGUSTING on Pizza
- 2024-10-17★★★★★OkFoxskav
- 2024-09-09★★★★★Works as Neededhozayrayz
- 2024-09-03★★★★★Works great!BooliiTheme
- 2024-08-20★★★★★I logged in to change avatar, but it's not showing anymoremalihamannan
- 2024-08-02★★★★★works fineSepi
- 2024-08-02★★★★★Working but with some issuesnisaza
- 2024-07-05★★★★★Simply Doesn't Workwporg4ssorg
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.
1,062
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
926
Prior 7-day baseline
680
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
1,170
Mean release-day peak (30d)
1,101
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+14.7%
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
1.60
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
80%
5★ share in analyzed sample
1%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.57 → 4.56★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered