81
Simple Social Icons
Simple social links that might suddenly turn into mysterious blank squares.
HealthyGrowing
81/100
The plugin is easy to use but updates frequently break the icon rendering.
Active installs
~150,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+
Rating
4.3★
92 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+86%
Growing fast
143 → 266 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 · +86% in the last year
143/day a year ago→266/day today
Reviews
what people actually saySimple Social Icons is a lightweight, easy-to-use plugin well-regarded for its simplicity and responsive support, but it has a recurring history of updates breaking core display functionality such as icon rendering and color settings.
What people like
- +Easy to set up and use, with straightforward customization options×4
- +Lightweight and does not conflict with other plugins or widgets×2
- +Support team is responsive and effective at resolving individual issues×4
- +Supports a broad range of social platforms, including newer ones like Bluesky and Mastodon×2
Common complaints
- −Updates have broken icon display, causing icons to appear as colored squares or blank boxes instead of recognizable icons×3
- −Font/icon color settings broken after a recent update — icon color defaults to the background color×2
- −Plugin stopped working with Gutenberg after an update
- −Sidebar styling settings not applied correctly, resulting in unstyled bullet lists and oversized SVGs
- −Icons do not display on mobile devices for some users
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.30★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.30★
- 9%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-07-202025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 92 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-03-23★★★★★Great Support and a great Social Icons pluginmwplant
- 2025-12-18★★★★★My theme didn't support Bluesky & Mastodon—Simple Social Icon does…vegisto
- 2025-05-13★★★★★A smart and effective solution and great supportjoachimott2
- 2025-03-11★★★★★A simple and effective solution I keep coming back toAlbert Calzada
- 2024-11-19★★★★★All the Updated Icons I NeededLindaLovesWP
- 2024-05-27★★★★★Simple but nice and efficient plugin !ecollart
- 2024-04-09★★★★★Great SupportAnnie1-shot
- 2023-11-10★★★★★Screwed upValerie6
- 2023-11-09★★★★★Why did you remove Google+?Michael Brütsch
- 2023-09-07★★★★★Not working on mobilethisov
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.
257
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
259
Prior 7-day baseline
220
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
1,033
Mean release-day peak (30d)
268
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-0.8%
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.
18%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
1.69
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
69%
5★ share in analyzed sample
9%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.26 → 4.30★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered